“I told you! Didn’t I tell you? I knew this was going to happen.”

Liza slung her bag into the back of the car and slid into the driver’s seat. Her stomach churned. She’d missed lunch, too busy to eat. The school where she taught was approaching summer exam season and she’d been halfway through helping two students complete their art coursework when a nurse had called her from the hospital.

It was the call she’d dreaded.

She’d found someone to cover the rest of her classes and driven the short distance home with a racing heart and clammy hands. Her mother had been attacked in the early hours of the morning, and she was only hearing about it now? She was part frantic, part furious.

Her mother was so cavalier. According to the police she’d left the back door open. It wouldn’t have surprised Liza to learn she’d invited the man in and made him tea.

Knock me over the head, why don’t you?

Sean leaned in through the window. He’d come straight from a meeting and was wearing a blue shirt the same color as his eyes. “Is there time for me to change?”

“I packed a bag for you.”

“Thanks.” He undid another button. “Why don’t you let me drive?”

“I’ve got this.” Tension rose up inside her and mingled with the worry about her mother. “I’m anxious, that’s all. And frustrated. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve told her the house is too big, too isolated, that she should move into some sort of sheltered accommodation or residential care. But did she listen?”

Sean threw his jacket onto the back seat. “She’s independent. That’s a good thing, Liza.”

Was it? When did independence morph into irresponsibility?

“She left the back door open.”

“For the cat?”

“Who knows. I should have tried harder to persuade her to move.”

The truth was, she hadn’t really wanted her mother to move. Oakwood Cottage had played a central part in her life. The house was gorgeous, surrounded by acres of fields and farmland that stretched down to the sea. In the spring you could hear the bleating of new lambs, and in the summer the air was filled with blossom, birdsong and the faint sounds of the ocean.

It was hard to imagine her mother living anywhere else, even though the house was too large for one person and thoroughly impractical—particularly for someone who tended to believe that a leaking roof was a delightful feature of owning an older property and not something that needed fixing.

“You are not responsible for everything that happens to people, Liza.”

“I love her, Sean!”