The Missing Year by Belinda Frisch Page B

from life support.”
    The news came as Ross’s second shock of the day. Of all the things he imagined Lila feeling conflicted or guilty about, the possibility that she had a hand in ending Blake’s life hadn’t even made the list.
    “She told me she was honoring Blake’s wishes, that there were things he didn’t want me to know,” Ruth said. “What isn’t she telling me? That’s the question I’ve been paying to find out. A son doesn’t keep secrets, Dr. Reeves. Not from his mother.”
    Ross’s gut said otherwise. There were plenty of things he didn’t tell his mother to preserve her feelings. “Can I ask you something?” He had nothing to offer at the moment on the subject of secrets. “Why did Blake’s obituary request donations to the Huntington’s Society in lieu of flowers? Was that something he wanted?”
    “It was something I wanted, and the only time my requests were heard during this entire ordeal. Blake’s father died of Huntington’s. Blake spent a good deal of his time fundraising. He would have wanted his death to make a difference.”
    “I’m sure it did.”
    “Dr. Reeves, I understand you want to help Lila, but she took away the only person I had left to love in this world. If you want to know why she isn’t getting better, it’s probably because she can’t forgive herself. The truth is, I can’t forgive her, either.”
    “But—”
    “Blake didn’t have to die. He needed more time.”
    “Mrs. Wheeler—”
    “Good day, Dr. Reeves. Please don’t call again.”
    Ross set the phone on his bed and buried his face in his hands, which smelled of lake water. Earlier that day, he’d have believed Lila to be the most fragile person he had ever known, a wife so distraught over the loss of her husband that she’d have rather died than live without him.
    It seemed to Ross now he might have been projecting.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
     
    Ross showered and changed into clean clothes, feeling more like a private investigator than a psychiatrist. The call to Ruth Wheeler had taken an unexpected turn, leaving him conflicted about his feelings toward Lila.
    Remembering Sarah’s final days, how much pain she had been in and how badly he had wanted her suffering to stop, he tried not to judge Lila too harshly—at least not without more of the facts.
    Ross typed “Blake Wheeler Edinburgh Surgeon Malpractice” into a search engine, looking for anything about the patient who had died under Blake’s care. Non-specific results on malpractice and Edinburgh hospitals returned, but nothing relating to Blake. Ross searched “Huntington’s Blake Wheeler” and found only a few links related to fundraisers Blake had attended.
    Ross opened the first link and clicked to enlarge a photo of the Wheelers, a stunning twenty-something couple almost ten years in the past. “Local Surgeon Donates $100,000 to the Fight Against Huntington’s Disease” the article declared. Blake, a handsome man with sandy blond hair and hazel eyes, wore a tailored black tuxedo and a rose in his lapel. He held his hand on the small of Lila’s back and had the starry-eyed look of a man in love.
    Lila smiled, her lips full and her body a good thirty pounds heavier than the skeletal figure he had fished out of the lake earlier that morning. Her natural, tilted-head gaze held admiration for the man on her arm.
    Ross clicked the back button on his browser and looked at two more recent articles. A third member had joined the Wheeler party, a man by the name of Dr. Jeremy Davis. Similar in height to Blake, Jeremy looked to be about the Wheelers’ age. His close-cropped brown hair had the faint hint of gray one might expect from someone in their thirties. He had fair skin and narrow, bespectacled eyes, which were perpetually fixed on Lila.
    Ross tried not to let his mind go to the worst possible scenario, but he’d seen too many forensic shows to wonder if there wasn’t more to Lila and Jeremy’s relationship. He added infidelity