A Conflict of Interest Page 2

Buck pointed a vindictive finger. “You can’t control this boy now that he’s come to his senses. He understands you abused him.”

  “Your Honor.” Gil went off like a rocket.

  Maria turned to the jury, Griff’s last hope. He needed treatment, and they held the power. But Buck had come up with the perfect offensive defense. If the jury thought she’d seduced a kid in her care, they could set a possibly murderous boy free on their own unsuspecting community, on his younger cousins and their parents.

  “I never hurt Griff. He and I discussed only the problems that brought him to my office, and none of those problems included an inappropriate relationship between us. I care about this boy as I care about all my clients, but I did not sleep with him.”

  Jake banged his gavel once. “Dr. Keaton, Collier, Daley, this remains my courtroom, and you’re all perilously close to contempt.”

  “I’m sorry.” She turned to him. His black gaze was a wall that bounced her back. “No one seems to realize what’s at stake for that kid.”

  “You were telling us how deeply you care for my client, Dr. Keaton.” Collier leaped on her apparent weakness. “Enough to ruin his future after he rejected your sexual advances?”

  Jake turned in his chair, silent, menacing. Behind Maria, the jury rustled like debris swept up in a tornado.

  “Stop, Mr. Collier, or I’ll walk you to a cell myself.” Jake’s voice seemed to shatter Collier’s bloated confidence. “Bailiff, take the jury out.”

  The men and women stepped on each other’s heels, trying to size up Maria. She glanced at Jake. His thoughts were as plain as Buck’s. Griff’s defense had already created at least one instance of reasonable doubt.

  She turned to stare after the jury. Would her word be enough for them? What would happen to the rest of her clients when word of Griff and Buck’s story got out? She was no martyr. What would happen to her and her practice? Her future?

  The soft thud of Jake’s fist dropping onto his desk made Maria jump, but she couldn’t look him in the eye. She didn’t want him to think the worst of her.

  For two years she’d been trying to make this small town her home, ignoring speculative looks from new neighbors who were reluctant to accept someone they considered unconventional. But she’d had compassion on her side. Over time, she’d helped enough loved ones to be allowed her place in Honesty, and she’d grabbed it with both hands and all her heart.

  And then her heart had drawn her toward Jake Sloane. After the party, she’d remembered only him, exuding power borne of his comfort in his own desirable skin.

  They’d met many times. She’d sneaked glances at him as they’d worked together on food lines and discussed changes on the Friends of the Library board. She’d cleaned litter on the edges of town with a group that included him. But before any relationship could develop, he’d become off-limits.

  One morning, his daughter Leila had made an appointment with Maria. During her sessions Leila had revealed arms and thighs scarred from the cutting she’d started after her parents’ acrimonious divorce.

  Leila didn’t want her father to know she needed help. According to her, he thrived in his own detached world, and he didn’t care to be disturbed. She swore her father was so neutral he’d try to argue both sides of sin at the pearly gates. A bad quality in a father, but it guaranteed he’d run an objective courtroom.

  Maria might have kept her distance from her patient’s father like a good little psychologist, but she sure as hell didn’t want Jake Sloane, the man she’d wanted from across many rooms, to think she’d seduce a kid who depended on her.

  “Buck,” the judge said, “I don’t want any more of your opinions. If you have a theory with merit, share that, but no more innuendo.”

  “Your Honor, I’m allowed—”

  Jake held up his hand. “To argue an alternative theory, which you are not doing. You’re not suggesting Dr. Keaton murdered the Butlers?”

  “No, sir,” Buck spluttered.

  “You’re not allowed to slander a witness. Stop testifying for your client. If he has something to tell the court about Dr. Keaton, the jury wants to hear it from him.” Next, he turned to the prosecutor. “Mr. Daley, we’ll take a brief recess so you can instruct your witness on protocol, and so she can regain her composure. All of you, remember why you’re here, or you’ll be giving me your excuses from jail.”

  Jake rose, impossibly tall, his face as harsh and fine as a sculpture. His long, capable fingers grazed the desk, just inches from Maria.

  Her heart beat in her throat.

  He stared at her as if she’d grabbed him, as if he could see all the unsettling images in her head, of his hands on her, of her whispering, I’ve wanted you so long.

  Maria almost laughed. She was a freaking casebook. Young woman whose father had died when she was too young. She’d searched for authority, even while she’d rejected it.

  Falling for Jake was a cliché, and yet she couldn’t breathe as he walked away. His robes ballooned, and the scent of clean male brushed her. He left through a door behind the paneled wall, and she fought with sheer will to stay upright.

  CHAPTER TWO

  GRIFF SCRAPED BACK his chair and followed a deputy out of the courtroom. Buck walked behind his client, glowering at Maria.

  Gil headed to the witness box then hustled her to the hall, bending close to her so no one in the gallery could hear his anger. “What are you thinking? I warned you Buck would pull something. You should know how to handle him.” With a hand at her elbow, he urged her toward the office he was using during the trial. He shut the door behind them.

  “I didn’t expect what they said.” She could hardly explain that she didn’t want Jake to see whether Griff had spun credible fantasies in that diary. “Who would believe I’d—”

  “The jury,” Gil said. “Buck’s hoping they’ll believe you ratted Griff out to get back at him for not wanting a relationship with you. You’ve even got Sloane looking uncertain.”

  “He’s not supposed to choose a side.”

  “That’s how bad you’re hurting my case. You’ve got a guy who never sides with anyone, giving you the once-over because you have an urge to nurture a kid who killed his parents.”

  “He doesn’t belong in prison, Gil. He needs care.”

  “He needs bars and round-the-clock guards. If a kid his age can kill his parents, what comes next?”

  “What if he didn’t do it? He tried every way he could think of to make me read that journal. What if his confession is one more trick, but it got out of hand?”

  “What if you’re the most gullible human being ever born? You’d better stop letting your heart bleed for Griff and think about where you belong.”

  “I’m no idiot. I know I could lose my job.” Even innocence couldn’t wash away the stain of suspicion in a small town. “But this kid came to me for help, and I feel responsible.”

  Gil pulled out a chair at the room’s lone table and, after she sat, took the seat across from her. “Are you kidding? You’ll have so many calls tomorrow you’ll have to find a partner. This town hardly ever gets a good look at a harlot.”

  “That’s hilarious,” she said, as if she were talking through ground glass. “I’m not a harlot, and getting that reputation won’t pay my mortgage.”

  “Then calm down and let’s get back to our plan. Collier has you on the run, but use the skills that make you a good therapist. You can see where he’s leading you. Don’t follow.”

  She pressed her hands to her cheeks. She had to get Jake out of her head.

  Gil sat back, folding his hands between his legs. “I have to ask you the question.”

  “Did I sleep with Griff?”

  “Thanks. I didn’t know how to phrase it.”

  “You don’t have to use kid gloves.”

  “You look rattled.”

  “He’s a kid. I’m twice his age.”

  “I wish you’d told me how he felt about you.”

  “It was a kid’s
crush. Any first-year psych student has heard of transference. I figured he’d get over it.” Just as she was supposed to get over this crazy thing for the judge.

  “Do you think his parents might have found out about—”

  “There was nothing to find out. I shouldn’t have to explain that to you. Griff said they argued when his parents canceled his senior trip to Cancun because they found ecstasy in his room. It had nothing to do with me.”

  Gil walked around the table, scanning her face. “You may never know for sure what caused the violence in that home. Griff’s obviously a liar, but we found no drugs when we searched the house.”

  “He was living with his aunt and uncle for over a month before you executed the search warrant.”

  “My point is, I can’t have him searched daily unless he’s in jail. If we don’t get him put away, he’ll be in constant contact with his little cousins and the kids at school.” Gil turned toward the window. “And anyone he passes in the street.”

  Maria saw exactly how naive she’d been—with the district attorney. “Does everyone get away with lying to me these days?” Talk about losing her touch. “You tricked me into testifying, when you planned to lock him up all along.”

  “I’m responsible to Channing and Ada Butler, and the family they left behind. You, of all people, should understand the kind of violence that kid’s got in him if he shot his parents.”

  They’d reached an impasse. “I do, but something caused all this.”

  “Other than just plain evil?” He shrugged. “Don’t let Collier throw you and we’ll get this kid off the streets. Deny the affair, but stay calm. Don’t make Griff look like a victim.”

  “I know how to handle the truth.” She tugged at the neckline of her blouse, trying to cover any curves that made her look like a woman.

  He assessed her. “I believe Griff’s dying to take you down because you didn’t sleep with him, but that version of the story isn’t as salacious as a woman wanting revenge against a kid who’s dumped her.”

  “Is Buck going to read that journal out loud?”

  “I would if I had it.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what he’ll do. If they read it in the jury room and believe it, we’re still sunk.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  Not even Gil would look her in the eye. “Answer only Buck’s questions. Don’t put Griff’s future before yours—and don’t give the jury an excuse to burn my evidence.”

  “I am most of your evidence.”

  “Exactly.” He opened the door, but checked to see if anyone else was near. Only the bailiffs, impervious as marble. “Griff can explain away the blood on his shoes and clothes by saying he was checking on his parents. You’re the only proof against him that he can’t explain without calling you bad names, so I’d prefer you take the high road and not get arrested for contempt.”

  “At least I won’t be alone.”

  Nor were they now. The women’s room door opened and a tall, tired woman came out, stumbling when she saw Maria.

  She took glasses from her pocket and slid them on, the better either to stare with scorn at her nephew’s doctor, or to shield her own doubt.

  But Angela Hammond couldn’t hide her pain, and Maria’s instinct was to reach out to her. Angela huffed and made her deliberate way back to the courtroom.

  “Don’t let that bother you,” Gil said.

  “Because she won’t be the only one turning her back on me?” She tried not to sound as frightened as she felt. This town was her first real home. She wanted to help Griff Butler, but at the cost of everything that made her who she was?

  Gil took her arms and spun her around to face him. “I don’t like that tone. You’re not thinking of backing out?”

  At that moment, Jake came out of another door. He stared from Gil’s grasping fingers to Maria’s face. One dark eyebrow went up, and the cold father Leila had described disappeared.

  The silence grew thick and hot, but Maria, adept at feeling another person’s pain, could not read Jake.

  Did he think she’d been flirting with the prosecutor? Working her apparently irresistible wiles?

  Without seeming to move, Jake ended up toe to toe with Gil. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” His furious question had the power to shake the building on its foundation.

  Gil took a step back then looked embarrassed about backing away from another man. “Talking to my client.” He stared at Jake. “Your Honor.”

  “Which led you to put your hands on her?” Jake glanced at Maria. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m…” She meant to say fine, but she went blank.

  No one had ever protected her. She was the product of freewheeling nomads…a mother who’d perfected her skills for any job that came with a chance to attract a man, and a father who’d dropped in once in a while, always promising Maria and her sister, Bryony, they’d be a family. Someday.

  Their dad had “borrowed” from their piggy banks, talked their mother out of their minuscule college funds and eventually died in a boating accident with his latest squeeze, bolting across a lake with the money they’d snatched off a poker table in a so-called friendly, floating game.

  Maria remembered everything about his last departure, down to the smear of mud on his rounded shoe heel and the stitching on his carry-on bag.

  Typical. The mind under stress returns to a similar episode and handles the new stress the same way. “I’m fine,” she said, as she had then, over and over again.

  She wrapped her hand around Gil’s upper arm to show Jake that the prosecutor wasn’t the problem. “We were just going back.”

  “Daley.”

  Gil turned weary, slightly petulant eyes on Jake. “Sir, this case is getting to all of us, but you don’t have to be suspicious of me.”

  “I’ll agree Buck can be persuasive when he plays good old boy, but I’m not sure you want to intimidate your own witness.”

  “You’re on the verge of saying something inappropriate to a prosecutor and his witness in a case you’re hearing.”

  Jake rounded on Gil again. “I don’t give a damn if you’re planning to try my grandmother next. Touch a woman in my courthouse and I’ll give you plenty of reason to ask for my recusal. Again, I ask, are you all right, Dr. Keaton?”

  “Fine.” Her tongue seemed mostly stuck to the roof of her mouth. “You misunderstood.”

  Jake’s twisted smile managed to suggest she made a habit of protecting violent men. “Gil isn’t dragging you into court?”

  She overreacted, as would any woman who cared for a man she hardly knew and didn’t want him to think she’d let…“I’m not some sick woman who only hangs around with kids who kill their parents and guys who manhandle women.”

  “Excuse me, but will you both shut up, and let’s get on with this trial?” Gil grabbed at the knot of his tie as if he were fighting its grip. “I beg your pardon, Judge, but I’ve come too far with this case to risk a mistrial now.”

  “The prosecutor is right, Dr. Keaton.” Jake looked faintly startled at having to be reminded. He crossed in front of them and opened the door to his chambers.

  His absence left a vacuum, as if the force of his personality had taken all the good oxygen with him.

  “Why did he come this way?” Maria asked.

  “I’ve seen him pace this hall before when we’ve had troubling cases. You’re surprised this one bothers him?”

  Trembling threatened to take her legs out from under her. “He thinks I might be the guilty one.”

  Gil nodded. “But you can fix everything.”

  “Don’t try to play me anymore. I came to you because the law required it, and I thought you might see that Griff was in trouble. You just want me to help you lock him away for life.”

  He nodded. “Now you’re seeing the light. Let’s go.”

  The instant she set foot inside the courtroom, every head turned. A wave of disdain slammed into her.

  For a second, she was back
in elementary school. One of the Keaton girls, whose mother, Gail, showed up in big hair, brilliant-colored flowing faux silks and excesses of fake gold—when she remembered to attend parent conferences at all. Maria breathed in, preparing to run the gauntlet. She lifted her chin and pretended that nothing could touch her. She’d made peace with her mother and her past. She didn’t fight that kind of battle any longer.

  She walked to a seat behind Gil’s table. Within moments, the jury returned. A door behind the bench opened and Jake came in. His eyes scanned her face, and she felt as if his fingers had followed.

  She shuddered.

  Her whole body went hot and then cold. She didn’t enjoy feeling out of control. People considered her nonconformist, maybe even quirky, but she managed risk by knowing her boundaries exactly.

  Jake nodded to the bailiff, who asked the room to rise. Jake waved them back into their seats.

  “Defense?”

  Buck took his spot behind the podium. “Will you return to the stand, Dr. Keaton? That is, if you’re able to continue.”

  “Mr. Collier.” Jake had clearly had enough.

  Maria squared her shoulders, needing no rescue. “I’m happy to go on.”

  “Why did you give the district attorney this ridiculous—All right, Your Honor, I’ll rephrase. Why did you tell the D.A. that Mr. Butler had anything to do with his parents’ deaths?”

  “The law requires me to report crime. I had to tell the police when Griff confessed that he’d killed his mother and father.” She paused. Wisdom required her to shut the hell up. Years of practice and caring for people in need ripped the words out of her mouth. “Even if I didn’t have to report the crime, this child’s in trouble. He needs help.”

  Gil straightened in his chair. Maria refused to look at him but swore inwardly that she’d do herself no more harm.

  “Griff Butler is in trouble because of you,” Collier said. “We’ve explained all the so-called evidence linking him to these crimes. They brought a grieving young man to trial on the strength of a lie told by a woman fifteen years his senior, who fought back after he ended their illicit affair.”

  “Objection.” Gil’s voice cracked across the courtroom. “At the least, the defense assumes facts not in evidence. We have only Mr. Collier’s innuendo as proof that an affair occurred.”