When Daisy Campbell hit the first patch of black ice, she was tempted to let loose a glass-shattering scream.

She didn’t, of course. If she’d learned one thing in the past eleven years, it was to shut up and be careful instead of impulsive-but deep down, she sure wanted to scream.

January in Vermont was no new story for her. The wild winds and blizzard snows and bleak-naked trees and mirror-slick roads were as familiar as a tedious TV rerun. It was for reasons like this that she’d left White Hills, Vermont, and never planned to come back.

However, now, in the middle of a life-threatening spin, really didn’t seem an ideal time to digress.

The cheap compact she’d rented at the airport was a mighty contrast to the red Ferrari she’d driven on the Riviera, but when push came to shove, a car was a car. The compact spun a complete 360, skidded into the oncoming traffic lane, and then careened toward the crest of the hill. Below was an unpleasant drop. Very unpleasant. In fact, unpleasant enough to likely kill her if she couldn’t get the tires to bite-damn soon. Damn, damn, damn soon.

But the tires did bite. For a few hairy moments, the compact faced oncoming traffic, but Daisy battled for traction and eventually turned the son of a seadog around. Since no other vehicles were in sight-thanks to the blizzard-she wasn’t hit or harmed. Nothing was endangered at all, beyond her pulse thumping at sonic-boom levels, but that was no special event. Her ex-husband had regularly raised her blood pressure beyond stroke level easier and faster than any old Vermont blizzard.

It could be that she was getting a tiny bit tired, though.

The past two months on the Riviera had been a nightmare rather than a vacation. The past two days of solid traveling and negotiating airports had been nonstop grueling. And the past two hours, she’d been driving in escalating ghastly conditions.