Chapter One

	I logged in the PlaceCare app on my phone as I sat parked in the Alpine Side parking lot. You see if you don’t log in from the parking lot the app says you are not in range. Something to do with the building interference the office stated. Why it works at Cross Central Nursing, even on the fifteenth floor in the snack room I’ll never know.
	I signed in at the front desk, the receptionist was having to deal with some resident no doubt. And off I went to the third floor room 317, Dorthy Izato.
	Mrs. Izato used to be a psychology teacher at one of the industrialized cities major universities. She had many certifications hanging on her wall, to prove her academic achievements. Trinkets from all over the world were sprinkled on the walls and shelves of her place. A small sampling of what she once owned, in the house her and her husband shared for over fifty years. He’d passed two years before, she toughed it out for as long as she could. The memories were too much, and the nights were too quiet. She succumbed to the Alpine Side after seeing one too many of their commercials. She missed him terribly. He had charmed her the first day he met her, and then would let nothing break the spell. Some people don’t believe in true love, other people simply create it and make it a reality.
	She was recovering from surgery for a rotator cuff tear and would require help with her ADLs (Activities of Daily Living).  She was also listed as a fall risk, which in her case meant wheelchair bound. Front door would be unlocked.
	I opened the door to her apartment, a loud blaring blast of bings and bells filled the distant room. High pitched squeals of excitement almost drowning out the announcer, “You won a new car!”
	The door closed automatically behind me and I rounded the corner to meet Dorthy. She was probably all of ninety six pounds soaking wet, pale, frail, and sunken blue eyes. Whoever she once was, the person in this body now never knew her.
	“Mrs. Izato? I’m Carla Swit, your caretaker from Helping Hearts Home care. I’ll be here for six hours every day to see to your needs. Help you bathe, dress, run whatever errands you might need.” I smiled at her, but she never looked away from the television set.
	Nine am to three pm is the shift, so I sit in the living room with a watchful eye on Dorthy.
	Eleven am she finally stirs, and starts to try to get out of bed to walk to the restroom. I rush over to stop her, but she grabs a gray aluminum rollator from the side of the bed and waves me off.
	I follow close behind her,a nd she leaves the door open so I can see she isn’t about to fall.
	“I’m not the risk they think I am.” she complained sharply. “You’re here because they say their insurance wont cover me if I fall again. Well I didn’t fall.”
	“You didn’t fall?” I questioned.
	“I was pushed.” The toilet flushed and she walked past me back into bed setting the rollator back on the side.
	I felt a quick flush of anger. “Who pushed you?” I was about ready to knock a sucker out. Who would push this frail old lady.
	“I don’t know.” she then turned and looked at me for the first time. Her eyes looked deep into mine, “All I saw was dark gray pants and a light grey hoodie. I was looking down at my mail when he was walking towards me. He was in such a hurry he rushed past me and our shoulders collided. I reached out,” she reached out with her hurt arm a small bit and grimaced with pain. “To catch my balance so I wouldn’t fall. But I was in a spin from the force of the blow. All I saw was him rushing away.”
	“And you know it was a man.”
	“He grunted when our shoulders smashed.” she looked back at the television. “Anyway thank God Gertrude was checking on Margerite, she called the front desk and I whisked off to the hospital.” she turned back to me, “Can you believe they said I tore my roator cuff? And that I was a fall risk.”
	“Did you tell them about the man?” I inquired.