"Mom!"
The scream ripped from Ken's throat, raw and jagged, echoing off the clinical tiles of the hospital room. He lunged toward the bed, his hands grasping for her, but the skin beneath his fingertips was no longer the warm, living silk he had known. It was ice-cold. It was stiff.
The heart monitor had flatlined only seconds ago, but as the nurses rushed in to pull a hysterical Ken away, they all froze in a collective, professional shock. Usually, a body remains warm for a time after the heart stops. But Mrs. McCall was already in the early stages of rigor mortis. Her skin was waxy, and where her body pressed against the bed, deep purple lividity had already begun to settle. It was a biological impossibility; it was as if she had been dead for twenty-four hours, yet her heart had only just stopped.
