The Big Chill: A Sam Smith Mystery

Book Three in the Sam Smith Mystery Series

The series in order:
Sam's Song
Love and Bullets
The Big Chill

"Emergency!"
"Christ! Who shot her?"
"Don't know."
"What a mess."
"Better call Dr Warburton."

Bright lights. A sharp, antiseptic smell. Pain. Nausea. Feel so weak. The cat, who'll feed the cat? "Marlowe."
"She's babbling."
"She's lost a lot of blood."
Blackness.
"Have we lost her?"
I don't want to die!

A jumble of images, my mother, my father, but his face is so vague. "Daddy!"
Nothing.

A man scowling, with a needle. "I'm going to put you to sleep. You won't feel a thing. Just count backwards from ten..." "Ten, nine, eight..."

Nightmares, very vivid, all too real. So confused. So weak.

Distant voices. Laughter. A nurse, smiling, reassuring.

Alan, tears in his eyes. "Don't cry, Alan, don't cry..."

Aching all over. Can't move my shoulder or my arm. Very tired. More nightmares; too black to dwell on; make them go away...

Sweating. Drowning. I catch my breath, like breathing for the first time. Eyes blink awake. Gasping. Try to rise, but head hurts too much. Fall back on to the pillow. I ache all over, but I'm alive!

I was alive. But with a snowstorm gripping the city and with an unknown assassin closing in, I faced the most dangerous moment of my life and the very real prospect of feeling the big chill.