The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance

hanging opposite my only window, and wished the cinder-block walls weren’t quite so blindingly white.
    “The big three-oh,” I said to nobody, and pretended like I was shaking a non-existent party noisemaker. The admissions nurse and aide were out with gastroenteritis, and the night-shift secretary was two months from retirement. She showed up only when it damn well pleased her to do so. Which was never.
    So, here I was, Dutch Brennan, celebrating a milestone birthday in New York City, all by my lonesome.
    Some things never changed.
    In my opinion, most things never changed. My father taught me that, along with a lot of paranoid things about how dangerous the world could be.
    Just when you think it’s OK, baby girl — boom. Here come the monsters.
    Then he’d put me through my paces. Sayokan: Turkish martial arts. I’d trained four days a week, almost every week of my life. If I ever met a monster, I was ready - but I guessed most monsters were scared of Riverview Psychiatric Hospital. I hadn’t met any since I came to work here just after residency and fellowship. Hadn’t met too many friends, either, which is why I was having a birthday at work.
    My only gift to myself was a fresh-brewed pot of Starbucks Verona — brewed in the ancient pot down the hallway — mixed with a packet of no-fat cocoa. At least the fresh, nutty scent competed with the hazy stink of orange cleanser, bleach and old-stone-building mould. The rich perfection of chocolate-spiked coffee flooded my mouth and warmed my throat as I leaned back against my rattletrap wooden desk, careful not to bump my computer monitor or topple the stacks of last week’s paperwork.
    “Maybe I should buy myself a condo someplace warm, like Malibu,” I told the clock, which silently informed me that it was 3 a.m., and I still had four boring hours to survive before I got to slog home through the snow. But the condo idea - maybe that did have some merit. After all, I was a doctor. And I had dark hair and kind of naturally tanned skin.
    “But I’m too full-figured to fit in with the beach bunnies,” I admitted to the clock. “I’d probably never score a date in Malibu.”
    Like I ever gave myself a chance to get a date in New York City, either.
    How long had it been since I’d done something other than work the night shift, then hit the gym?
    Four years?
    Five?
    The back buzzer blasted through the cool silence of the entire admissions area. I jumped so hard my coffee almost sloshed onto the sleeve of my lab coat.
    Oh, great.
    My heart thumped high in my chest, like it was thinking about making a break for my throat.
    Nobody but the NYPD ever came to the back door, and they probably had a patient to drop off. I stepped out of my office and blinked at the darkened admission hallway. Even though there were five floors full of patients and nurses and aides above my head, ground level was totally deserted.
    What if the cops had brought me Godzilla on Crack?
    I glanced at the phone on my desk and reluctantly killed what was left of my coffee then threw the cup in the trash.
    No big deal.
    If I was uncomfortable with the patient, I could always ask the officers to stay for coffee while I completed my evaluation. If things got really hairy, I could call up to the patient floors and get some help.
    For now, this was just more of the same. Probably nothing I couldn’t handle on my own, like I did everything else.
    I walked out of my office into the admissions hallway and covered the forty-foot distance to the back door as quickly as I could. Outside, I figured I’d find uniformed officers, and probably some poor homeless man or woman in handcuffs and blanket, sporting a wicked-evil case of frostbite on toes and fingers. Definitely the season for that. Had to expect it.
    When I hit the intercom button, a gruff voice said, “NYPD. We got an evaluation for you, Doc.”
    The metal handle was ice cold when I gripped it and pulled open the door to reveal the two uniforms I expected, and—
    Whoa.
    OK, so this, I didn’t expect.
    “We found this guy wandering on the Triborough Bridge just before midnight.” The officer’s voice barely penetrated my consciousness as I stared at the “patient” standing between the two officers. “Central Emergency stitched him up — said it looks like he chopped himself up with a couple of Ginsu blades. Self-inflicted wounds. He hasn’t said a word since the paramedics scooped him up.”
    I stood there, just as mute.