MURDER IN RETROSPECT (Allie Griffin Mysteries Book 5) Read Online Free PDF Page A

water.
                  "Yeah, there were folks who didn’t like to work with someone like that. I don’t know why. As I said, it kept you on your toes. We need people like that everywhere, but especially in places where people's lives are at stake. Anyway, I'm sorry, I liked him."
                  "You're sorry that you liked him?" Allie said with a smile.
                  "No, I'm sorry that I admitted there were people who didn’t."
                  "Listen, you think I didn’t know my husband? I'm the first to say it. He was a pain; a lovable pain. You were with him the day he died."
                  The woman's face contorted with painful memory. "That's right. He collapsed right next to me. We had to scramble to get everything under control and tend to him at the same time. What an awful day. I still can’t remember it without feeling some of those emotions. It was such a shock to all of us. He seemed like he was in great health."
                  "Heart condition."
                  "Yeah, I know. But there was just this feeling I had. Hard to describe. Do you believe in intuition? Real intuition?"
                  "I do and I don’t. I think intuition is a good thing to help you make a choice. But it's like flipping a coin. Nothing in science or nature says that it knows any more than you do what the outcome of any situation will be. But it is good to follow intuition, if you trust yourself enough."
                  "I believe the same way. And I had intuition about Tom's death. That it was something that just shouldn’t have happened the way it happened. I can’t explain. I wish I could. I've been living with the memory and this nagging feeling surrounding it all these years. That blackout, it was just awful."
                  Allie paused, mid-sip, swallowed, and said, "Did you just say 'blackout'?"             
                  "Mm hmm," said Lucy Wainwright. "That's what caused it all, right? I mean—"
                  "Excuse me," said Allie, "but I don’t remember anything about a blackout."
                  Lucy Wainwright stared quizzically at Allie. "My God, why would you? Allie, I'm so sorry. There was so much that went on that day, and after. Listen, I don’t know how much you know about this story, but I'll try to give it to you from the top." Lucy leaned in. "This doesn’t go past this table."
                  Allie shot a quick glance over at Hemingway, and then nodded.
                  Lucy Wainwright took a healthy—or not so healthy depending on one's perspective—sip of coffee. Her voice became soft, and grave.
                  "The patient's heart had stopped. He was dying on the table. Tom, incredible man that he was, began to resuscitate him. It was a sight to see; an internal cardiac massage. I'll spare you the details, but let me say that I've never seen anyone keep his cool like that, especially when, about a minute later—or thirty seconds, who knows—the lights went out completely. I don’t know if you remember the summer then. Freakishly hot. There were outages all over the place. The lights, the power, everything was out."
                  "I don’t understand," said Allie, "don’t hospitals have backup generators?"
                  "They do. This one failed. I don’t remember because of all the chaos, but later on I heard it was something like thirty seconds before the thing powered up and we had backup power. Now thirty seconds may not seem like much, but let me tell you, in a life or death situation..."
                  Allie held up her hand. "'Nuff said."
                  "We were lucky. I mean, really, like, the gods must’ve been watching lucky. We didn’t lose anyone that day on account of the power failure. And Tom, he was there the