Double Jeopardy (22 page)

“Halsey wouldn’t say what had happened, and Gemma couldn’t tell me....”

“...Sera called yesterday. She told me she was with him last weekend, asked me not to say anything....”

Instantly, Gemma remembered what had happened, the terrible sense of betrayal she’d felt when Ben told her it was Sera he cared about. He’d even gone to San Diego to see her, while all the time he’d been sending the poetry here, to Gemma. He’d been deceiving both of them.

Papa had to be told. Papa would know what to do.

The pain of betrayal and the fury she’d felt came back full force, and she struggled up. She steadied herself on a table and then on the hallway doorjamb, as she headed for her bedroom and the box containing the poetry.

Although she was dizzy and disoriented, she made it back to the kitchen, where she flopped down in a chair, put the box with the poems in front of Maria and pulled off the lid.

Tears started again, tears of frustration and anger. She gestured to her mother for a pen and paper.

She had to show her parents how dishonest Ben had been.

Her mother read first one poem, then the next, her brow furrowed.

“Where did these come from, Gemma?”

Halsey
, Gemma wrote with violent strokes.
He wrote these, sent them to me....

Maria studied Gemma’s face for a long moment. Then she handed the sheets of paper to Aldo, and he read them, his mouth tight, slapping each down on the table as he finished it.

Gemma wrote,
You see why I thought...and he said things, too, that made me believe...

“How do you know it was the doctor, Gemma?” Maria’s tone was neutral.

Gemma glared at her mother. Why didn’t Maria ever just believe her? Why did she always have to question everything? Papa never did; he took her word for it.

I don’t know anybody else who’d write this stuff
, she scrawled.
They started coming right after the accident, and he’s been making out with Sera, too. He’s been lying to both of us...he’s one of these weirdo’s who want to make it with twins. Sera and I’ve met some before.

Aldo’s face went grim. His jaw tensed as he read Gemma’s words. “He can’t get away with this. He’s a doctor.” Aldo’s tone and the expression on his face made it clear how furious he was. “Ryngard, he’s on the hospital board. He was the one I dealt with when they hired Cardano’s for the construction.”

“Aldo, wait. Don’t do anything too fast.” Maria’s face was troubled. “What if someone else wrote these. What if—” she picked up a poem and held it out to her husband “—what if maybe, say, it was Jack?”

Gemma threw herself back in her chair and rolled her eyes. That was so ridiculous. Jack was a machine operator; he had no education. There was no way he could write poetry like this.

“Kilgallin?” Aldo’s face mirrored Gemma’s feelings. “No, Maria. That’s crazy talk. Jack’s on my crew. He’d never write...” He pointed at the poems and swore in Italian.

It was a relief for Gemma to hear that her father thought exactly the same way she did.

“Jack’s a good man,” Aldo went on. “A good, hard worker, but all this romance stuff?’’ Contemptuously he waved a hand again at the poetry.

“Jack’s no sweet-talking phony. Gemma’s right. This comes from that goddamned Halsey. He thinks he can make a fool of my girls.” He shoved his chair back and got to his feet, sending it crashing to the floor. He cursed, a long stream of Italian. “He’s not getting away with this.”

Maria tried to stop him, but Aldo stormed out.

Gemma’s head was aching. She needed to go back to bed and sleep off the medication. She stood up, but her mother caught her hand and held it, staring up into Gemma’s eyes.

“Cara, I know you’ve been through a lot, but this is serious, what you’re saying about the doctor. Did he kiss you or touch you? Did he do anything to make you think he cared? Besides these.” She gestured at the poetry. ‘‘Because your sister really likes this man. I know from her voice on the telephone.”

Sera. For Mama, it was always about Sera. The wound was an old one, and it tore open as Gemma jerked her hand away. Hysterically, she nodded over and over, yes, yes, yes, Ben had led her to believe he cared.

He held me in his arms,
she wrote. It was the truth; he had held her today. She remembered the strength of those arms, restraining her. As she hurried to her bedroom, sobs tearing through her body, she was unable to admit even to herself how wrong her assumptions had been.

Sera tried to subdue the irritation she felt. “Pasquale’s decided the scene in the living room will take place in the kitchen, instead,” she told her crew. Her boss’s sudden changes of venue were making her nuts. She’d just get all the details of a scene mapped out and he’d change his mind about where it should be shot.

“Now we need to locate a wood burning kitchen stove, kettles, pots, maybe one of those irons they used to heat up on the stove, and a wooden table. For starters. Damn, there goes my cell.”

Impatiently, she pulled it out of her handbag.

“Hi, Mama.” Apprehension rippled through her. Maria never called her on her cell, always overly conscious that it would cost Sera money.” Mama, what’s wrong?”

Sera listened, frowned, shook her head at the barrage of words. “Mama, please, slow down and start from the beginning. Gemma says what?”

She moved away from the crew, turning her back for privacy. As she listened again, her fingers tightened on the phone. Shock rippled through her.

“Let’s see if I got this right, Mama. Gemma’s been getting love poems, and she thinks Ben wrote them? What makes her think that? Did you read them? Did you talk to Gemma about this, Mama?”

Aldo always took Gemma’s word for things, but Mama didn’t. Maria looked deeper, questioned more.

Beginning to feel sick, Sera heard her mother explain that whoever had written the poems was definitely pretending to be in love with Gemma.

At Sera’s insistence, Maria read several of them over the phone.

Sera tried to imagine Ben writing them. She didn’t know if he wrote poetry; it wasn’t something she’d thought to ask. Would these be the sort he’d write? They weren’t great, but they weren’t the work of a rank amateur, either.

With a knot in her stomach, she remembered that he’d had volumes of poetry in his condo, on the makeshift shelves beside his bed. Every muscle in her body tensed when her mother told her that Gemma truly believed Ben had come on to her. Of course, Maria didn’t phrase it that way; she said that the doctor had ‘made a pass’ at Gemma, taken her in his arms. Whatever the language, the meaning was the same.

Maria went on to say that Aldo was in a rage, that he’d gone to one of the hospital administrators to complain about Ben’s actions.

Sera was stunned at how quickly everything was falling apart. She burst out, “But shouldn’t Papa have talked to Ben first?”

Sera couldn’t help but think of the ugly ramifications of this whole mess for Ben. Part of her just couldn’t believe that he’d done what Gemma was accusing him of. But in the back of her mind was the memory of how visibly relieved he’d been when she’d insisted she was a career woman, not interested in a long-term relationship.

Some demon had kept wondering if that meant he was dating other women as well as her. She’d never dared to ask; he’d seemed so honest with her, so--infatuated.

He’s a love-’em-and-leave-’em sort of guy. The word is he deals in multiples, one after the other after the other.

If he’d dated that many women, maybe twins represented a whole new challenge for Ben? Sera shuddered. Was he the type of man who considered the sexual conquest of twins a major notch on his belt? She didn’t think so, but how could she be sure? Vancouver and San Diego were a long ways apart, and she really hadn’t known him very long.

Her mother was asking her to come home, saying that Sera needed to talk to Gemma herself, to get to the bottom of this. Sera forced herself to think about the set, and whether or not she could take the weekend off.

“I’ll try, Mama. I’ll phone and let you know.” Sick to her very soul, she hung up.

“I could start calling stores,” the young gofer suggested.

Sera looked at her, totally unable to figure out what the girl was talking about. She felt icy cold and shaky, as shocked as if she’d been in a smashup.

Maybe she had.

If Ben had done what Gemma insisted, then Sera had just suffered a serious collision of the heart.

The phone call from Earl Ryngard came just as Ben was preparing to leave the office.

Ryngard was the chief of staff who headed up the Medical Advisory Committee at St. Joe’s. That he had rigorous standards for both dignity and morality among physicians was well known, and he’d made it apparent that he disapproved greatly of Ben’s and Greg’s high spirited antics before Greg’s accident and subsequent marriage to Lily. He’d never come out and said openly that he considered their behavior a disgrace to the hospital, but his attitude was clear. He was always formally polite to Ben, but Ben sensed an undercurrent of disdain and censure.

Ben had often seen Ryngard having lunch with Roderick Miller, Vera’s uncle, and Ben was certain Miller had given Ryngard his version of Ben’s marriage to, mistreatment of, and divorce from his niece.

The very fact that he was calling put Ben on guard. They exchanged pleasantries, but a certain note of triumph in the other man’s voice alarmed Ben, and he got to the point quickly. “What can I do for you, Earl?”

“There’s been a complaint, Ben, and I wanted to speak to you about it before mentioning it to anyone else.”

Ben’s heart sank. He thought he knew what it involved; he’d tried repeatedly to speak to Aldo Cardano, with no success. The other man had turned his cell phone off and only the answering machine responded at his home number. Ben had planned to visit the construction site in the hope of seeing Cardano.

“It seems a female patient has suggested there may have been sexual misconduct during your treatment of her.” Ryngard could barely conceal his satisfaction. “Her father is a man I know and respect, and he came to me directly.” Ryngard’s voice had taken on an unctuous quality that set Ben’s teeth on edge. “Of course the board is under obligation to take any such suggestion very seriously indeed. As a fellow physician, I felt it only fair to ask you for your side of the story.”

“We’re discussing Ms. Gemma Cardano—is that correct?”

Ryngard confirmed that it was.

Although Ben’s heart was hammering, he forced his voice to sound totally neutral as he summarized and repeated exactly what had happened between Gemma and him.

“I assure you there was absolutely nothing inappropriate in my dealings with Ms. Cardano,” Ben concluded.

“Her father mentioned the existence of, humph, certain poetry of a romantic nature,” Ryngard said. “He says his daughter is convinced you wrote it.”

“Well, his daughter is wrong.” Ben’s control was slipping. “I don’t know anything about this poetry, and I can assure you that writing poetry and mailing it to my female patients is not one of my pastimes.”

“Yes. Well, of course we’re left with the nasty reality that this is your word against hers, Ben. Perhaps it would help if you spoke to Mr. Cardano directly. The board prefers that complaints of this nature be handled immediately if possible. They can be most damaging to the hospital’s reputation.”

Ben held on to his temper with the utmost difficulty.

“I’ve been trying to do exactly that all day, with no success. Mr. Cardano has evidently decided not to speak to me,” he replied between clenched teeth.

“Yes. Well. That’s most unfortunate, because Mr. Cardano said that he’s also considering going to the newspapers. And making a complaint to the College of Physicians and Surgeons.”

Ben could hardly believe what he was hearing. “In other words, he wants me tarred and feathered and run out of town.”

Ryngard’s laugh was gloating. “He did say he doesn’t think you should be practicing. I don’t want to sound precipitate here, Ben, but it might be a good idea to contact a lawyer, just to clarify exactly where you stand on this matter.” Obviously Ryngard was thoroughly enjoying this.