Die Again Tomorrow

by Kira Peikoff

Genres: Medical Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

Isabel Leon, the star of a survival reality show, thinks she can endure anything. But when she unwittingly gives an unscrupulous mogul a chance to profit from her murder, she becomes the target of a terrifying killer who makes nature seem tame by comparison. At first left for dead, she is rescued by a medical research team that operates outside the law.  She awakens to find she's the living proof of a breakthrough that can change the world. Some people would pay any price to control it. Others would simply steal the secret--even if it costs Isabel's life. As powerful rivals pursue her, Isabel must risk everything to protect those she loves--or die again tomorrow. “ Die Again Tomorrow held me captive me from the opening chapter—in which a murdered woman is subjected to a secret medical procedure that brings her back to life. From there the story takes off like a rocket, full of surprises, fascinating science, and vivid characters. If you enjoy the medical thrillers of Crichton and Cook, this book is for you. I can’t recommend it highly enough.”—Douglas Preston

Release date: October 1, 2015

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

Key West

Her death happened fast.

When the ferocious wave slammed her and her fellow surfers off their boards, she plummeted to the bottom, but didn’t panic. Not at first. She held her breath as she tumbled through the chaos, waiting for the sea to straighten itself out. The light of dawn struck the water, transforming its surface into a glittering kaleidoscope above her. She pushed her way up, greedy for air.

That was when a mysterious hand yanked her ponytail down. Her head snapped back, her lips parted, a nauseating flood of salt water rushed in. She choked and gagged and grew furious. Her arms and legs thrashed, but the hand was as firm as an anchor chaining her to death. She kicked harder, clawing and biting at her tormentor: a wet-suited scuba diver whose lips were wrapped around a breathing tube. It enraged her that this monster was feasting on air while she drowned. Her lungs felt like pressure tanks about to explode. He clamped down on either side of her neck with both hands and squeezed.

Soon a realization came that she had no choice but to confront: she wasn’t going to make it. Yet in spite of her rage and despair, she clung to an absurd optimism that persisted until the very end.

She never wondered why she was being killed. She understood perfectly. Her only surprise was that she, of all people, had succumbed—in the one place she thought she was safe. She didn’t even get to say good-bye. Her final thought was of Richard Barnett—and how, like a typical man, he had failed her, having vanished from her life without ever making good on his promise.

Despite everything, death itself was peaceful. In the final split second came acceptance—then the absence of pain, followed by an all-encompassing blackness. She encountered no light or universal warmth. Instead, she simply ceased to exist, along with the secret of the violence she almost carried to her grave.

Six months before

The Brazilian Amazon was no place for wimps. But Isabel Leon believed she could survive anything. The Arctic tundra in the winter, where she sought warmth inside a bear’s carcass. The shark-infested waters of Australia, where she fashioned a raft of bamboo. The scorching dryness of the Sahara with nothing but her own sweat to drink.

Those were only the first three episodes of Wild Woman, the new reality show that was going to redefine what it meant to be a lady in the twenty-first century. She was brainy, with a master’s degree in exercise science, and just as tough as any man: she’d participated in three triathlons alongside her army vet father. Yet her toughness didn’t negate her femininity. The camera adored her lithe figure, green eyes, and cascading dark hair; it was television, after all.

To the producers, she was a star in the making. Little did they know she was as vulnerable as any other twenty-eight-year-old woman running empty on heartache. In the last year, her father had passed away of a sudden heart attack, and her fiancé had admitted to cheating on her with his ex. So the show was a way to reconnect with her own strength rather than a vehicle for fame. But if fortune came her way, she wasn’t about to deny it. Then her widowed mother wouldn’t have to work anymore, and her little brother could quit worrying about whether their family’s struggling indie bookstore back home in Key West was going to make it. Her mom and Andy were the loves of her life; they were all she had left.

She was thinking of them—not death—when the producers dropped her by helicopter into the middle of the rainforest. She didn’t pay much attention to her own mortality. The concept was about as real as an outer galaxy; it existed, but only in the abstract, light-years away.

She had no idea that the very moment she jumped to the ground, a fateful e-mail was whooshing into her inbox. An e-mail that would trigger the events leading to her murder.

But in the midst of the jungle, the canopy of trees was so dense that she barely had access to sunlight, let alone e-mail. So she wasn’t too worried about anything other than getting through the next week. Snakes, vermin, insects, and birds thrived in such quantity that it was enough to make Manhattan look sparse. The constant buzzing and hissing, plus the smothering humidity at 97 degrees, forced her into high alert against predators and heatstroke. Hydration was key: you could survive only three days without water.

Yet even with all the rain, uncontaminated water was nearly impossible to come by. Plan A was to find some bromeliad plants—a relative of the pineapple, its broad waxy leaves could act like a bowl for catching rainwater. Yet her luck ran dry, as it were. Instead of bromeliads, she came across benign-looking heart-shaped leaves that she recognized as the deadly curare, a plant used by natives to poison arrow tips. Giving it a wide berth, she stumbled onto a small pool of clear standing water—so delectably temping—but likely chock full of parasites. She knew she had to boil it, but all all the potential kindling she could gather was slick with moisture, so fire wouldn’t take.

While looking for dry twigs, she kept her eyes peeled for food sources like berries, recalling a mnemonic from her days in Girl Scouts: White and yellow, kill a fellow. Purple and blue, good for you. Red . . . could be good, could be dead. At least back then she’d had a troop and a leader to guide her. Even on her most difficult survivalist adventures, working as a white-water rafting guide during the summers, she’d never really been alone. Once, while leading a group of six tourists on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho, she and her charges had gotten stranded after a jagged underwater rock tore apart their raft. While they waited three days for help to reach them in the dense woods, she launched into cool survival mode—collecting water from the dew on plant leaves, foraging for pine nuts and cattail stalks, using one man’s glasses to start a fire. Once they were finally rescued by helicopter, the story of her heroism landed her several local prime-time television interviews, both in Idaho and back home in Florida. It was through one of those charismatic appearances that the producers of Wild Woman noticed her and invited her to a casting call. And now, quite astonishingly since she’d never aspired to fortune or stardom, she had her very own television show.

Back in the Amazon, with the camera crew watching her every failed attempt to find a suitable drinking source, she felt increasingly distressed for reasons they would never know. The producers wanted to intervene after her second dehydrated day, but she refused. It was the last episode of the season, and so far, she hadn’t required any assistance. She was determined not to spoil her pristine record, as though doing so would constitute a betrayal of her promise to the viewers—that she was “alone in the wild.” After what her ex-fiancé put her through, she was extremely conscious of betrayals. So: not a drop. It was maddening to watch the camera guys tipping back canteens, but it was also galvanizing.

Deep down, though, she knew her motivation had nothing to do with the viewers or her bastard ex. It was about trying to prove to herself that she really was the independent survivalist she played on TV, and not the helpless girl who had failed her father so horribly at the end of his life that she stumbled around shrink-wrapped in guilt.

But her determination to survive on her own in the rainforest proved futile. After three days, her dehydration grew severe enough for producers to call off the shoot and fly her to the nearest hospital in a remote village. There she spent six hours hooked up to an IV with fluids, berating herself for failing, until a doctor who spoke no English pronounced her “volta ao normal.” Finally she could go back and finish the job. She hoped the producers would edit out the past few days like they’d never happened; if only they could do the same with the past year.

But first, since she was near a computer for the first time in days, she rushed to check her e-mail. It was the only way she’d been communicating with her mother between breaks in filming.

Now that her dad was gone, Isabel worried daily about her mom, who’d already endured enough for any lifetime. Thirty years ago, she escaped from the tyranny of Castro’s Cuba on a raft with nothing but a few days of water and bread. When she reached Florida, she fought to build a life as a bookseller away from the sharp eyes of the immigration patrollers. Isabel was born after her mom met and married an American soldier whose ruggedness belied the softness of his heart. Their home life was cheerfully modest, filled with frequent camping trips, nature excursions, and quiet nights reading together in the family room.

Then, when Isabel was eighteen, her mom’s younger sister—who had gotten detained in Cuba years before—tried again to escape, this time with her husband and their one-year-old son. The worst happened. The aunt and uncle she’d never met drowned in a storm, but her young cousin survived the crossing. Upon arriving in Key West, he was sheltered by her parents, raised as her brother, and called Andy instead of Andrés. Ever since, her family had lived with the omnipresent tension that he was at risk for deportation if the authorities ever figured out the truth.

When Isabel was off shooting Wild Woman, her mom’s e-mails were her only reassurance that they were okay. A week had passed since her last log-in, so she was hoping for several messages of pretty pictures, lighthearted gossip, and new book recommendations—the usual fare.

When she logged in, just one e-mail was waiting.

The subject line was in all caps: CALL ASAP.

The message in its entirety read: “This isn’t something to discuss over e-mail. I love you.”

It was dated four days earlier.

Without wasting a minute, she tracked down the crew’s satellite phone and dialed home. To hell with the expense and permission.

“Mom?” she said as soon the line picked up. Her heart was firing bullets.

“Izz?” It was Andy. He sounded small and scared, not at all his unsentimental thirteen-year-old self.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay? Where’s Mom?”

“She’s in the hospital. She found a lump . . .”

Isabel felt a rush of heat to her face. “How bad?”

“Stage four. Spread to lymph nodes under her armpit. She had surgery yesterday and the doctor said something about good margins. I just . . . I wish you were here.”

“I’m coming.” The calmness of her voice barely masked the strain she was trying her best to hide. “Don’t worry about a thing until I get there.”

As soon as she got home, she learned that the situation was both reassuring and dire. Her mother’s prognosis was shockingly good: 90 percent chance of complete remission. But that was only if she went on a sophisticated new chemotherapy drug, Braxa, that specifically targeted diseased cells, rather than wiping out her whole immune system. Her recovery would be easier, faster, and practically guaranteed.

Yet Braxa was only available through the one pharmaceutical company that had developed it. Since the drug’s recent FDA approval, intense global demand had caused the price to skyrocket. For the required three months of her mother’s treatment, it was going to cost upward of $300,000. Of course, she needed to start immediately.

But her cheap health insurance refused to cover it, claiming that the standard regimen with the older drugs was the only approved treatment. If she went that route, according to her doctors, her prognosis would drop to 15 percent, given how aggressively her breast cancer had developed and spread.

An 85 percent chance of death; Isabel couldn’t even contemplate it. This was her mother, the indomitable woman who had risked her life for freedom, who had taught her that any goal was attainable with enough creativity and discipline. There was no way Isabel could walk away from her predicament, especially not after what had happened with her father.

But how could she come up with three hundred grand right away? Her mom took a salary of $50,000 a year from the bookstore if she was lucky. Isabel was getting paid a flat fee of $120,000 from the network, and the show wasn’t going to air for months, so any royalties or commercial offers would be too little, too late. The network itself was struggling in the ratings, so they weren’t willing to advance her any cash. Her father’s death benefits from the army had gone toward paying off her college loans. Their outdated two-bedroom house wasn’t worth that much. Isabel even contemplated selling the family bookstore, The Thumbed Page, but who in their right mind would buy it? It would be like asking for bids on a mule in the era of the steam engine.

She shielded her mother and Andy from the impossibility of the situation. Her mom’s job was to recover from her mastectomy; his was to be a kid; hers was to raise the money. But when she confessed her hopelessness to the chief oncologist, his stern eyes narrowed over the bridge of his spectacles, and she could tell he was a man not often denied.

“She needs this drug,” he said. They were standing in the hallway outside the hospital room, where her mother’s groans were softly audible. “And she needs it now. It’s the only way. I don’t care if you have to sell your soul to get it.”

Neither of them knew then how prescient his words would be.

5 months, 2 weeks before, Key West

Thursday, May 18. I’ll never forget the date we met. Oh, Isabel. I know how jaded I must have seemed to you that day. After all, I sell death for a living. When I said it with a dry chuckle, you eyed me like I was the Grim Reaper himself. Most people do. I don’t take it personally.

“I promise not to bite,” I said, waving you past the doorway into my office. Your sweeping glance took in my drab carpet, the coffee stains on my desk, the window behind me overlooking the parking lot. Then you plopped into the tired old chair where my desperate clients laid out their need for instant cash. I’d heard it all. Nothing affected me much at that point except for people who wasted my time—the too young and too healthy. You were both.

When you first walked in, with your slender, athletic body and your silky dark hair, I groaned to myself. I had become inured to beauty. You looked more like a pro fitness model than a normal woman, let alone a sick one. Unlike most other clients, you radiated liveliness. If you had just come from running a marathon, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

I thought you might be one of the hypochondriacs who sometimes come to my brokerage. Convinced of their approaching deaths, they want to sell their existing life insurance policies for a quick buck. What an annoying bunch. Don’t they realize that their medical records speak for themselves? I can never haggle a good deal when my buyers see perfect blood counts and hormone levels and not a single diseased cell, not even a rash. Go home, I tell them. Get a life. Like the one you already have.

But you didn’t have a bone of self-pity and that’s how I knew you were something else entirely. You told me about your mother’s illness and why you needed serious cash now. I tried not to let on that I admired the way you looked me in the eye without flinching. Most women I see break down in tears by the second sentence.

“How much is her policy worth?” I asked, lighting a cigarette. By force of habit, I was already running calculations in my head. Typically I could negotiate around 12 percent to 25 percent of the death benefits for an instant cash settlement, and possibly up to 60 percent if your mother was terminal and paid low premiums. Then I’d net 10 percent of her settlement. So, if she was worth at least a million bucks dead, I could walk away with sixty grand if I was lucky. I admit I was hoping for this best-case scenario; I was saving up for a new BMW.

“Her policy would pay $250,000,” you said, “but—”

I cut you off, glancing at the door. “You know I’m not running a charity.”

“Mine’s two mil.”

I paused. “What?”

You flashed me a triumphant smile. Your teeth were a dentist’s dream—straight, white, clean. “I work in television for one of those reality survival shows. Before I signed up, I made sure I got one hell of a life insurance policy for my family in case I didn’t make it.”

That explains the teeth, I thought. You proceeded to tell me that in your quest to raise money, your financial adviser informed you that you were sitting on a pot of gold with your policy. You’d never heard of the secondary market for life insurance before, but were fascinated to find out that it was a thriving trade. You could sell it like any other asset for major cash to a buyer who would take over paying the premiums until your death, when that person would receive your benefits. It was morbid, yes, but it was exactly the solution you needed. You were so proud of yourself for figuring it out that I hated to deflate your enthusiasm.

“There’s just one little problem,” I said, twisting my cigarette stub into my frosted glass ashtray. “You’re not dying.”

You raised an eyebrow. “As if that’s a bad thing?”

I sighed. Your innocence was charming, but tedious. I was around fifteen years older than you, but the gap in our levels of cynicism couldn’t have been wider.

“Every investor wants to make a profit as fast as possible. This is a business of quick turnarounds. But you could live another sixty years.”

“So you’re saying no one will want it?”

“I’m sure I could find a buyer. But you won’t get the settlement you want.”

“How much?”

I shrugged. In truth, you were a terrible client. “At best maybe a hundred and fifty grand.”

“That’s only half of what I need! You have to do better. Who are these buyers, anyway?”

“Hedge funds. A few specialize in buying up old and sick ‘lives’ so their risk is minimized in this shitty economy. These guys are making a killing.” I smirked. “Pun intended.”

You rolled your eyes without the consolation of a smile.

“The only guarantees in life—” I started.

You sighed. “Are death and taxes, I know.”

“And the former has no loopholes.”

“Very funny.” Your curled upper lip revealed your disgust. “What’s it like to get such a kick out of other people’s misery?”

“Lucrative.” I knew I was being a jerk, but I was so numb then that I didn’t care. “What’s it like to be humorless?”

“Ugh.” You stood up, your nostrils flaring. “I’ll find someone decent to help me.”

“I’m the only life settlement broker in the Keys,” I said, lighting another cigarette and drawing a deep puff. “You’re stuck with me.” I coughed on the exhale, failing to cover my mouth because it happened so often I didn’t even notice. At least smoking quashed my appetite and kept me as thin as a gym rat (which I was absolutely not).

You threw me one last revolted look. “Then I’ll drive to the mainland.”

Your shoulders slumped as you walked away, and I felt a momentary pang. As tough as you seemed, even you couldn’t hide your pain.

You grabbed the doorknob.

“Wait,” I called. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you.”

You turned around to glare. Your wispy bangs fell over your eyes and you pushed them to the side. I knew I had only that moment to make peace or you’d be gone for good.

“Can we start over?” I said, my own warmth surprising me. “You don’t have any time to waste. Let me help you.”

“No thanks, I prefer dealing with human beings.”

“I could halve my commission,” I heard myself say. “Five percent instead of ten.”

Your brow softened, but your voice remained harsh. “What does that matter when I need double the offer you predicted?”

“I have an idea.” I put my elbows on my faux wood desk and steepled my fingers.

“What,” you said, “fake my own terminal illness?”

“Yeah, right. Would you buy a house without an inspection?”

“What then?” Your tone was sarcastic, but I had your attention.

“Your said your mother has hereditary breast cancer.”

“Yeah. A mutation on BRCA1.”

“Have you thought about what that means for you?”

“I don’t want to know,” you said quickly. “This isn’t the time for me to worry about myself.”

“What if I told you I could more than double your payout if you have the same mutation? The higher your risk, the better.”

Your mouth twisted into a scowl. “This is a screwed-up business.”

“My ex-wife would agree. But I’m helping people out of very tight spots. It’s win-win.” I leaned back in my cushy leather chair, knowing you were hooked—even if you didn’t know it yet.

“But if I have the gene, then I have to live with that knowledge for the rest of my life. I can’t un-know it.”

“Is that too high a price to pay for your mother’s life?”

Your green eyes narrowed. “And what if I don’t have it?”

“First get tested. Come back as soon as you know the results.”

A queasy look crossed your face, but you nodded and stepped out without another word.

Despite your mother, I hoped for your sake that the news was good. After you left, I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out my scrapbook of newspaper obituaries. It was bound in handsome brown leather with gold trim, a fitting record to commemorate my past clients. I liked to read their life stories, to remember that I had helped them in their final months or years, so my self-loathing wasn’t totally justified. But most of all, I liked to remind myself that I knew better than to get attached to anyone who was mortal.

5 months, 2 weeks before, New York

Joan Hughes felt her husband’s dry lips brush against her forehead. She pulled the goose-down comforter up to her chin and kept her eyes closed against the early morning sun. He was standing beside the bed in a navy suit, his briefcase slung over his shoulder.

“Have a good day,” he whispered.

She murmured something inaudible into her pillow, burying her face so it wouldn’t give her away. Underneath the covers, the sheet was sweaty where she was gripping it. His dress shoes clomped over the wood floor out into the living room, through the foyer, out the front door. It closed behind him and she heard his key turn in the lock.

Her eyes snapped open. In one fluid gesture, she threw off the comforter and jumped to the floor. She was already dressed, having risen at 4 A.M. to throw on her secret new clothes: hot pink nylon shorts, a sports bra, and a hot pink tank top. She hated the color, but it was well hidden underneath her long-sleeved black nightgown. Now she yanked its silky fabric over her head, kicked her feet into sneakers, and pinned her short blond curls into a Yankees baseball cap she’d bought the day before. She also hated the Yankees. Flying out the front door, she caught sight of her outfit in the hall mirror. It was revolting. Revoltingly perfect.

She rode the express elevator down twenty-five floors and hurried through the co-op’s grand marble lobby, avoiding the gaze of the friendly doorman so he couldn’t stop her with small talk. She made it outside in time to see Greg walking two blocks south. Her heart quickened at the sight of him from afar—it was hard not to admire his effortless elegance, his confident posture and purposeful stride.

Was she really the kind of wife who spied on her husband, after thirty years of loyal marriage? But he had left her no other option. Week after week over dinner they hashed out variations of the same exasperating dialogue:

Her warm touch on his arm. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

His almost imperceptible flinch. “Nothing. I told you.”

“But you’ve been so . . . distant.”

“My patients—”

“I know, I know. But you’ve always had tough patients. That’s never stopped you from . . .”

From wanting me, she would think. All their lives he had been a passionate, affectionate partner, his libido barely slowing down over the years. But in the last few months, his interest had dropped off. He greeted her with dry pecks instead of kisses, failed to seek her out in the shower, kept his hands to himself in bed.

Yet her inquisitions always failed. Across from her at the dinner table, he would shrug, his hazel eyes shifting to that faraway state that reminded her of glass hardening. Even in his withdrawn state, he was attractive—six feet tall with a slender athleticism honed by years of running marathons. His salt-and-pepper hair was thick, his features chiseled, his lips expressive.

“You’re sure there’s nothing else bothering you?” she would press. “Just work?”

“You’re doing it again,” he would tell her gently, despite the tightness in his voice. “Trolling for a story.”

Oh, why did she even try?

Ever since she’d left her beloved career as an investigative reporter twenty years before to become a full-time mom to Adam, their only child, she would gravitate to what she calle. . .