Hush

“No, but thanks.”

Lake’s heart was racing as she hung up. She’d suspected last night that something like this might be coming. They knew she was onto them and, of course, they couldn’t allow her on the premises anymore. And yet the news still felt like a hard kick in the gut.

She tried to calm herself. Everything seemed to be closing in on her-but she couldn’t let it. She would leave for the coffee shop in two hours. Her only hope at this point lay with Maggie.

24

AS LAKE WAS about to toss the phone down, it rang yet again. It was a cell phone number she didn’t recognize

“Lake, hi, it’s Harry Kline. Have you got a minute?”

His voice had that familiar soothing tone, but she bristled at the sound of his voice.

“What is it?” she asked. Was he calling to forewarn her about her situation and then ask how she was feeling? she wondered bitterly.

“There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“If it’s about me getting my walking papers, I’ve already heard.”

“No, it’s more than that. Can you meet me this morning?”

“You can’t tell me over the phone?” she said impatiently.

“No. I’m at the clinic and I’m not comfortable talking here-even with my door closed. I could just hop in a cab and meet you. Are you home now?”

That was the last place she wanted to meet.

“Um, why don’t we meet in Riverside Park? By the entrance at Eighty-third Street. That would be easiest for me.”

He said he would be there in twenty-five minutes. She threw on a skirt and a top and pinned her hair up in a loose bun. Her mind raced, trying to figure out what Harry wanted to tell her. Things must be tense at the clinic right now. Harry may have overheard a heated discussion about her. Or perhaps he picked up on something in the air and began snooping around himself.

She was at the park ten minutes early. On the walk over she’d reassured herself that nothing could happen in daylight on a busy street, but she was still hypervigilant. There weren’t many people in the park-an elderly woman tossing birdseed to pigeons, a few mommies and nannies watching toddlers in a sandbox. People were away on vacation. Like she used to be in August.

“Lake?”

She spun around in surprise at the sound of Harry’s voice. He’d also arrived early. He was dressed in his standard dark pants and cobalt-blue dress shirt.

“Thanks for meeting me,” he said. “Shall we find a bench?”

They walked farther into the park. Across the Hudson the buildings in New Jersey gleamed in the sunshine and through the trees she saw a speedboat slicing through the water, leaving a row of foam. It made her remember last night, holding on to the pylon for dear life in the deep, dark water. Harry motioned for them to take a seat on an empty bench.

“So what is it you need to talk about?” she asked. As she caught his eyes, she was shocked at how troubled they seemed.

“Look, I may be on the periphery of things at the clinic,” he said, “but I’m involved enough to know that something isn’t right.”

It was all Lake could do to keep from shaking the words out of Harry.

“What do you mean exactly?” she said.

“I don’t like what’s going on with you.”

“With me?” she blurted out.

“The way they’ve just suddenly terminated your agreement.”

“I told you I was aware of that,” she said. “I haven’t received the letter but I hear it’s on the way.”

“But are you aware of what they’re saying?”

“No-what?” she said hoarsely.

“As soon as I heard that they’d ended things with you, I asked Levin why. He said that you’d been unprofessional. In fact, he said some of your behavior could even be categorized as unethical.”

“What?” Lake exclaimed in shock. “Did-did he explain what he meant?”

“He said you’d been caught going through patient records. I pointed out that part of your job is to gather information, but he said he had reason to believe that you were passing confidential details about our procedures on to another clinic.”

Lake’s eyes welled up in anger.

“That’s a lie,” she said. “I would never do something like that.”

Harry leaned back against the park bench, his face pensive. A light breeze lifted the waves of his black hair. “Do you have any idea why he’s claiming it, then?”

“I-no, I don’t,” Lake said. She wondered why Harry was sharing all this with her. Was he trolling for information of his own?

“You don’t know? Or you don’t want to share it with me?”

“Maybe I should start by asking what your role is in this,” Lake said. “Why are you being so forthcoming?”

Harry bit his lip, as if hesitant to say.

“We’ve only known each other a few weeks, but I like you, and I respect you a lot,” he said after a moment. “It’s hard for me to buy what Levin said. And I want to help you if I can.”

“Help me?” Lake asked. She could feel her anger close to the surface. “Like you helped me when you told the police things about me?”

“What are you talking about?” Harry asked, looking surprised.

“When we were having coffee last Sunday, you pointed out that I’d seemed unusually upset after the murder. And then suddenly the police are at my apartment, telling me that someone told them the same thing.”

He took a deep breath and leaned toward her.

“So that’s why you were so cool to me the other day. Lake, I give you my word-I never said anything about you to those detectives. For starters, I’m a therapist, and breaking a confidence runs against every instinct I have as a person and everything in my professional training. Secondly, I’d never do anything to hurt you.”

She studied his face as he spoke. His eyes, his mouth, his body language-everything suggested he was telling the truth. But as he’d just pointed out, he was a therapist, someone all too familiar with how people could be manipulated and fooled.

“Look,” he added. “I can see that you’re still skeptical. So I’m going to admit something that seems ridiculous to put out there right now, but it may lend me an ounce of credibility.”

He lifted his shoulders and flipped over both palms in an almost boyish gesture. “The reason I asked you for coffee the other day is that I was looking for an excuse to be with you. I’d like to go out with you, Lake. So the last thing I would have wanted is to put you in any kind of weird situation with the cops.”

Lake almost laughed at the sheer absurdity of it all. People were trying to kill her, the cops might suspect her of murder, and this guy was confessing a crush on her.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I mean-”

“There’s no need to say anything at the moment. We can cross that bridge later. The thing we need to deal with right now is your situation with Levin and Sherman. There’s obviously been some kind of terrible misunderstanding and we should clear it up. I’d be happy to intervene.”

Lake shook her head emphatically.

“Thank you, but once I get the letter from Levin and have a chance to digest what he’s saying, I’ll make my case with him myself.”

“Is there anything I can do, then?”