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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”

Chapter 2

JESSIE’S HANDS FLUTTERED like a tiny bird’s wings beating against the sheets Then they were very still Jessie was gone

The Night Walker ca woman’s skin was mottled and bluish, clammy to the touch, her pupils fixed She had no pulse No vital signs Where was she now? Heaven, hell, nowhere at all?

The silhouetted figure retrieved the fallen call device, then tugged the blankets into place, straightened the young woown, and blotted the spittle from her lips with a tissue

Niers lifted the framed photo beside the phone on the bedside table She’d been so pretty, this young hter’s name, wasn’t it?

The Night Walker put the picture down, closed the patient’s eyes, and placed what looked to be small brass coins, smaller than dimes, on each of Jessie Falk’s eyelids

The small disks were eed staff, the symbol of the medical profession

A whispered good-bye blended with the sibilance of tires speeding over the wet pavement five stories below on Pine Street

“Good night, princess”

Part One

MALICE AFORETHOUGHT

Chapter 3

I WAS AT MY DESK sifting through a hteen open homicides to be exact, when Yuki Castellano, attorney-at-law, called on my private line

“My mom wants to take us to lunch at the Armani Café,” said the newest otta meet her, Lindsay She can charm the skin off a snake, and I mean that in the nicest possible way”

Let me see; what should I choose? Cold coffee and tuna salad in my office? Or a tasty Mediterranean luncheon, say, carpaccio over arugula with thin shavings of Par mom?

I neatened the stack of folders, told our squad assistant, Brenda, that I’d be back in a couple of hours, and left the Hall of Justice with no need to be back until the staffat 3:00