Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Harlan Coben is the #1 New York Times and international bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including I Will Find You, The Match, Win, Fool Me Once, Stay Close, and The Stranger, as well as the award-winning Myron Bolitar series. Coben has more than eighty million books in print in more than forty languages worldwide, and several of his novels have been made into Netflix series. The winner of Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Awards, he lives in New Jersey.

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No Second Chance

Signet Book

Chapter One

At least, that is what I want to believe. I lost consciousness prettyfast. And, if you want to get technical about it, I don't even rememberbeing shot. I know that I lost a lot of blood. I know that a second bulletskimmed the top of my head, though I was probably already out bythen. I know that my heart stopped. But I still like to think that as I laydying, I thought of Tara.

FYI: I saw no bright light or tunnel. Or if I did, I don't rememberthat either.

Tara, my daughter, is only six months old. She was lying in her crib.I wonder if the gunfire frightened her. It must have. She probably beganto cry. I wonder if the familiar albeit grating sound of her cries somehowsliced through my haze, if on some level I actually heard her. Butagain I have no memory of it.

What I do remember, however, was the moment Tara was born. Iremember Monica-that's Tara's mother-bearing down for one lastpush. I remember the head appearing. I was the first to see my daughter.We all know about life's forks in the road. We all know about openingone door and closing another, life cycles, the changes in seasons. But themoment your child is born ... it's beyond surreal. You have walkedthrough a Star Trek-like portal, a full-fledged reality transformer. Everythingis different. You are different, a simple element hit with a startlingcatalyst and metamorphosed into one far more complex. Your world isgone; it shrinks down to the dimensions of-in this case, anyway-asix-pound fifteen-ounce mass.

Fatherhood confuses me. Yes, I know that with only six months onthe job, I am an amateur. My best friend, Lenny, has four kids. A girland three boys. His oldest, Marianne, is ten, his youngest just turnedone. With his face permanently set on happily harried and the floor ofhis SUV permanently stained with congealed fast food, Lenny remindsme that I know nothing yet. I agree. But when I get seriously lost orafraid in the realm of raising a child, I look at the helpless bundle in thecrib and she looks up at me and I wonder what I would not do to protecther. I would lay down my life in a second. And truth be told, if pushcame to shove, I would lay down yours too.

So I like to think that as the two bullets pierced my body, as I collapsedonto the linoleum of my kitchen floor with a half-eaten granolabar clutched in my hand, as I lay immobile in a spreading puddle of myown blood, and yes, even as my heart stopped beating, that I still triedto do something to protect my daughter.

I came to in the dark.

I had no idea where I was at first, but then I heard the beeping comingfrom my right. A familiar sound. I did not move. I merely listened tothe beeps. My brain felt as if it'd been marinated in molasses. The firstimpulse to break through was a primitive one: thirst. I craved water. Ihad never known a throat could feel so dry. I tried to call out, but mytongue had been dry-caked to the bottom of my mouth.

A figure entered the room. When I tried to sit up, hot pain rippedlike a knife down my neck. My head fell back. And again, there wasdarkness.

When I awoke again, it was daytime. Harsh streaks of sunlightslashed through the venetian blinds. I blinked through them. Part of mewanted to raise my hand and block the rays, but exhaustion would notlet the command travel. My throat was still impossibly parched.

I heard a movement and suddenly there was someone standing overme. I looked up and saw a nurse. The perspective, so different from theone I was used to, threw me. Nothing felt right. I was supposed to bethe one standing looking down, not the other way around. A whitehat-one of those small, harshly triangular numbers-sat like a bird'snest on the nurse's head. I've spent a great deal of my life working in awide variety of hospitals, but I'm not sure I've ever seen a hat like thatoutside of TV or the movies. The nurse was heavyset and black.

"Dr. Seidman?"

Her voice was warm maple syrup. I managed a very slight nod.

The nurse must have read minds because she already had a cup ofwater in her hand. She put the straw between my lips and I suckedgreedily.

"Slow down," she said gently.

I was going to ask where I was, but that seemed pretty obvious. Iopened my mouth to find out what had happened, but again she wasone step ahead of me.

"I'll go get the doctor," she said, heading for the door. "You just relaxnow."

I croaked, "My family ..."

"I'll be right back. Try not to worry."

I let my eyes wander about the room. My vision had that medicated,shower-curtain haze. Still, there were enough stimuli getting through tomake certain deductions. I was in a typical hospital room. That muchwas obvious. There was a drip bag and IV pump on my left, the tubesnaking down to my arm. The fluorescent bulbs buzzed almost, but notquite, imperceptibly. A small TV on a swinging arm jutted out from theupper right-hand corner.

A few feet past the foot of the bed, there was a large glass window. Isquinted but could not see through it. Still, I was probably being monitored.That meant I was in an ICU. That meant that whatever waswrong with me was something pretty bad.

The top of my skull itched, and I could feel a pull at my hair. Bandaged,I bet. I tried to check myself out, but my head really did not wantto cooperate. Dull pain quietly boomed inside me, though I couldn'ttell from where it originated. My limbs felt heavy, my chest encasedin lead.

"Dr. Seidman?"

I flicked my eyes toward the door. A tiny woman in surgical scrubscomplete with the shower cap stepped into the room. The top of themask was untied and dangled down her neck. I am thirty-four yearsold. She looked about the same.

"I'm Dr. Heller," she said, stepping closer. "Ruth Heller." Giving meher first name. Professional courtesy, no doubt. Ruth Heller gave me aprobing stare. I tried to focus. My brain was still sluggish, but I couldfeel it sputtering to life. "You are at St. Elizabeth Hospital," she said ina properly grave voice.

The door behind her opened and a man stepped inside. It was hardto see him clearly through the shower-curtain haze, but I don't think Iknew him. The man crossed his arms and leaned against the wall withpracticed casualness. Not a doctor, I thought. You work with them longenough, you can tell.

Dr. Heller gave the man a cursory glance and then she turned her fullattention back to me.

"What happened?" I asked.

"You were shot," she said. Then added: "Twice."

She let that hang for a moment. I glanced toward the man againstthe wall. He hadn't moved. I opened my mouth to say something, butRuth Heller pressed on. "One bullet grazed the top of your head. Thebullet literally scraped off your scalp, which, as you probably know, isincredibly rich with blood."

Yes, I knew. Serious scalp wounds bled like beheadings. Okay, Ithought, that explained the itch on top of my head. When Ruth Hellerhesitated, I prompted her. "And the second bullet?"

Heller let out a breath. "That one was a bit more complicated."

I waited.

"The bullet entered your chest and nicked the pericardial sac. Thatcaused a large supply of blood to leak into the space between your heartand the sac. The EMTs had trouble locating your vital signs. We had tocrack your chest-"

"Doc?" the leaning man interrupted-and for a moment, I thoughthe was talking to me. Ruth Heller stopped, clearly annoyed. The manpeeled himself off the wall. "Can you do the details later? Time is of...