batter and you’d lick the bowl?”
Ty bit his tongue. She’d never baked cookies for him in his life. Much less fixed him a decent meal. But she didn’t know that. She thought all her little imaginings were fact.
For a moment, he almost wished it were true—that his childhood had been idyllic. That he’d been her golden child and she’d been his storybook-perfect mother.
Only for a moment, though. If his mom hadn’t been the way she was when he was a kid, he wouldn’t have become the man he was now. What better motivation was there for becoming a psychiatrist than growing up in the clutches of a crazy mother?
Intellectually, he knew that her psychosis was a disease, an illness she hadn’t asked for and couldn’t prevent, but as a kid he’d only known the effect, not the cause. He’d known her mood swings, her temper. His mother had been sick, but too often, he’d been the one to suffer.
And yet, she was still his mother. He’d never been able to turn his back on her. Not completely. He closed his eyes. “Sure, we can do it again sometime,” he said softly. “But not right now, okay? I just don’t have time to b—”
He stopped himself just short of saying babysit.
“—to be with you. I should have a break around the end of the month. I’ll drive out for the day.”
“Only for a day? But I miss you, My Ty.”
He reached his car and ratcheted the door open with numb fingers. His stomach tightened. The assisted-living complex she lived in was only about ten miles from here. She was his mother, and she was lonely.
He was a doctor and he had responsibilities. He had patients to see and a whole caseload of patient files to update before 8:00 a.m.
“Look, Ma, I gotta go,” he said, ashamed to feel grateful for the Kaiser’s last-minute assignment, but grateful all the same. He just didn’t have the time, or the mental energy. Not right now. “I’ll try to get out there next week.”
He hung up without waiting for her acknowledgment. He folded himself into his car, blew on his hands and rubbed them together, wishing he could warm the cold knot of guilt in his chest as easily as he could warm his frozen fingers.
He started the car.
He’d give her a call and have a long chat when he got a break tomorrow, he promised himself.
Day after that, at the latest.
Mia jogged along the trail at the top of the bluff, her muscles burning, blood singing, breath puffing in front of her face. The view was beautiful from up here. The snow on the trees, the roads winding toward the valley, the village—
A hand hit her in the back. She felt the impression of the palm distinctly. Five fingers.
Falling. Pounding against rocks. Grating against frozen earth. Pavement—
Mia lurched to wakefulness, her heart pounding.
But she wasn’t on Shilling’s Bluff. Wasn’t falling into the road with a pickup truck bearing down on her.
She was in her hospital room. In the dark.
Her mouth was dry, so she sat up to search the bedside table for water. She could make out a chair beside the bed and a monitor—not active, thank goodness—on a cart across the room. A slice of light angled in through a narrow window on the door.
Her heart stalled, then raced as she stared at the door. She couldn’t see the handle.
She had to know.
Silently she slipped out of bed and padded into the light. Holding her breath she reached for the doorknob and turned it.
Not locked.
Her breath exploded in relief. For a minute she’d thought…
But, no. Thankfully, she’d been wrong. It wasn’t locked.
She should go back to bed. There was no reason to worry. She wasn’t a prisoner here, she hadn’t been involuntarily committed. She’d agreed—albeit with little real choice in the matter—to stay for observation of her own accord. In the morning, she’d make nice with Dr. Handsome and be on her way. She had to be calm. Composed.
Rational.
Unfortunately there was nothing rational about the fear skittering up her spinal column like a monkey on a vine. Or about her growing certainty that her fall hadn’t been an accident, despite what anyone else thought.
She hadn’t slipped; she’d been pushed.
Was she losing it again? Going crazy?
She couldn’t. Wouldn’t let herself.
She glanced at the bed, but the restlessness inside her wouldn’t let her sleep. What was the point of lying there and worrying?
She raised up on her toes and looked out the narrow window in the door. The nurses’ station down the hall sat abandoned. Silently she pushed the door open and padded toward the desk. Maybe her medical chart would hold some clue as to what had really happened. At the very least it would tell her what the doctors—Ty Hansen, in particular—were thinking about her.
Tightening the drawstring on her yellow flannel pajamas, she shuffled over to the cluttered workstation. On the upper level of the desk area, coffee rings topped untidy stacks of folders. Yellow sticky notes and phone message slips papered the lower tier.
Mia fingered the files until she found what she was looking for. She scanned the pages quickly. History of depression. Prior commitment to a mental-health facility. Mother-in-law concerned about her current state of mind.
What?
Oh, Nana…
Before she had a chance to read exactly what Nana had told the doctor, a shuffling sound around the corner caught her attention.
Footsteps.
Fear paralyzed her until it was too late to scurry back to her room unseen. She wouldn’t have worried about being caught by a nurse or orderly, but these footsteps didn’t sound as if they belonged to a hospital employee. They were too slow, too measured.
It seemed almost as if the person around the corner was sneaking down the hallway. Toward her.
Maybe she really was paranoid. She debated standing her ground, but gave in to fear, the memory of this morning’s shove firm in her mind—and on her back.
Out of time, she ducked behind the nurses’ counter. The footsteps shuffled slowly closer, but didn’t turn at the intersection of the two hallways. Instead they moved forward.
Toward the door to her room.
Heart thundering so loudly she thought surely whoever was out there would hear it, she raised up high enough to peek over the counter.
A slight man in baggy black sweatpants and an oversized black jacket stood outside her door.
