CHAPTER ONE

      THE SOUND OF screeching tires stabbed Dr. Kimberlyn Davis’s ear. One by one every one of her major muscle groups seized, stopping her cold on the Manhattan sidewalk, tensed for impact. One burst of sound, then another and another—rubber on asphalt, metal on metal—her every heartbeat shuddering in time with each bone-rattling sound.

      Teeth gritted, she twisted toward the street in time to see a body arcing through the air, arms and legs flailing for purchase in the already warm morning sun. A man. A motorcyclist. He tumbled, rolled and came down chest first on the grille’s edge of a still-moving black SUV. The second impact tossed him back—a human pinball thrown and battered far more than flesh and bones could stand.

      Her clamped jaw held back sounds she couldn’t control enough to stop, a whimper that burned like a roar—searing her throat and blazing a trail down her chest to the still-bothersome scar that would forever mar her cleavage.

      She should’ve run when she’d heard the first sound of squealing tires. Away from the danger. But she had taken an oath.

      Before the cascade of car horns died off, before the vehicle he’d flown into had even managed to stop moving, Kimberlyn forced herself to start. One stiff step, then another, each step loosening her muscles and allowing the next to come easier, faster. Off the curb. Onto the street. Within three paces she was running.

      Moving cleared her mind. One act of willful defiance in the face of her fear, her memories, let the next one came easier.

      “Someone call 911!” she shouted over her shoulder.

       Please, don’t