Frozen Stiff Read Online Free PDF Page B

there?”
    “You did see him. They’re doing all they can for him.” Claire decided to keep asking her questions. “So you think the back door was locked?”
    “It was. The dead bolt. You can’t lock it from the outside, only the inside. That’s what I can’t figure out. How could that have happened?”
    “Do you think anyone was there last night with Dan?”
    Sherri shrugged her shoulders, her hand dropped from her face. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
    “Where were you last night?”
    Sherri lifted her head up, her eyes wide. “At home. Alone. I went to bed early.”
    “Can anyone confirm that?”
    “No. But that’s where I was. I promise.”
    “Okay.” Claire decided to let it go for the moment.
    “Dan would have hated this.” Sherri hung her head, her long golden hair falling over her face. Little rasping sounds jerked out of her mouth, and Claire realized Sherri was crying.
    “Hated what?”
    Sherri lifted her head, tossed her hair out of her face and swallowed, then said, “That someone could hate him enough to do this to him—lock him out in the cold. Daniel always wanted to believe that everybody loved him.”
    “Did they?”
    Sherri finally looked at Claire, shook her head. “I don’t think so.
    “When you got to the house was it all locked up?”
    “Yes. The front door was locked too. Dan always did that. He was a creature of habit, before this he had lived in the city all his life. He locked the door as soon as he was in the house, even when we were just hanging around.”
    “So all the doors were locked?”
    “Yes, I already told you.”
    “Who has a key to your house?”
    Sherri shut her eyes for a moment. “Let’s see. We didn’t have that many made. Dan, me and Danielle, his daughter. Then, our cleaning lady had a key. We were hardly ever there when she came. That’s about it. I can’t think of anyone else offhand. Dan or Danielle might have given one out to someone else. I don’t know. I’ll ask her when she gets here.”
    “Okay, let me know.”
    “Do you really think someone tried to kill Dan?” Sherri asked.
    “I have no idea.” Claire watched the woman. “What do you think?”
    Sherri slid her eyes away from Claire’s stare. “There doesn’t seem to be any other explanation.”

CHAPTER 5
    New Year’s day: 1:45 pm
    H is core temp was 80.5. Lowest I’ve ever seen.” Dr. Elise Cornwall was standing over Claire in the waiting room.
    Claire closed the People magazine she was reading. The news on Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie could wait. “I didn’t know it could go that low.”
    The doctor nodded. She looked like she was still a teenager, but Claire figured she must be at least in her mid-twenties. Dr. Cornwall had long blond hair, tied up high in a loose ponytail. She was wearing a lab coat with a cell phone sticking out the top pocket. Or maybe it was an iPod. She looked more like a soccer player than a doctor.
    “But he’s still alive?” Claire asked, looking around. Sherri and Amy had gone to the bathroom.
    “Yes, remarkably. His temp actually dropped below 80 for a few minutes. Not unusual. It’s called afterdrop, the residual cold pushes in on the core while the exterior of the body starts to warm. But his temp is on the rise now. We’ve been heating him up with intravenous fluid, but it’s not enough.” Dr. Cornwall looked around the room. “We’re prepping him for surgery.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “We need to get more heat to his core. We’re going to have to make a couple incisions in his abdominal cavity so we can set up a lavage of his internal organs with warm fluid. It’s the only way we can get him warm enough, quickly enough.”
    Again, Claire checked to see if Daniel Walker’s wife was anywhere close by, then asked, “What do you think? Is he going to make it?”
    Dr. Cornwall flipped her ponytail, looking distressed that she would be asked such a blunt question. “I’ve never done this before. But I have to try