Tornado Alley Triage

Travel nurse Sandra Tungsten and her therapy dog Hypo arrive in Golden Grain, Kansas during the height of tornado season, ready for a quiet contract at Prairie Heart Center. But when a retired health inspector collapses in the hospital's storm shelter during an evacuation, Sandra's medical instincts tell her something isn't right. The insulin pen found near the victim doesn't match his prescription records, and within hours, what seemed like a diabetic emergency becomes a suspicious death.

As Sandra investigates, she uncovers a web of pharmaceutical fraud stretching across the small prairie community. With a second victim poisoned and the evidence pointing in multiple directions, she must use her medical expertise to trace a trail of diverted medications, falsified records, and carefully planted clues. But in a town where everyone knows everyone, the killer is hiding in plain sight—camouflaged behind trust, respectability, and the chaos of severe weather.

With tornado warnings bearing down and suspects confined together during shelter evacuations, Sandra has limited time to identify a murderer who's already killed once to protect their secrets. In the final installment of the Vital Signs Mystery series, Sandra faces her most complex case yet, where the prescription for justice requires looking past small-town charm to find the darkness lurking beneath.