Without warning, Veronica’s hands flew to her own throat and she gasped, fighting for air as though something had closed around her windpipe.

“Grandma,” she wheezed.

“Mommy’s here.” Her small face was twisted with a grief no child should ever have to hold.

“She’s in the back seat.

She’s crying so hard.

She’s trying to tell us something and nobody’s listening.”

I hit the brakes so hard the tires shrieked.

My heart slammed against my ribs, and I sat there in the middle of the road, shaking.

Chapter 2 — A Healthy Woman Doesn’t Just Die

My daughter Tessa was thirty-five years old, and she had been strong and healthy her whole life, and they had told me she died of sudden heart failure.

I have been an emergency-room nurse for thirty years.

I have seen more sudden deaths than I could count, and I know what they look like, and I know what they don’t.

A healthy thirty-five-year-old woman with no history, no warning, no symptoms, does not simply lie down and stop living.

Something causes it.