More than the cold made him shiver as he stared up at the rough slope. How the hell had she come down that and into a busy road without being seriously hurt?
Killed.
It would, he thought, be a good place to kill someone.
He crossed the road and found a trail in the woods to one side of the bluff. Without stopping to question why, he climbed to the top.
He knelt. Lots of footprints in the snow here. Rounded and shallow as the wind smoothed off the edges and new snow filled the impressions, but definitely more than one person’s prints. Someone could have waited. Hidden in the trees—
His cell phone chirped, nearly sending him headfirst over the edge of the cliff.
He stood and turned away from the precipice to answer. His mother’s voice screeched at him across the line.
“Ty-baby? Is that you? You sound like you’re sitting on the wing of an airplane.”
He capped one ear with his hand. “I’m outside, Ma. It’s windy.”
“Outside?” she chattered. “In this weather? You’ll catch your death. What are you doing outside?”
He looked over his shoulder at the bluff, the nothingness beyond. What the hell was he doing? Trying to prove that Mia Serrat was as stable as she seemed? That she hadn’t imagined someone pushing her?
Or trying to eliminate one of his reasons for keeping her at arm’s length?
He swore and pulled his collar up as he started back toward his car. It was friggin’ freezing out here. Sure there were lots of footprints. The sheriff’s deputies would have checked out the scene after the accident.
“I’m headed back in, Ma. What did you need?”
He could hear Beethoven’s Fifth playing in the background. It always played in the background.
“I was thinking you could come see me this weekend,” she said, her voice more like a child’s than a mother’s now. “Maybe stay a little longer, even.”
His shoulders tensed. “I have a lot of work, Ma. Besides, you have an appointment with Dr. Calvin.”
“You’re a doctor. You can look after me.”
His free hand fisted in the pocket of his coat. He struggled to keep his voice steady. “I’m a resident, Ma. You know what that means? It means I have no life. No time. It means if I don’t keep my mind one-hundred-percent on the job, I might never be a doctor for real. Do you understand?”
“I could cook for you.” Her voice took on a dreamy tone. “I bet you haven’t had a decent meal in months. Do you remember when we used to make cookies together? I’d mix the 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