A Conflict of Interest (5 page)

“Thanks, Beth. I’d like that a lot.” She stood back. “Would you like a—” she glanced down the hall toward the kitchen “—something?”

Beth chuckled. “I’ve arrived in time. You don’t even know what you have to eat or drink?”

“It’s been rough. People seem to be lining up on Griff’s side or mine.”

“For once, I can offer you good advice. Don’t hide out here.” Beth hugged her again and then inched toward the door. “I’m going to skip your generous offer of ‘something.’ I have errands to run and several guests arriving at the lodge tonight to get in some last-minute fishing before the holidays.”

Maria walked her back onto the small, covered porch. “Thanks for the pep talk. What can I bring Saturday?”

“Aidan likes your sweet-potato soufflé,” Beth said.

“Perfect.” Sweet potatoes and brown sugar wouldn’t deplete her small bank account too much. “And what time should I show up?”

“Early is good.” Beth patted her shoulder. “Try not to worry. The rats will swim back to the ship.”

Maria laughed for what felt like the first time since the trial had ended. “I know you grew up with Griff’s mother and aunt, but thanks for being on my side, too, Beth.”

“You didn’t know you could count on us?” Beth started toward the sidewalk. “Thanks to you, my son acts like any normal teen. He doesn’t lurk in his room. He gets angry with me and resents Aidan and loves his baby sister.” She peered back, her hair flying in the cold wind. “My child is interested in life because you treated him. You are a hero at our house.” Beth lifted her hand in a brief wave. “Bad stuff fades if you wait it out. Isn’t that what you told Eli?”

“I just needed someone to remind me. See you next Saturday.”

L
EILA HAD
stood him up again. From his colorful red chair in La Fiesta’s window, Jake watched a crew arguing over dead bulbs as they strung the last of the holiday twinkle lights in the market.

He checked his watch. Also dead. Then he pulled out his phone to see the time. He got a jolt as he read the ID of a missed caller. The Psychology Review Board.
He’d dialed them and finally gone as far as letting the phone ring before hanging up.

Nice. Grown man so distracted by a need for sex that he’d betrayed the rules he lived by—do the right thing. Don’t sway justice. Don’t cheat on your wife. Don’t abandon your daughter to day care and teenage angst. Be objective and do the right thing, even when it hurts.

Calling the review board had hurt. This time, doing the right thing could destroy someone else. Maria’s practice might not survive investigation. At least in Honesty.

A sudden movement caught Jake’s eye. Outside, halting so suddenly her scarf lifted in the cold breeze to touch her face, was Maria. She was tired, and weariness only made her look more fragile. The sweet curve of her mouth made him drop the phone.

She took a deep breath and pulled her mittens out of her coat pocket. He felt hot as he recalled furtively shoving the dropped one in her mailbox after a visit to his Aunt Helen, who lived in Maria’s neighborhood. Maria watched him, with a kind of hungry concentration that reflected all his desire for her. Shaking her head, she plunged into the crowd on the street and walked away from him.

He picked up his phone. There was the board’s number—orange on black. To call, he had to push one button.

He pushed the off button instead and dropped the phone onto his folded coat. Why did he feel so damn guilty?

A
FEW DAYS LATER,
Maria was in her office, going over notes for her earliest appointment, when the door opened and a man she’d never seen before entered.

“Dr. Keaton?” he asked, looking official in a crisp suit, snowy shirt and thin black tie.

“Do you have an appointment?” Obviously not, but she was stalling for time to assess the stranger. The whispering that had dirtied her name in the past couple of weeks had made her wary.

“I have this,” he said, pulling a letter out of his pocket. “From the Psychology Review Board.”

Ah. Thank you, Buck Collier.

She took the envelope, willing her hand not to tremble. “Thank—” she started, but he turned and left before she finished. The ultimate show of disdain.

Instead of his face, she saw Jake’s, his expression closing as all his worst suspicions were confirmed by this letter. She tried to see what Beth had seen—his hands on hers, his head bent toward her with concern.

She shook her head, trying to free herself. Wanting too much from Jake was no answer.

She peeled back the envelope’s flap, knowing she was suspended, that the Psychology Review Board would be investigating Griff’s accusations. She had to reach the few clients who’d stood by her, reassure them that they would be all right.

The letter was brief. She was ordered to cease treatment of all clients, and not to offer her services unless and until the investigation cleared her.

Despite her assumptions, seeing it in print was a punch in the gut. The paper slipped through her fingers, onto the blotter.

Her job was everything. Opening her own practice had assured her of a chance to stay whole, never to depend on anyone else for her safety.

She pressed her fists to her chest. This could mean her house, the car she’d bought last fall, the rent on her office. Her savings wouldn’t hold out long. The desk clock, a memento she’d saved through countless childhood moves, rang the hour. Nine tinny chimes.

Her first appointment was due at ten. She had to start making calls.

First, she made a list of local therapists and called the two men and one other woman to ask if they’d be willing to take on some of her client list. Then she started calling her clients. She couldn’t even offer to see them one more time, to ease them into the change.

She came to Leila Sloane’s name. She’d tried not to let her feelings for Leila be colored by her attraction to Jake, but helping Leila find a safer way to endure the pain of her parents’ divorce had also let Maria feel closer to him.

Leila said she’d survived on the outside of her family all her life. She had been the good girl whose understanding Jake and his ex-wife had taken for granted. They’d assumed she hadn’t noticed the dark silences and the soft, cold arguments. They’d assumed the better relationship that had come with their postdivorce truce, with Kate living in D.C., had been as much a relief to Leila as it had been to them.

Of all Maria’s clients, Leila was the one most unprepared to be abandoned again.

The young woman, barely nineteen, answered her cell phone. “Hey, Dr. Keaton. What’s up?”

“We need to talk.” That was a mistake. She couldn’t bring Leila into the office. The suspension was effective immediately.

“I have some time now,” Leila said.

“Where are you?” Leila worked at a day care in town.

“At my house. I’m off today, and Mitch is due any minute. We’re going for a coffee, but I can try to put him off.”

“No, that’s fine.” She wanted Leila to have someone around. “I’ve had some news today that affects you and all my clients.”

“What news?” A wary note crept into Leila’s voice.

“You heard what happened during Griff’s trial?”

“Those ridiculous accusations Buck Collier brought up?”

“Naturally, the Psychology Review Board had to take them seriously, so I’m under investigation.” Silence as profound as the grave thickened from Leila’s side of the conversation. “I’m not allowed to see you or any of my clients until the board clears me.”

“What?” Leila’s voice climbed higher.

“It’s nothing,” Maria said. “A bump in the road. But you shouldn’t discontinue your therapy, and I have some suggestions for you. Doctors I’ve already spoken to.”

“My father did this.”

The phone went silent but Maria barely noticed. All she could hear was the drumming of her pulse in her ears.

Leila had finally confirmed what Beth had hinted at—the horrifying idea that Maria had kept at bay since the day of the verdict.

Jake actually thought she’d had an affair with Griff Butler. And, now, he was going to do what he always did—the right thing. Without even bothering to ask for her side of the story.

J
AKE RAN HOME
at the first recess to pick up a file he’d left on his desk the night before.

But when he reached his desk, the file was nowhere to be seen. He rummaged through the detritus of last night’s work and finally remembered he’d taken it upstairs when he’d gone to bed.

After a quick dash up the stairs, he snatched the file off the nightstand beside his unmade bed. He’d just made it back to the bedroom door when the phone rang. Late for court, he thought of ignoring it, but he hadn’t ignored a phone call since Leila had moved out of the house in anger.

“Jake?”

Maria. He still hadn’t made that call to the review board. When he heard her voice, and his pulse stuttered like a failing engine and his body grew heavy with wanting, he understood the depth of his problem. He’d never willingly taken a step outside of the straight and narrow, but he’d ignored his responsibility to the community by not reporting Collier’s suspicions about Maria. Worse, he’d pretended he hadn’t been thinking of her since the verdict. “Are you all right?”

“You need to call your daughter.”

“My—Leila? How do you know my daughter?”

“You need to call her. Please don’t ask me why, because I can’t say, but you need to do it.”

“Wait a minute, Maria.” His thoughts rushed ahead of him. “Why are
you
telling me to call my daughter? How do you know Leila? What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer at first. Indecision came through her silence. “Just do it. Don’t overthink.”

He wasted no time being insulted. “Okay.” But he wanted to know, and Leila obviously wouldn’t explain what was going on.

“I’m hanging up now.”

“If she hasn’t told me, she won’t—”

Too late. The phone went dead.

A crash exploded downstairs. Thank God. He hadn’t heard that sound since Leila had last busted through the front door eighteen months ago, shouting, “Mom, I’m home.”

He reached the bedroom door in about half a step. The file in his hand crumpled against the door frame. Nothing like an angry divorce to teach a man family was more important than his job. He tossed the file toward his bed and met his daughter at the top of the stairs.

“Leila? How did you know I was here?”

“Called the courthouse first.” Breathing fast, she grabbed the newel post. A tall, lithe wand of rage. Damp strands of dirty blond hair stuck to her face.

“Why are you crying?” He tried to hold her, but she put her hands on his chest and shoved him so hard his back hit the wall.

“Why do you always screw up my life, Dad? Don’t you have anyone else to torture?”

“Leila.” He touched his chest as if he could feel the pieces of his heart that only his daughter would ever own.

Kate had insisted that he was as detached with them as he made himself be in the courtroom. He’d tried to show Leila that wasn’t true, but he’d started trying too late. Her pain cut deep.

“Screwing up your life is the one thing your mom and I both tried hardest not to do.”

“You talk a lot, Dad, and you pretend you see everything.” Leila waved her hands as if she might be able to produce magic. “You see nothing. You don’t even know how to pay attention.”

“I don’t understand you, and I’m a little worried. Maria Keaton just called me and said you and I needed to talk.”

“That’s what I mean. You’re clueless.”

“I am.” But he was trying with all his might to get at least one clue. “Can you calm down some?”

Maybe she only exhaled, but it sounded like a hiss as the breath left her body. Half expecting her to shove him again, Jake stayed against the wall.

“What’s wrong, Leila?”

“The first time I needed you, I was in kindergarten and you were my show-and-tell. I told, but I damn sure couldn’t show because you forgot to come to my classroom.”

“Forgot?” Once more, he rubbed his chest. He’d rather she’d thumped him again with her fists. “I never forgot. Are you sure I wasn’t busy?”

“Mom said you forgot.” She pushed back her hair, gulping.

“Honey, I think you’re going to be sick.” It wasn’t a good moment to suggest her mom might have lied in anger. Or disappointment. “I never meant to let you down.” He took a step toward her, but that only seemed to infuriate her again. “You’re not mad at me right now because of something I didn’t do when you were in kindergarten?”

“Are you really this blind?” She pressed both hands to her face. “I shouldn’t get personal.” She looked up again. “Maria,” she said. “Maria Keaton.”

“I told you, she called.” He struggled to make some sense of this conversation. “What the hell is going on with you and Maria? How do you even know her?” But as he asked, he began to understand.

“My doctor,” Leila said, her tone so cold his blood seemed to freeze.

“Your doctor.” He repeated the word, but he barely comprehended. “Your doctor,” he said again. “Why do you need a doctor?” Images flew through his mind, his barely-a-toddler daughter laughing as she’d pedaled her tricycle like a guy in the Tour de France. A few years later, running to him with a bee-stung finger he was supposed to make all better. He’d always been the parent in their family. Kate had rarely been available. He’d listened to other men talking about their daughters turning into strangers, and he’d counted his freaking lucky blessings. His daughter and he had been through the wars in a dysfunctional family—and he’d managed to protect her from most of the battles.

Then, in college, she’d stopped talking to him or crying on his shoulder. She’d tried to stop needing him. “Why are you seeing a psychologist, Leila?” What was
wrong with his daughter, who’d grown too mature for him to reach?

She misunderstood.

“You’re ashamed, Dad?”

Maybe he’d become so adept at keeping pain private, he didn’t know how to let even Leila see his true feelings. “Never,” he said. “I’m sad that I didn’t know something was wrong. And I’m afraid. How long have you been seeing Maria Keaton?”

Leila scrubbed at her tears.

“Tell me,” he said, hardly recognizing his own ragged voice.

Leila lifted one arm, then pushed up her shirtsleeve. The blankness in her eyes distracted him at first. He couldn’t see what she was trying to show him.

Then she shook her arm, like a talisman.

He moved closer, enough to see raised pinkish welts on his beautiful child’s skin. Crisscrosses, like a pattern of tracks.

“Leila?” He felt sick.

She pushed back her other sleeve, and that arm was scarred, too. Jake looked her up and down, fighting tears of his own.

“My God.”

Neither of them moved. He heard his daughter breathing. Now was the moment to fix things.

“How long have you been doing this to yourself?”

“You are blind, Dad.”

“My girl.” The words escaped him. For the first time in his life, in Leila’s life, he couldn’t stop first to make sure he wasn’t saying something wrong.

Panic had him by the throat.

“Leila.” He cried out for the lost little one who’d trusted him all those years ago with her secrets and her fears and the anger she’d since learned to turn inward. He reached for her, but she yanked her sleeve down and turned away. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” He’d heard her tone before, when kids were desperate and afraid and grasped at defiance in a last attempt to save their secrets.

“I—” He couldn’t think. All those years he’d tried to do the right thing for Leila. Apparently, he’d made everything worse.

“Tell you what, Dad?”

He could let her push him away emotionally, as well as physically, or he could wade in and try to drag his daughter to shore. “I don’t know.” He rubbed his mouth. “But I want to know. I’d like to help you.”

She whirled away from him, her hair clinging to her face and her throat.

He’d been passive. She’d moved out after the divorce, refusing to talk. He’d tried to give her space, to help her by not forcing her to accept their new life until she was ready. Now he had to act, even if he only put his arms around her. He had to make her see how much he loved her.

“Help me?” Her voice was harsh. “You took away the one person who’s been able to help me.”

“Maria.” He cleared his throat. “How did I take her away from you?”

“You did the wrong thing. Like always, Dad.”

He tightened his hand on her arm but immediately loosened his hold, too aware of those scars beneath her sleeve.

“I didn’t do anything.” He touched her hair. “I didn’t even call the review board.”

Leila eased his hand away. “I’m not sure I believe you.”

“I should have,” he said. “I’ve been telling myself every day that I ought to, but I didn’t.”

“You actually gave Maria a break?” Her wide eyes pushed the years away.

“Tell me why you’ve been cutting yourself.”

“I don’t anymore.” She faced him, toe to toe. The last time they’d really talked had been the day he and Kate had told her they were splitting up. “I wanted to hurt you, Dad. And Mom.”

“Because of the divorce?”

Some of his incredulity must have seeped into his voice. She yanked free of him again. “So I’m nineteen. Old enough to handle my parents’ divorce. Only I haven’t.”

Eighteen months yawned between them. Eighteen months of surface chatter and saying nothing that mattered.

“Your mother and I both thought you were okay.”

She grabbed at her sleeves with her fingers and pulled them half over her hands. “You thought what you wanted to think.”

And his daughter had been left with nowhere to take her pain, except to the privacy of her own room, then her house, where she’d sawed at her skin because no one could make anything better for her anymore.

“Leila,” he said, choking, “can I put my arms around you?”

“No, Dad.”

“Then prepare yourself to stand here and talk for the rest of the day, because I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“When was the last time you really saw me? I’ve worn long sleeves for two summers and you never even noticed.”

“Maybe I’m an asshole.” There couldn’t be much doubt. “But I love you, and I won’t let anyone hurt you.” He went blank for a second. “Not even you. Or me.”

“I always have something sharp, Dad.”

His first instinct was to say, “Don’t threaten me,” but just in time, he came to his senses. “I won’t let you hurt yourself ever again.”

Her eyes closed. “This is pointless and juvenile, and I can see you’re appalled.” She began to breathe harder, as if she’d been running.

He touched her tentatively again. “I’m ashamed of myself for not…”
Knowing you at all
wouldn’t comfort her. “Knowing what you needed.”

“Sure. Whatever.” She jerked away. “But Maria is the one who helped me, and I told her you were the one who set the shrink cops on her.”

Leila should have been his only concern, but he couldn’t forget Maria’s desperate grip on his hands on the courthouse steps, her disillusionment when he couldn’t give in to her pleas on Griff’s behalf. His daughter needed him. He didn’t want to care that Maria must hate him. “I didn’t do that, Leila.”

Leila stared at the dark wood floor. Her mouth moved as if she were trying to speak, but she couldn’t get the words out.

“You can’t talk to me?” he asked.

She half smiled, but her eyes filled with tears.

“You still look like my Leila.” The second he said it, he knew he’d made another mistake.

Her smile was gone. “I’m not your Leila. I’m my own woman.”

“But I am still your father, and I’d do anything to keep you safe.” He rubbed his own arm.

She refused to look at him, but her hesitation offered hope, as she seemed caught between running away and needing to stay. “What happened with you and Mom?”

He couldn’t tell her that her mother had only one hobby—other men. When Leila was forty-five, protecting her would still be his responsibility. “I want to give you something that makes sense, but we stopped loving each other. I don’t know how that happens.” And even pretending it had been that simple made him feel like an idiot.

“You fell out of love, so a divorce was my high school graduation present.”

Actually, it had been Kate’s. The day he’d come home and found Kate and her latest in his bed, he’d wanted to throw her and her skinny-assed lover through the nearest window. The only thing that had kept Kate out of a windshield and him out of prison was the inescapable fact that Leila would have had to learn the truth about her mother.

He and Kate had stuck together for several more foul months, thinking Leila didn’t need the added stress of a divorce before she graduated, and that after, she’d be mature enough to take a version of the truth. By unspoken agreement, they’d never explained her mother was a serial cheater.

“We couldn’t live together any longer.” Nothing he’d ever said to her was more true.

“Mom stopped loving you because you stopped coming home.”

“Did she?” Any man would defend himself, but he couldn’t. He’d accept all the blame. Whatever it took to stop Leila from hurting herself and keep her talking. “I had a responsible job,” he said. “People depended on me.”

“Try to convince yourself, Dad.”

“Tell me what you think.”

“You and Mom made my life a lie for years. You said you loved each other every day. In the car, over dinner, when Mom talked to you at the office. And they were lies. Every time, for how many years?”

All he knew was that those words meant nothing anymore except when he said them to Leila. “We thought once you were eighteen—”

She nodded. “Old enough to vote, but not old enough to drink or get over a divorce. I still don’t get it.”

“Then talk to me. We’ll sort it out. You can’t ask me not to try, honey. You’re my daughter. I took you to kindergarten. I bandaged your skinned knees. I made you mac and cheese when you wanted comfort food.” From scratch, because he’d been sure those little boxes her mother favored would preserve her till Earth men colonized Pluto.

She stared at him as if he were a poisonous snake who’d reared up to strike. “Did Maria talk to you about me?”

“What?” Did she know about his attraction to Maria? If she knew how much he wanted her doctor, how
would that help her handle the divorce that still obviously tortured her?