Life Support

Dr. Toby Harper works the overnight shift in the emergency room at Springer Hospital, and she likes it quiet. That changes when a man arrives in critical condition with what looks like a viral infection of the brain. He is delirious, responds poorly to treatment, and then vanishes from the hospital without a trace.

Before Toby can find him, a second patient turns up with the same illness. The two cases reveal how the virus travels: it spreads only through direct tissue exchange. That makes it harder to catch than a airborne disease, but no easier to stop once it has a foothold.

Toby follows a trail of deaths that runs from a pregnant sixteen-year-old prostitute all the way to her own home. As she works to identify the cause of the virus and find a cure, she reaches a conclusion she did not expect. The outbreak did not arise by chance. Someone released it on purpose.

This is a medical thriller with a hospital setting and an epidemic as the ticking clock. It starts calmly in a quiet ER, then tightens into a search for a missing patient, a hidden source and a person responsible.