A Conflict of Interest (15 page)

He answered, his face darkening in a way she already recognized. “God, I’m glad to see you.”

“You won’t be.” Landscaping shielded them from the quiet street at the end of his curved driveway. “May I come in?”

He scooped her inside with one arm, all but lifting her off her feet. His mouth brushed hers, and she lifted her arms before she remembered the reason she’d come. “Angela Hammond called me.”

He caught her hand as she tried to twist away from him. “I thought she might,” he said. “I should have called you first.”

“You must have been busy.”

“Why are you angry, Maria?”

He shut the door. It echoed in his long, arched hallway. Cold from his marble floor all but crept through the soles of her boots. Unless it was the cold drifting down from her heart. Jake’s bewilderment was in character, but ridiculous. He actually thought they could
pick up where they’d left off, even though he’d been avoiding her since the newspaper debacle.

“How could you talk to Griff’s family?”

“I’ve read his police file, and the school counselor got in touch after she saw that newspaper article. She thought you and I might be on the same side, so she told me I should talk to the principal. Griff has bullied some younger children, vandalized a couple of classrooms. He stole computer equipment he didn’t even need. His parents and his aunt found excuses for him. For your sake, as well as his, someone had to talk to his aunt about his propensity for violence.”

“You were the wrong choice,” Maria said. “And I begged you not to.”

“Come into the study. Sit down and I’ll bring you something to drink. We’ll talk.”

“No.” She put a round marble-topped table between them, ignoring all the doors set into the paneled walls. “When we get too cozy—” could anyone get cosy in this stuffy house? “—I start trusting and stop thinking. I’m beginning to wonder if you’re always planning your own strategy, even as you tell me what I want to hear.”

“I never lied to you.”

“But you didn’t tell me everything you’ve done to ‘help’ me.”

“I didn’t speak to Angela Hammond to stir her up against you. The kid needs help, and he’s not going back to trial, no matter what.”

“You can’t stop yourself. Griff may have learned he can get away with murder. I’ve learned a healthy respect for considering consequences before I put my neck on
the line. You continue to believe that you know how to shape the world, and that everyone will realize you were right in the end, and that Leila will forgive you. Griff’s aunt and uncle will be glad you either get them killed or get their nephew spotlighted by everyone in authority in his life. And I don’t know how you think I’m going to feel about you, or if you even care, but you can’t keep managing us all as if you’re playing a game and we’re your soldiers.”

“I don’t.” His voice was pure Jake, passionate and proud, dismissive of her accusation. He leaned on the other side of the table, his knuckles white, his face drawn. “I wanted to help you. I wanted to protect you. But in the end, that kid and his family needed to understand their own situation.”

Maria, rubbed her fist across her forehead. “I’m amazed you can’t see that this is the same old, same old.”

“I’m not blind.”

His pain reached out to her, but she put up her hands to fend him off. “You’re driving us both into a situation we can’t recover from. Leila’s going to be the daughter of a disgraced judge. Think of her if you can’t stop saving the world long enough to save yourself.”

“How could I avoid doing my duty? Why didn’t you just testify to Griff’s confession? You jeopardized yourself trying to show the jury that he needed help. Surely you can understand why I had to take the school’s information to his aunt and uncle. Wasn’t I doing exactly what you did?”

“I learned my lesson the hard way, Jake.” She moved away from the table. “Surely you can see I’m talking
about us as much as about Griff. I asked you not to involve yourself in this.”

“And I didn’t intend to turn Angela Hammond on you, but I had the same choices you did at trial. That family has two small children. If Griff is violent, someone has to help them.”

“What happened to your objectivity, Jake?”

“That’s what I don’t get about this argument. You and Leila keep telling me I have to choose a side. Well, I did, and now I get the feeling you’re saying we’re over.”

“Over?” She stood still. Even when he put his arms around her, she held back. Her heart hurt. “What was there to end? You slept at my house a couple of times. I thought we cared about each other. The paper embarrassed you. You left.”

“I stayed away from you because I didn’t want to cause any more talk.” He held her close enough that she felt his pulse thumping through his shirt. She fought her ridiculous need to forgive and forget. “About you,” he said.

“I have to take care of myself now. I have to let the board do their investigation and I need to reopen my practice. I don’t need to fight with a man for boundaries that should be second nature to you.”

“You sound like a therapist.”

“I am one, and the good I can do in my job is as important to me as anything you can do from your seat on the bench.”

“So you’re dumping me because I tried to help Griff and his family?”

“Stop saying I’m dumping you.” She pulled away
from him and immediately felt cold without the warmth of his body around her. “You disappeared. You could have called. Instead, you’re trying to fix everything behind my back. You want to make the people in this town see that I was right, and that they should accept me again.”

“You won’t hear me, Maria. I do want you to have everything that matters to you. I’d love to be the one to hand you your life back on a silver platter, but I also had to help that family.”

A phone rang somewhere. Jake glanced toward the nearest open door. The phone rang again. He swore softly. “That’s not more important than you, but I’m waiting for information on another matter. I have to take it.”

“Good luck to you and all your matters.” She started for the door. Another matter, indeed.

“Wait,” he said, and for once she ducked his reaching hand. “Wait for me. We aren’t finished talking.” His rich voice rubbed her heart raw with a reminder of the passion she was about to lose.

“Goodbye.”

“Not for good, Maria.”

The extent of his arrogance startled her. She ran to his front door and managed to drag it open. She was in her car before she looked back, but he hadn’t bothered to come after her.

Maria swallowed hot tears as she drove away. She shouldn’t have opened that door if she’d wanted him to stop her. She’d never played silly girl games to keep a guy.

She was smarter than this. Leila knew her own
father, and Maria had heard all the worst about Jake from Leila. Maria had seen him in action in court and after Griff’s verdict. But despite all the evidence, she’d convinced herself she was important enough to Jake to make him stop intervening when intervention was pointless and likely to create more havoc.

She blinked until her view of the road cleared.

It was over. She wouldn’t hold Jake again. She wouldn’t sleep curled into his body. She wouldn’t feel the pressure of his mouth on hers, or give in, joyfully, to the need she could not restrain.

She had to heal, get her own life back on track. Maybe cutting herself off from the man she’d turned to while she’d felt desperate and frightened was a first step. A second step included robbing the teens in this town of all their extra work so she could earn a few extra pennies.

On the bright side, Maria was learning to be grateful for her sister’s help. Kelly the Klown had managed to book a party in all the classrooms at Leila’s day care center.

Maria often wondered what would have happened if Bryony had introduced herself as Dr. Keaton’s sister. Someone would eventually realize that Kelly the Klown was also named Keaton.

At her own front door, Maria hitched the lapels of her coat closed and tried to paint the hurt out of her face. Her sister must have walked in just ahead of her. Still in her silky clown jumper, Bryony carried today’s green hair, but she jumped when she saw Maria.

Maria managed a weak laugh. “I scared you for a change?”

“I didn’t expect you home already. I’ll make dinner tonight.”

“Thanks. I’m exhausted. Bird…leavings have twice the strength of industrial-grade glue.”

Bryony settled her hair on the newel post. “You’re learning to just say okay. I like being the one who helps.”

“I’m also starving,” Maria said. “Sitting behind a desk isn’t manual labor. Lately, I start thinking about what’s for dinner as soon as I finish breakfast. Peter gave me a blueberry muffin this afternoon, and I swear my hands shook as I took it.”

“You sound chipper.”

She must be one of the world’s great actresses. “Getting there.” She raked her tangled hair over her shoulders. “I am grateful to you, and I’m making friends with the people I work for.” She had lots to be grateful for, even if her few days with Jake had been a baffling mistake.

“You weren’t friends with that mob before now?”

“I think half of them assumed I was guilty. Helen must be an arm twister worthy of professional wrestling. It’s only been a few days, and already that older guy on the other side of her house smiles at me when he opens his door.”

“Only you could measure a smile as progress,” Bryony said.

“And I could be wrong. They might all be desperate to have their dogs walked and their snow removed. You sound tired.”

Bryony reached behind her back for the zipper on her costume. “This was the hardest day yet. One of the kids kind of spooked me.”

“Why?”

“He asked me if I was your sister. He said his mommy told him the clown’s sister was a bad lady.”

“That’s a mood buster. What was his name?”

“These kids don’t wear name tags. I’m going to wash off my makeup.”

“I’ll get changed and make a salad.”

She’d just stepped out of the shower when the doorbell rang. Bryony was busy in the kitchen, so Maria quickly threw on a robe. “I’ll get it,” she yelled.

As she walked into the hall, she was still mulling over Bryony’s earlier comment. Which kid would have heard she was the town “bad lady”?

The second least likely person she could think of was standing on her doorstep. While Maria stared, Leila pushed inside, clutching a crumpled piece of paper. “We have to talk. Someone’s out to get you.”

“W
HAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT,
Leila?”

“I wrote it all down.” She stopped, taking in Maria’s wet hair and robe. “Is my father here?”

Maria shook her head.

“Good. We have to call the police.”

“What for?”

“Don’t wait for the details. You need the cops. Now.”

Leila’s fear was too much after trying to reason with Jake and Bryony. The soft sofa and comforting, crackling fire, the spread of newspapers and homey disarray in her living room seemed to narrow into soft focus. “You are scaring me.”

“I want you terrified. There’s a kid in my day care class—”

“Your day care class?”

Leila held up both fists in frustration, and Maria shrugged. “Sorry. I don’t understand how a kindergartner could threaten an adult.”

“You know I work at the child care center a few mornings a week, before school. I’m not always assigned to the same room because of my classes at the college. Anyway, this kid is Griff’s younger cousin, Billy.”

“Oh. Don’t worry. He’s probably the one who told Bryony I was bad.”

“Damn right he did. Where are you going?”

“To the kitchen. Do you want some coffee?”

Leila grabbed her with one hand and held out the paper ball with her other. “Forget the damn coffee and pay attention.”

“I told you, Bryony already filled me in. Why am I the only one who finally believes the jury might be right?”

“Shut up and sit down.”

Maria sat on the couch and waved Leila into a chair. “What else did the little boy say?”

“I wrote it down.” Leila smoothed the sheet of paper over her knees as if she wanted to make sure she relayed every word. “He said his big cousin—that’s Griff—was talking to Billy’s mom about that picture in the paper.”

“In the back of the paper,” Maria said, because its location was its only saving grace and, surely, Leila would feel slightly better recalling that her father hadn’t been on the front page. “Not that many fine citizens of Honesty would have read past the Haney Furniture sale insert.”

“Take me seriously,” Leila said.

“You and I can’t fix this. It’s gossip. It doesn’t matter. Time will fix it.”

Leila shook her head. Her shiny hair swung around her shoulders and she looked younger than nineteen. “Billy said that Griff told his mother he should maybe stop you from saying he killed his parents.”

Maria slid her hands down her thighs, drying her damp palms. “He said that in front of a smaller child? He had to be joking around.”

“Billy was playing under the dining room table.” Leila’s dazed eyes frightened Maria more than the actual threats. “He said he was glad his mommy and Griff didn’t know he was there because his mommy got really mad and said Griff had to stop doing that.” She pressed the paper into Maria’s chest. “That’s exactly what Billy said. I wrote it down so I could tell the police, but I came to you first because you have to take yourself out of Griff’s reach. He already got away with one murder.”

Maria shook her head, turning Leila toward the hall. “I’m not going anywhere. Griff and his aunt were probably being sarcastic.”

“Or not.”

“Angela Hammond has told me several times that I’m the guilty one. If she could pin her sister and brother-in-law’s murders on me, she’d find a way to do that, as well as blaming me for Griff’s trial, but she doesn’t believe for a second that Griff was guilty.”

Leila veered out of Maria’s reach. “I’m going to the cops. If you want to ignore a threat like this, fine, but you’re not going to be on my conscience.”

“Leila, don’t.” Maria held out her hand yet again, which Leila ignored. “Who, in this town, would believe you when you’re trying to protect me?”

Their eyes met. Leila’s earnest kindness touched Maria.

“I hate to say this,” Maria said. “Maybe we should call your dad.”

“My father?” Leila sank into the chair. “I don’t understand.”

“He’s been trying to persuade Mr. and Mrs. Hammond
to get help for Griff, and he’s already talked to the police.”

Leila knotted her fingers, unconvinced. “All right, but you should get your sister’s evidence, too.”

Maria raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah, I heard Billy tell Bryony he knew she was your sister.” She shrugged. “None of my business.”

“Do you want to call your dad?” Maria rose and climbed over Leila’s legs.

“I can’t promise we won’t argue.”

“Same thing would happen if I called him.”

She ran upstairs to Bryony’s room and knocked on the door. Bryony didn’t answer, so Maria called her name. She still didn’t answer until Maria reached the bathroom.

“What are you doing?” Bryony poked her head around the shower curtain.

“Jake’s daughter Leila’s here. She talked to Billy.”

“That’s the kid who called you a bad lady.”

“He said more than that. Rinse your hair. She’s calling Jake, and he’ll probably bring the police.” She got a towel for Bryony and set it next to the shower. “Bryony, I’m glad you’re here.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Not necessarily of Griff.”

J
AKE GAVE UP
trying to look detached. He leaned toward Tom, all his anger at Griff simmering closer to the surface than he would have liked. Tom had been his friend for years. “What do you mean you still can’t touch him?”

“I said probably, Jake.” The sheriff turned toward
Maria, who’d distanced herself from Jake upon his arrival and kept that distance since, as if they were performing some irritating dance whose steps he didn’t understand. “Dr. Keaton,” Tom said, “I can’t promise we’ll be able to do much with a note Leila wrote, based on the word of a four-year-old boy. We’ve found some evidence that might clear him of his parents’ murders once and for all.”

Bryony and Leila stared. Maria gasped, and Jake went to her. “It was that call I was waiting for. After my picture was in the paper, people started looking at my cases. I started looking.” He hated admitting he might have been wrong in court. “There was a guy who assaulted his wife. He went to prison but then his brother threatened her about the time the Butlers died. The brother lived in Pennsylvania. We found a hunting accident involving a shotgun in his past. He got a parking ticket on the square the morning of the murder. His sister-in-law is staying with her brother, three houses down from the Butlers.”

“Does that mean—” Maria was shaking. He wanted to hold her, but she’d never let him near him with all these people watching. Fortunately, Bryony edged closer to her sister.

“It means he’s being investigated.” Jake turned back to Tom. “But Griff still exhibits signs of being violent. I’m not suggesting an arrest, but let’s intervene before he gets really angry. Maria has always felt he needed help.”

Behind him, she exhaled and her relief was almost as good as an embrace. This time, he felt sure he was asking Tom to do the right thing.

“Even though I heard part of what his cousin said to Leila, too?” Bryony asked.

“He won’t make the best witness.”

“Tom,” Jake began, “can’t you talk to Griff and his aunt and uncle based on the threat? You need to know what he actually did the night his parents died if you want to go forward with the new suspect anyway.”

“He may have made a possible threat. We don’t know that the kid didn’t misunderstand. I’ve called a friend of mine in child services. Because the kid overheard, he might be in danger if Griff is a bully, so he’s our way into the house. I’ll work on Griff through his relatives. They’re not going to want to see their own child removed from the home.”

“You can take a child, but you can’t force Griff to get help?” Maria asked. Jake watched her worried expression. He’d missed her. He hated her being afraid, even for that thug kid and he felt guilty. His visit to the Hammonds might have made Griff angry all over again.

“I can threaten to take their child with a sympathetic child services officer as backup,” Tom said. “If Griff doesn’t crumble, that’s all I can do.”

“I’m—” Jake broke off. “I’d like to come with you.”

Tom picked up his cap and nodded at Maria, Leila and Bryony before shaking his head at the judge. “Jake, old buddy, you’ve outlived your usefulness.”

Even through a haze of frustration, Jake had to smile. “How long have you waited to say that?”

“Decades. Literally decades.”

Tom nodded at Maria again, in the way of a small-town sheriff. “I’ll probably drop back by to let you know what happens. Jake, you stay out of matters that don’t concern you.”

Maria walked him to the door, giving Jake a hilari
ously wide berth. Only Jake didn’t feel like laughing, and he was even more irritated when he caught a glimpse of his daughter’s amused smile. The two women in his life had adopted an “I told you so” smugness that was starting to piss him off.

By the time Maria returned, he’d prepared his argument against being thrown out. She stopped in front of him, eyeing him as if he were a stranger. “Thank you for trying to clear me. I’m glad about Griff,” she said, and that was all.

“Let him stay,” Bryony said behind her. “He’s been worried about you, and Leila’s in this now, too.”

Maria’s rigid stance wavered. She glanced toward Leila, then back at her sister.

“Clowns,” she said, and left the room.

“Where’s she going?” Jake asked.

Within seconds, a crash from the kitchen answered his question.

“We needed to wash some dishes,” Bryony said with a quick grin at Leila. “I guess breaking them all is another way to empty the sink. I’ll see if I can help her.”

“Bryony, we’re only investigating the other guy. His visit to town might be a coincidence. Maria still needs to be wary of Griff.”

Bryony nodded.

After she left, Jake risked one more rejection, moving to his daughter’s side on the couch. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. I don’t know why you had to talk to the Hammonds.”

“I’m not surprised you think I was wrong.”

“You know what, Dad? An acquittal didn’t help that
kid. He needs another therapist, or an anger management program, or something to smooth the rough edges of his out-of-body experiences. For once, I’d have thought telling his aunt and uncle what you discovered was right, except your visit to their house made him angrier, and he’s frightened Maria.”

“She doesn’t seem to have your common sense, honey. She’s not afraid.”

“She should be when she stops being mad at you.” Leila put her hand on his shoulder and gave him a little shove. “Go see her.”

“You don’t mind?”

“She’s my friend, too, and I don’t want to lose her because you’re a jerk.”

“Am I, Leila?”

“Kind of,” she said. “But don’t let that weigh on your conscience. You never have before.”

“I do feel bad about the past,” he said. “That’s why I’ve been trying to see you since I found out Maria was your psychologist.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’ve run a courtroom for nearly ten years, but I can’t find an appeal that reaches two stubborn women.”

“That is correct.”

“I didn’t expect to feel this uncertain at my age.”

“M
ARIA?”

She nearly dropped the plate she was handing to Bryony when Jake spoke from the kitchen door. Bryony, ever subtle, set plate and tea towel on the counter and bounded for the hall.

“Thanks,” Jake said as she neared him. She nodded,
muttered something unintelligible and stepped on his feet on her way past.

Maria laughed at his flinch. “Imagine if she was wearing her big work shoes,” she said.

“I don’t want to share clown jokes.” He crossed the room and touched a dollop of soap bubbles locked into a wave of her hair. She pulled back.

“You don’t know what it means to me that you’ve tried to clear my name. I thought having you believe in me would make everything right. But then you made it all worse. Maybe you can’t see that interfering—”

“I see.”

“Oh. That lets the air out of me.” She turned back to the sink. He picked up Bryony’s tea towel. She eyed it, her hands deep in soapy water. “What if I asked you to go back out there?”

“I’d go. Leila’s having such a good time snubbing me.”

“I don’t feel bad for you,” Maria said, but the hours since she’d left his house had doused the angry flame in her green eyes.

She was soft again, and he wanted to hold her. He wanted to hold her every time he was near enough to wrap his arms around her subtle curves.

“You have empathy, though,” he said. “You’ve been an outcast. You know how lonely I am without you and Leila.”

She ignored his opening. “I’m surprised you didn’t force your way into Sheriff Drake’s car.”

“Angela Hammond is about one confrontation away from shooting you and me down on the courthouse square, and they won’t persuade Griff to consider ex
plaining what happened at his parents’ home, if his aunt is banging around him in a rage.”

“They probably won’t get him to talk. She’s reinforced his anger. Her support has probably convinced him he’s been right all along.” Without thinking, she rinsed a plate and passed it on. “You should talk to Leila.”

“She won’t talk, but she is bending. She sent me in here.”

“She was afraid when she came to warn me about Griff. She needs you.”

“I need both of you.”

With a soapy hand, Maria plucked the towel from him. “That’s not going to happen.”

He held on to the towel’s hem as if it were a connection that bound them. “Don’t avoid the subject of us. What kind of psychologist pretends nothing is happening when something most definitely is? Are you afraid to get involved with me? Because I’m not afraid, Maria.”

“I don’t care if this means I’m bad at my job.” She tugged until he wasn’t holding the terry cloth anymore. “I want to be good at life, too. I want to believe in you and trust that you won’t override what I’m thinking and feeling, that you won’t run with what’s best in your mind, instead of what matters most to me.”

“So we live a relationship your way or no way at all?” He started for the door. “I’ve had experience with that approach.”

“No. You can’t dismiss me with some barb about your past. The problem is, when you decide what you think is best, considering what I want doesn’t even occur to you.”