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      To Dad and Mum. No matter what, you were always there for us as we grew from little hellions to adults. I miss you.

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘ALEXANDRA KATHERINE PRENDERGAST, how do you plead? Guilty …?’

      The judge paused, drawing out the excruciating moment, forcing her heart to clench with pain.

      Just when Alex thought she’d scream with frustration and humiliation, he added in a disbelieving taunt, ‘Or not guilty?’

      Her mouth was drier than a hot summer’s day. Her tongue felt twice its normal size. Tears oozed from the corners of her eyes to track down her sallow cheeks. ‘Guilty,’ she tried to whisper. Guilty, guilty, guilty, cried her brain, agreed her knotted belly.

      ‘Speak up, Alexandra,’ the man standing on the opposite side of the operating theatre table growled. His eyes, staring out at her from under his cap, were cold, hard and demanding. Their hue matched the no-nonsense blue of the scrubs they both wore. ‘Did this child die in your care or not?’

      ‘I did everything within my power to keep him alive, your honour. The other doctors told me there was nothing I could’ve done, that I did nothing wrong. I wanted to believe them, but how could I? He was totally reliant on me and I failed him.’ The familiar, gut-twisting mantra spilled over her sore, cracked lips. The old pain and despair roiled up her throat. ‘I failed Jordan.’ The words flailed her brain.

      ‘Jordan died because of you. Have you done everything within your power to prevent the same thing happening again?’

      ‘Yes,’ she croaked. ‘Every day I try to save other babies.’

      ‘I sentence you to a lifetime of looking after other people’s ill children.’ Her judge’s eyes were icy, his voice a perfect match.

      Alex gasped, shoved up from her pillow and clamped her hand over her mouth. Sweat soaked her nightgown, plastering it to her breasts and shoulders, making it pull tight against her skin as she moved in the bed. Moist strands of hair fell into her eyes, stuck to her wet cheeks. ‘I will not throw up. I will not.’ The words stuck in the back of her throat as she blinked her way back from the nightmare.

      The all too familiar nightmare.

      Her fingers shook as she reached for the bedside lamp switch and flooded her bedroom with soft yellow light. Tossing the covers aside she put her feet on the floor and pushed up. Despite the heat-pump being on, the winter air was chilly on her feverish skin. But cold was good. It focused her. Brought her completely back from the nightmare and her guilt. Made her concentrate on the here and now, on today and not the past.

      Tugging on a thick robe and slipping her feet into fluffy slippers she trudged out to the kitchen and plugged the kettle in to make a drink of herbal tea. Shivering, she stood staring into her pantry, unable to decide what flavour to have. Her eyes welled up as the floodgates opened, and she blindly reached for the nearest packet and plopped a tea bag into a mug.

      The oven clock read 3:46. She’d had little more than three hours sleep before the nightmare hit, slamming into her head in full technicolour. Accusing. Debilitating. Painful. Reminding her that her position as head paediatrician at Nelson Hospital was, in her mind, as tenuous as whatever her next patient threw at her. Taunting she was a fraud and that it was only a matter of time before she made a dreadful mistake with someone’s child that would expose her as incompetent.

      She had to draw deep to find the belief she was a good doctor, a very good one. The ever expanding numbers of sick children coming to see her, not just from the top of the South Island but all over New Zealand, showed that. Unfortunately the nightmare always undermined her fragile belief in herself.

      It also reinforced the truth about her not being mother material, how totally incompetent she’d be in that role. Not that she’d be contemplating that ever again.

      Click. The kettle switched off. Boiling water splashed onto the counter as she filled her mug. Strawberry vapour rose to her nostrils. Taking the drink she crossed through the lounge to the wide, floor-to-ceiling window showcasing the lights of Rocks Road and the wharves of Nelson Harbour. Rain slashed through the night, falling in sheets to puddle on the surface ten storeys below.

      Alex stood, shaking, clutching the hot mug in both hands, and staring down at the tugboats manoeuvring a freight ship through the narrow cut leading from Tasman Bay to the sheltered harbour. Day and night, boats came and went according to the tides. Now, in early June, they’d be loading the last of the kiwifruit destined for the other side of the world. Men looking like midgets worked ropes and machinery. A tough job. An honest job.

      ‘Stop it.’ There was nothing easy or dishonest about the work she did with sick children. ‘You did not cause Jordan’s death. The pathologist proved that, exonerated you.’

      Tell that to Jordan’s father.

      Behind her eyes a steady pounding built in intensity. Alex cautiously sipped the steaming tea, her gaze still fixed on the wet scene

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