A Conflict of Interest Read online

  Jake repeated Buck’s argument. “They died in their home. If he found them, all of that evidence makes sense.”

  “Or he didn’t bother to clean himself up before he called nine-one-one.”

  For once Jake didn’t want to be any devil’s advocate. “Thanks for the files, Tom. I am sorry about upsetting your assistant.”

  “She’ll forgive you. By the way, since the case is closed, Griff was able to recover his stuff from evidence, including the journal.” Tom waited at the door. “And I don’t like to get in a man’s personal business, but if this is about that doctor, you don’t need to go public. Don’t make my department look bad so you can feel good about her.”

  Would he do that? Destroy confidence in the police department to clear his conscience about being with a woman? “If you hear anything more about this case, you’ll let me know?” He couldn’t tell Tom whether his interest was in justice or in clearing Maria.

  AFTER EACH MORNING’S paper route, Maria returned to her house, gazing warily at the newly draped decorations. She was so poor she wouldn’t be offering anyone a commercial Christmas this year. Inside, she turned her back on her unpaid bills and took a nap. It was the only time she slept well, because she was too tired to think.

  Days slipped by, bringing Christmas closer. Maria usually loved the celebration of family and hope, but this year she was afraid. She felt cut asunder, and she missed her mother. She longed to hear her sister’s uninhibited laughter, but she was used to being the strong one, the reliable Keaton. She couldn’t face them until she felt good about herself again.

  In unguarded moments, she imagined turning to Jake, but she’d sent him firmly away, so she had only her fear of losing everything to keep her company.

  As an antidote to her dark mood, she left her debit and credit cards with her checkbook in the desk drawer at home and joined the crowd siphoning into the Sugarplum and Snowflake forest in the heart of Old Honesty, where Santa held court. As soon as she arrived, though, she realized she’d made a mistake. Having already spent every penny she could afford on gifts this year, she walked around like a shooting victim, testing the pain in her wound.

  She couldn’t find comfort. Each colorful light seemed to mock her. Laughter burrowed under her skin as people looked away from her. She might never belong again.

  Her frustration grew. Bad enough to be unemployable, but now she felt as guilty as if she had done something wrong. It was a relief when she got so fed up with averted faces and her lack of Christmas spirit that she found some healthy resentment. She didn’t have to quit or give in or act guilty. She refused to hide or stop looking for work.

  So she applied for a position as Santa’s elf. She approached Old Honesty’s business manager first, but he referred her to Santa, who ran his own show. She took her application to jolly old Saint Nick in a corner of his peppermint-studded house, but Santa shook his pink cheeks at her.

  “Are you kidding?” He pulled down his beard. “I’m Marvin Henry. I live about three houses from Griff Butler’s old place. That kid has problems, but I seriously doubt he killed his parents. And even if he did, Buck has me wondering whether your actions didn’t make Griff do it.”

  “I went two years without prompting anyone to murder, but suddenly I got the urge to flex my megalomaniacal muscles?”

  “Miss, I don’t need an elf who’s looking for her next victim. These kids come up here to tell me their dreams.”

  Her mouth literally dropped open. But not for long. “I would never hurt a child. My whole life has been based on helping people, and yet I’d go after the most vulnerable? Never. Buck threw a disgusting stereotype at the jury. These days people have to believe that authority figures hurt others in their care. Like a sick Santa in a small-town shop. But a wise neighbor extends the kindness of looking for proof from an otherwise blameless woman. Something not even St. Nick can do in this town.”

  Marvin actually blinked at her. “I guess that’s your side of the story.”

  “The truth.”

  He reached into his pockets. “Maybe I’d want someone to question whether I was guilty in similar circumstances.”

  “That’s all I’m asking.”

  “I still can’t hire you.” He actually looked troubled as he pulled a stick of peppermint from his red, fur-lined pocket. “May I offer you a candy cane?”

  “I can’t afford a dentist. Better lay off the sugar.”

  He nodded with a shaky smile, and she went away pulling at her collar as if she were catching her breath after a brawl.

  She’d been turned down by almost everyone in Honesty who had a delivery schedule, a cash register, trash to haul, laundry to wash, papers to type or phones to answer. But no one until Santa had reduced her to reckless anger.

  Her own four walls, soon to belong to the bank, had begun to drive her a little insane with their intimations of failure. She fled to the library with the newspaper and reworked her résumé on her laptop. She’d already canceled her Internet service at home, but using the library’s public terminals she looked up an updated local business listing that gave her leads she hadn’t been able to find in the phone book.

  She’d keep passing out résumés until they showed up on light poles like missing puppy posters.

  Halfway down the long aisle to “her” carrel, she found Jake, leaning over a back issue of the paper. He straightened when he saw her, and his eyes went all watchful and self-protective. She couldn’t tell if he was remembering the way they’d kissed each other, or if he feared she might attack him in the way of all pervedout psychologists. But maybe that last was unfair.

  She hadn’t heard a word from him since Thanksgiving.

  If she ever got her license cleared, she’d remember how she felt at this moment before she blithely told a client that healing only came when he learned to let go of a grudge.

  “How are you?” Jake asked.

  “Good. Not busy enough.” Quite an understatement, but she hoped to sound jaunty. She put one hand to the shoulder strap of her laptop case. “And you?”

  He crossed his arms over the paper so that his elbows and upper body covered most of the print. Maybe she was desperate for someone to analyze, but Jake looked as if he was trying to hide something.

  “Research,” he said.

  She tried hard not to look, but in the end she saw half of Griff’s solemn face staring back at her above Jake’s sleeve.

  “Holy—What are you doing?” She set her laptop on the headlines, glancing furtively at the patrons around them. “I asked you to leave it alone.”

  “I want to know about the case. I wasn’t allowed to research the news reports before.”

  “But now you can, to better judge if I’m a liar?” she asked.

  One of the librarians rose from her chair at the information desk. Maria’s face grew as hot as a frying pan. “Your snooping will only make it worse. I couldn’t convince the jury, and no one else wants to believe me now. Even if I could prove Griff did what he said he did, he’s free because of double jeopardy.”

  “I’m not doing this for Griff. Obviously, I’m thinking of you.”

  Her knees went weak—but not with ever-loving passion. “This thing between us is crazy,” she said. “I don’t want to give people anything else to hold against me.”

  A frown creased his forehead. How had Leila ever misunderstood her father? His feelings were right out there for anyone to see.

  “So you’ve already heard talk about us?” she asked.

  “What is it with you? I sit on a bench all day—for years—and no one ever knows what I’m thinking. Now you can read my mind.”

  She gave him her best “come on” look.

  He sat up, obviously deciding there was no point in hiding the paper now. “Yeah, I’ve heard some stuff.”

  “So why won’t you listen to me? You don’t know best. Everyone will think I only abandoned my sick interest in Griff to chase a man who could get me my job back.”

 
His mouth went thin. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

  “Nice,” she said. “You’ll never learn to believe me.” But maybe she could look at it another way. Maybe he didn’t think she could be interested in him for anything except ulterior motives. Something had to be behind his inability to trust anyone’s emotions.

  “I’m trying to believe everything you’ve said. But these stories are full of Griff’s innocence. Put everything he said together with the journal, and I have to wonder at least what was in his head.”

  “The journal?” Her stomach slapped at her feet. “You have that?”

  “What if I do?”

  Lying wasn’t his best skill. “Don’t test me, Jake. I see what you’re trying to make me say.”

  “So say it.”

  That husky tone in his voice usually tempted her. But, this time, anger trumped desire.

  “I have said it, over and over, and you choose not to believe.”

  “I don’t have the journal.”

  “You really were testing me.”

  As she was on her way anywhere but near him, he rose and caught her arm. “I’m out of my depth. I don’t know what to think, and I can’t manage to hide anything from you.”

  “You’re not supposed to hide things from people who—”

  The librarian started their way this time. Thank God. She’d saved Maria from claiming she mattered to Jake.

  He eased her into the chair across from his and waved off the poor woman trying to keep the peace.

  “The journal was part of Griff’s personal effects, but if you think about it, a careful read might have given us something to refute his claims.”

  “Don’t you see that reading it would have meant Griff was partially right? I’d have been almost the worst kind of therapist.”

  “But not interested in seducing a client,” Jake said as if reminding her.

  “Never that,” she said, uncertain whether to laugh with relief or simply pretend she didn’t consider his acceptance a gift.

  Jake sighed. “I have the case files and the public record and I’m playing detective. Maybe I can find something all the other investigators missed.”

  What more powerful way was there to admit she mattered to him? In turn, she didn’t want him to compromise his own reputation. “You don’t have to do that for me.”

  “I’m doing it for me, because I’ve hurt you and I wish I hadn’t.”

  “You didn’t make that call, Jake, and wishing you had only hurts my feelings.”

  “Maybe that’s what bothers me most.”

  Across the table, the attraction she couldn’t control swirled between them. She wished the room would empty. “It doesn’t change anything. I was your daughter’s therapist. I pretty much single-handedly set a killer free, and I’m a scourge in your neighborhood.”

  “You couldn’t prove you’re innocent,” he said, reaching across the table to rest the tips of his fingers against hers. “Maybe I can.”

  She felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She remembered his dark hair beneath her chin as he’d made her breasts ache. She felt a familiar emptiness that was growing too painful to bear.

  “You and I are both doing things we’ve never done before. It can’t be right.” She found her feet.

  “Why not consider that we both need to try something different to make our lives right?” Jake asked.

  Maria shook her head. The familiar—and the safe—comforted her. “Let the board do its investigation, but leave everything—and everyone—else alone. Don’t jeopardize your place in this town.”

  She marched to a table close to an electrical socket, but far, far from Judge Jake Sloane.

  MARIA WAS CONCENTRATING on not looking at Jake when her phone vibrated in her jeans pocket. She jumped up and hurried across the library, not daring to miss a call that might mean a job interview.

  Outside, in the vestibule, she got a shock when she looked at the caller’s name. Gail Keaton. Maria hit the talk button. “Mother?”

  “When are you going to fix all this, Maria? You were always my good girl. The one of us who knew what to do next. I saw another article in the paper today. It was disgusting.” She rattled the offending newspaper. “Oh, this is last week’s, but they seem to assume you—”

  Another shock. Maria hadn’t realized her mother had ever noticed. She sighed, with the weariness that was rapidly becoming her constant companion. “I didn’t—”

  “Sleep with a kid? Why would you do that? Even I—”

  Sometimes Even I started a confession that made Maria want to set her own ears on fire. “I didn’t do it, Mother,” she cut in. “He lied. I’ve already told you that.”

  “That jury believed him. Juries are smart.”

  “But I’m not a liar. I don’t care who believed him. I didn’t do it, and I’m trying not to mind that my mother thinks I did.”

  “I don’t, necessarily. I just wonder if you’d want to be honest with me. Why didn’t you tell me when all this first started?”

  “I didn’t think you’d be interested. Most of our communication comes from…” She stopped.

  “The checks you send me? I appreciate the help. You know I do, but, obviously, I want to hear if you’re having an affair with a younger man.”

  “Mother, sleeping with a sixteen-year-old boy is abuse, not an affair, and you don’t have to assume that paper is telling the truth and I’m lying.”

  “Don’t get mad at me. People do it all the time these days, and I called because I’m worried about you.”

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath and let it go. Grudges against her mother never ended well for either of them. “I’m glad you called, because I needed to let you know I might have to stop sending you help, Mom. I’m suspended from working.”

  “I’m worried about you,” her mother repeated. “I didn’t call about the money, although that does give me pause. You know I don’t have a retirement fund.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Your sister’s been helping me out, too. Clowns do a surprisingly good business.”

  Maria shuddered. Clowns scared the crap out of her. How kids didn’t run screaming when Bryony showed up in all her big-shoed, green-haired, maniacally smiling glory was beyond anything Maria would ever understand.

  “You should maybe ask Bryony for help, Maria. She could show you how to do the makeup. Give you a few of her gigs.”

  It was as if her mother had never made her acquaintance. “That’s certainly an idea, but I need to go. I left my laptop open in the library when I came outside to answer your call.”

  “Oh, dear. Someone will steal that. You go back now, but let me know what’s going on with you.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “If I were you, I’d get that diary back before it ends up in a paper or online somewhere.”

  Maria turned slowly toward the white French doors that separated her from the library’s main collection room. And the comfort of being near Jake.

  She just had to pray that her mother, Buck Collier and Griff Butler didn’t think alike.

  “I didn’t do anything. Whatever the kid wrote is fiction.” But what if Jake thought it was the only place he could find the truth? What if he pressured Griff’s aunt and uncle for a look at that journal? They’d let him see it because he had power.

  He could speak out for their nephew against a prowling cougar.

  She couldn’t bear the thought of Jake reading lies the jury had believed.

  “Maria, did you hear me? Get that thing back before someone sells it to a tabloid and you find yourself on one of those fair and balanced inquisitions.”

  “I love you, Mom. I have to go.”

  “You’re not listening to me.” Gail sighed. “Well, I hope that means you aren’t worrying too much. I’m sure you’ll get your work back soon.”

  Her mother might have bad taste and not nearly enough respect for herself when it came to men, but she maintained a consistently sunny attitud
e that she was happy to share. Looking at the world with a little less optimism and a touch more acuity might have kept her out of gallons of her own hot water over the years.

  But for today, Maria latched on to her mother’s point of view.

  “Thanks for the advice, Mom. I’ll call you.”

  She hit the off button and slid her phone back into her pocket, trying to catch her breath. The idea of the diary showing up in the media made her feel ill. But the thought of Jake hunched over that scratched-up, worn-out, thick-with-writing notebook made her nearly crazy with panic. She cared about him, and she wanted his good opinion. She’d hate for him to believe the ugly things Griff Butler must have written.

  Maria pushed into the collection room. Jake hadn’t moved. He looked up as if he sensed her coming. Without taking her customary moment to consider repercussions, she slid into the chair next to Jake’s, not sure what she was going to say.

  The librarian was up again. Maria ignored her. No one and no rules mattered. She didn’t even care that she was about to make herself look totally guilty.

  “Jake,” she said, “please don’t try to get that diary from Griff’s aunt and uncle.”

  He stared at her, his breath warm on her mouth, his eyes sad and watchful enough to make her feel lost. At last, he lifted his hand and nudged her bangs out of her eyes.

  “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

  She caught his hand, then pushed it away from her, because the thing she wanted most was to pull him close and confess that she was afraid and desperate enough to risk even the self-respect that had been her most valuable trait. “Don’t read that thing.”

  “I won’t,” he said, and if they’d been anywhere except a library, she’d have thrown him onto his back and kissed him senseless. “If it matters so much to you.”

  She didn’t know how to thank him. She felt too vulnerable to speak. He might not know she’d just admitted that clearing her name meant less than keeping him from even imagining Griff’s ugly fantasies might be true. With her throat as tight as a closed fist, she nodded and hurried to her own table.