Hush

She hesitated and then said she’d have one, too. She needed Archer as her ally and wanted to get in sync with him. After snagging the bartender’s attention with just a lift of his chin, Archer ordered their beers and turned his attention back to her.

“I wish I had more time,” he said. “I’m supposed to be up in the ballroom for some kind of photo op in fifteen minutes. But until then I’m all yours.”

“Then I’m going to be perfectly honest with you,” she said, holding his gaze. “I don’t have much to go on. But I have a vague sense that something weird might be happening at the clinic.”

“Weird how?”

Lake’s left shoulder shot up instinctively.

“I’m not sure.”

He raised his beer bottle to his lips, not bothering with the glass. She sensed his impatience, though he was doing his damnedest to contain it.

“Was it something you saw-or overheard?” he said after taking a long drag of beer.

“As I said on the phone, I’m a marketing consultant for the clinic. While I was doing research there last week, I found a copy of the article you wrote about the fertility business. I was carrying it around, planning to read it later, and one of the partners saw me with it. He grabbed it away from me-like he didn’t want me to see it.”

Archer raised his eyebrows. They were white, like his hair.

“Is that it?” he asked.

She hesitated and looked off to the side. Her concerns were also based on the “snag” Keaton had mentioned. But she couldn’t tell Archer that. She watched him take another swig of his beer. His hands were large, huge really, and slightly ruddy, like his cheeks. No wedding band. When he set the bottle down, he looked directly at her.

“Yes,” she said. “Like I said, I don’t have much to go on. I just thought if you could tell me what irregularities might exist, it would help me figure out if something was actually going on.”

Her whole body had begun to prickle with anxiety. She’d not only just betrayed the clinic but suddenly she had the sense that she’d left herself exposed.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, clearly picking up on her discomfort.

“I’m worried I’ve opened a can of worms-perhaps for no reason.”

He watched her for a moment and then shook his head.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Because you’re not the first person to suggest there’s something bad going on there.”

16

HER MOUTH PARTED in surprise. It was a validation of what her gut had been telling her and yet his words were still a shock.

“Who else told you that?” she asked.

“First tell me about this Dr. Keaton,” he said. “Did you know him?”

At the mention of Keaton’s name, she could feel the blood rush recklessly to her face. She reached for her beer bottle, which she’d left untouched so far, splashed a little into her glass and took a sip. The coldness soothed her raw throat.

“Just in passing,” she said, avoiding his glance as she set the glass back down. “I’ve only worked at the clinic for a few weeks.”

“Do you think someone from the clinic might have killed him?”

Lake was slightly surprised by his direct question, but also relieved not to have to beat around the bush.

“It’s possible,” she said. “We learned yesterday that he’d given one of the nurses a set of his apartment keys and she’d left them in her desk. Someone could have swiped them and made copies.”

“Do you think there could be a connection between his death and the suspicions you’ve had about the clinic?”

“I’ve definitely worried about that. Though this all could just be a coincidence,” she said.

“You know what I’m going to say, of course,” he said with his eyebrows raised. “As a reporter, you learn there are few coincidences.”

“Can you please tell me what you’ve heard about the clinic?” Lake urged.

“Okay. About two months ago a woman called my producer Rachel out of the blue. She’d come across the same article you saw while she was doing a search online. She’d been a patient at the Advanced Fertility Center-of Dr. Daniel Sherman specifically-and said that we ought to do an investigation of the clinic. She claimed they were exploiting innocent patients and they needed to be exposed. My article was on Washington area clinics-I was living there at the time-but the subject overall interests me.”

“What did she mean by exploiting?”

“She refused to go into it on the phone. She set up a meeting with Rachel but Rachel had to reschedule because of some breaking news. Then, the day before their appointment, the woman called to say she had to reschedule and would get back in touch. That was a few weeks ago and we haven’t heard from her since.”

“What do you think she could be referring to?”

“Take a guess. You’re the one who works there.”

“I’ve never seen anything suspicious, but then again I’m not involved with the patients in any way. Plus, the fertility world is pretty new to me. Something could be going on right under my nose and I wouldn’t know it.” She paused. “You mentioned in your article that some clinics encourage procedures people don’t really need. That may be a possibility.”

“They could also be inflating their success rates,” he said. “That’s a big factor when someone is choosing a clinic.”

“I read that in your piece, that some clinics do that. I can’t believe there isn’t outside auditing done on those numbers.”

“I know. It’s a three-billion-dollar business with lots of competition and very little government regulation.”

Was the clinic capable of such things? Lake wondered. Overcharging desperate couples? Pumping up their success rates? Both Levin and Sherman-and Hoss, too-were certainly arrogant, and arrogant people often played by different rules.

“So there’s a chance this woman could be right?” Lake asked.

“It’s possible-though Rachel said she sounded like a bit of a nut job. Some high-maintenance Manhattan type who’s never been denied anything. I called the clinic myself and talked to Sherman. That’s probably why they had my article on file-they must have checked me out. He told me that this woman had emotional difficulties because of her failure to conceive and that her claims were baseless. I’d caught him off guard and he was pretty pissed. Said if I had anything further to say, I should speak to his attorney.”

“Is that why you haven’t tried harder to connect with her-because she might be unstable?”

“Partly. I’ve also been swamped with stories lately. But in light of Keaton’s death-and then your call-my interest has shot way up. Something could be going on there that needs to be exposed.”

Lake picked at the wet label on her beer bottle as her mind raced. Maybe Keaton had stumbled onto the fact that the clinic was involved in wrongdoing and had threatened to expose them. If the doctors there were engaged in unethical activities and the truth was brought to light, everything would be lost-not just the clinic, but people’s reputations and careers, even their medical licenses. That offered a perfect motive for murder.

But one detail still didn’t jibe. According to Maggie, Keaton had changed his locks since the late winter. If he’d uncovered something negative about the clinic then, and was concerned for his safety, why return this summer? Unless he decided it was his duty to dig up more evidence.

When she looked up she saw that Archer had slipped a credit card from a weathered brown wallet and was laying it on the bar.

“I hate to split,” he said, “but the publicist for the show is going to have my head if I don’t get up there on time.”