Sleeper

He quickly faced the door as the elevator started up. Just before it reached the fifth floor, he heard the static of the guard's walkie-talkie. An unintelligible message crackled. The elevator slowly came to a stop. The door crawled half open when he leapt out of the car.

He raced to the door of ICU and looked back in the corridor. The guard had not gotten off the elevator. Allen breathed deeply. He was running scared, but from what? He had done nothing-or had he?

When seven-year-old Angela Harris is rushed to a hospital emergency room in an unexplained coma, Dr. Ben Allen, the young pediatrician assigned to her case, welcomes the diagnostic challenge.

His enthusiasm turns to frustration when confronted with the child's overbearing father, her phlegmatic mother, her doting but senile great-aunt, a knife-happy surgeon, and a hospital administrator who values fund-raising above patient care. Consumed by his efforts to save Angela before she falls victim to her mysterious illness, Allen must do so in the face of a series of events that threaten to end his budding career.

©2012 Barry Friedman (P)2013 Barry Friedman