The higher the climb, the further the fall. It’s a cliché that’s often overused, but it fit Jim Sloane’s predicament perfectly. He clutched a forty-five-degree ledge at the top of a fifty-story skyscraper. His toes dangled over a seven-hundred-foot drop, and an iron fence post, a little over an arm’s length in front of his face, dared him to reach for it. The fence was a safety perimeter designed to keep people on the inside of the rooftop, a place Jim desperately wanted to be.

    The steep angle and gravity continued to pull Jim down, but his grit and fear kept him plastered to the edge. It was not an exaggeration to say Jim hung by a fingernail. His once pristine Armani suit pants were torn, and his hair whipped back and forth in the frigid Philadelphia air. The fatigue and icy conditions overwhelmed Jim, and his tired eyes pleaded for mercy. He’d been through hell, and he’d almost survived, but almost doesn’t count when you’re fifty stories high. Just a few more inches and he’d be safe. Finally, he’d be safe.

    He pulled his feet over the edge, but his footing was about to give. With his last ounce of strength, he lurched for the iron post, but his hand missed, and he slid backward toward the drop. Death beckoned him closer, and the cliché rang in his head—the higher the climb, the further the fall. For Jim, the fall came on Christmas Day.

    As the edge approached, his life didn’t flash before his eyes. Instead, his mind filled with thousands, maybe millions, of micro-thoughts that all asked the same question.

    How the hell did he end up here?