The 5th Horseman - Rilegato

Patterson, James; Paetro, Maxine

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0316154776 ISBN 13: 9780316154772

Casa editrice: Little Brown & Co, 2006

Riassunto

A young mother is recuperating in a San Francisco hospital when she is suddenly gasping for breath. The call button fails to bring help in time. The hospital's doctors, some of the best in the nation, are completely mystified by her death. How did this happen?

This is not the first such case at the hospital. Just as patients are about to be released with a clean bill of health, their conditions take a devastating turn for the worse.

Accompanied by the newest member of the Women's Murder Club, Yuki Castellano, Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer probes deeper into the incidents. Could these cases just be appalling coincidences? Or is a maniac playing God with people's lives? When someone close to the Women's Murder Club begins to exhibit the same frightening symptoms, Lindsay fears no one is safe.

It is a wild race against time as Lindsay's investigation reveals a hospital administration determined to shield its reputation at all costs. And while the hospital wages an explosive court battle that grips the entire nation, Lindsay and the Women's Murder Club hunt for a merciless killer among its esteemed medical staff.

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The 5th Horseman

By James Patterson

Little Brown and Company

Copyright ©2006 James Patterson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780316154772

Chapter One

RAIN WAS DRUMMING HARD against the windows when the midnight-to-8:00 rounds began at San Francisco Municipal Hospital. Inside the ICU, thirty-year-old Jessie Falk was asleep in her hospital bed, floating on a Percocet lake of cool light.

Jessie was having the most beautiful dream she'd had in years.

She and the light of her life, three-year-old Claudia, were in Grandma's backyard swimming pool. Claudie was in her birthday suit and bright-pink water wings, slapping the water, sunlight glinting off her blond curls.

"Simon says, kiss like a butterfly, Claudie."

"Like this, Mommy?"

Then the mother and daughter were shouting and laughing, twirling and falling down, singing out "wheeeeeee," when without warning a sharp pain pierced Jessie's chest.

She awoke with a scream-bolted upright-and clapped both of her hands to her breast.

What was happening? What was that pain?

Then Jessie realized that she was in a hospital-and that she was feeling sick again. She remembered coming here, the ambulance ride, a doctor telling her that she was going to be fine, not to worry.

Falling, nearly fainting back to the mattress, Jessie fumbled for the call button at her side. Then the device slipped from her grasp and fell. It banged against the side of the bed with a muted clang.

Oh, God, I can't breathe. What's happening? I can't get my breath. It's horrible. I'm not fine.

Tossing her head from side to side, Jessie swept the darkened hospital room with her eyes. Then she seized on a figure at the far edge of her vision.

She knew the face.

"Oh, th-thank God," she gasped. "Help me, please. It's my heart."

She stretched out her hands, clutched feebly at the air, but the figure stayed in the shadows.

"Please," Jessie pleaded.

The figure wouldn't come forward, wouldn't help. What was going on? This was a hospital. The person in the shadows worked here.

Tiny black specks gathered in front of Jessie's eyes as a crushing pain squeezed the air from her chest. Suddenly her vision tunneled to a pinprick of white light.

"Please help me. I think I'm -"

"Yes," said the figure in the shadows, "you are dying, Jessie. It's beautiful to watch you cross over."

Continues...

Excerpted from The 5th Horsemanby James Patterson Copyright ©2006 by James Patterson. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Little Brown & Co
• Data di pubblicazione: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0316154776
• ISBN 13: 9780316154772
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Lingua: Inglese
• Numero di pagine: 486
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile