A Conflict of Interest

“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.”

“I’d like to enter my client’s journal into evidence, Your Honor.”

“My objection stands. Maybe the defendant wrote these stories, but their existence does not make them truth.”

“We disagree and we want the jury to have all the evidence.”

“The prosecution has never seen this notebook.”

Jake gestured for the defense attorney to pass it to the court clerk. “As you well know, Mr. Daley, the defense is not required to disclose. I’ll allow the journal with the stipulation the jury understands no claims in this document have been proven as fact. The entries go to state of mind.”

Maria watched it move across the room as if no actual hands were holding it.

“Your Honor, I’ve marked the passages where Griff talks about how reluctant he is to hurt Dr. Keaton by ending their alliance. He also notes the day she swore she’d make him pay for leaving her.”

Maria sat perfectly still, hiding her shock.

But Gil had found his feet again. “…is testifying for the witness. Perhaps Your Honor could instruct him to wait until closing before he sums up his case full of lies.”

“I suggest you both stick to the facts at hand.” Jake’s tone remained utterly calm. “Mr. Collier, have you any more questions for this witness?”

“No, Your Honor. I think we all know—”

“Mr. Collier, I gave you a break earlier. Are you asking for a contempt charge?”

Buck attempted a defiant look, but his squarish jaw wobbled. “No, sir.”

“Thank you. Mr. Daley, any redirect?”

“Yes.” Gil grabbed his notepad, but didn’t even glance at the yellow pages as he stepped to the podium. “Dr. Keaton, did you have an affair with Griff Butler?”

“No.”

“Did you read his diary?”

“No.”

“If he claims in his journal that you were in love with him, or that you and he had a sexual relationship, will that be a lie?”

“Yes.”

“Did you threaten to accuse him of murder?”

“No.”

“Did he confess to shooting his parents?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t afford a second of hesitation. Her future did matter—desperately.

“Have you been honest in giving your testimony?”

“Yes.”

He stepped back, flaunting his pleasure at ending on a rational note. “Nothing more, Your Honor.”

“Anything from you, Mr. Collier?”

“One question, Your Honor.” He danced with the silence for maximum effect. “Miss—Dr.—Keaton, do you love Griff Butler?”

Did he honestly think he could unnerve her now? “No.”

Buck exaggerated his disappointment, as if he’d expected her to find the moral strength to confess her sins.

“Mr. Collier?” the judge asked.

“I’m done with her.”

Maria looked at Jake. His gaze was troubled, and yet, a deep down kindness made him look like Leila, who swore he did not know how to care. About anything.

Leila had been wrong.

Like everyone else in this room, Judge Jake Sloane wanted to know if Maria had seduced Griff Butler.

THE NEXT MORNING, Jake lifted the collar of his black overcoat and yanked the cashmere collar around his ears. Normally, he hurried to work, certain he had the reins tight in his courtroom, but today, he didn’t know how to be objective. He also didn’t know whom to suspect, but the thought of Maria Keaton seducing that kid half enraged him and half filled him with dread.

He was ready with rage for a woman wrongfully accused. The dread came from his own confusing attraction to Maria, who’d ducked his every approach. He might not be the only man in town, but he had a mirror. He was okay to look at.

He had a good job. The evidence informed him women found him attractive. Since he’d finalized his divorce, the available ladies of Honesty had offered comfort in his so-called loneliness.

But the only woman he wanted had shied away from more than simple conversation.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged, his collar now seeming to choke him. Maybe he finally understood why Maria had been so uninterested.

A flake of early November snow blew into his eye, and he yanked his bare hand out of his pocket to brush it away. Overnight the snow had covered the streets and piled up against the Victorian buildings on the square. With plenty more storm on the way, the sky was about as light as at sunset. Veering toward the courthouse, Jake had to pass the relatively new shops, all made to look weathered, in the recently misnamed Old Honesty Market.

Men in thick coats and gloves were swagging holiday lights from storefront to storefront while a woman watched, leaning on one of the cement posts that prevented traffic from entering the shopping area.

He sucked in a cold breath, but was it the air that froze his lungs?

Snow dotted Maria’s honey-brown hair. She crossed her arms over the top of the pillar and rested her chin on her hands. A long deep-burgundy coat cinched her narrow waist. She lifted one calf, rubbing it against the other as if to warm herself, and Jake imagined walking up behind her, sliding his arms around her, breathing in the scent of her silky hair.

Could she molest a client? A sixteen-year-old boy who’d needed her as much as any patient in Honesty could have?

As if Maria sensed his near-savage need for an answer, she turned. Jake stared through the fat, falling flakes. She looked back, her eyes anxious as if she had something important to say. It was the way she always looked at him—until she pulled a strange coat of touch-me-not around herself.

Was it that kid who stood between them?

She opened her mouth but then only nodded.

He looked toward the courthouse windows. “Are you going?”

“I can’t stay away.”

He walked to her. As usual, she searched for anywhere to go, but he refused to get out of her way. “Why?”

“He needs help.” She grabbed the tails of the soft ivory scarf knotted at her throat. Matching mittens covered small hands that trembled. Fragility beneath her strength made him want to cover her hands with his and rub warmth into her fingers. “You could help him,” she said.

He turned, but her hand caught his forearm. Hell, he’d imagined touching her for damn near a year. He’d talked to her for the sheer sensual jolt of hearing her voice.

She was a witness in a trial in his courtroom.

“I can’t discuss the case with you.”

“You can see he’s in trouble. Just flavor your instruct—”

“Maria, do you want to look guilty?” He tugged her hand off his arm, but she wrapped her fingers around his, and he found himself tugging her closer. “You don’t seem to realize your doggedness makes Griff’s side of the story seem more plausible. Why does he matter so much to you?” He raised his face to the sky as if he were reaching from under water for breathable air. “Don’t tell me what you’ve done, and stop incriminating yourself.”

“You mean, stop helping someone who needs me.” She tried to pull away, but her wrist ended up beneath his thumb. The ribbing on her thin mitten slid aside, and he could have counted her racing pulse.

“I cannot do this.” He eased her away from him. God, she smelled good. He wanted to breathe her in. He wanted—“If you say another word, I’ll have to recuse myself.” He turned away. His coat brushed at his legs. He ached with frustration and need stoked by the brief touch of her hand.

“I didn’t touch Griff. He was my patient, and he’s a sick kid. You know how to see both sides of any story. Why can’t you see his?”

How did she know that about him? He pretended not to hear, though the slow fall of snow buffered them from everyone else on the square.

He wanted to believe her concern was just that. Concern. But women could lie, even women whose seeming innocence somehow infused the air they breathed with sex. Especially women like Maria.

She couldn’t control her anxiety for Griff, who’d called her a monster in front of a courtroom. She might be so driven by her own needs that she couldn’t turn her back on that kid.

This case was getting to Jake. He yanked at his lapel. This kid and Maria Keaton had nothing to do with his private life. He’d once had a wife who’d lied to him over and over and expected him to believe her every time. Kate wasn’t every woman. Maria wasn’t Kate.

He had to reclaim his objectivity.

“Damn.”

Closing arguments would start by this afternoon. They could have a verdict before morning.

And then he’d have to take a disinterested look at Griff Butler’s story and at Maria’s—Dr. Keaton’s. One of them was lying.

If she’d hurt that kid, he’d have to report her to the Psychology Review Board.

CHAPTER THREE

TWO DAYS LATER, just past 2:00 p.m., the jury filed in, all staring at their feet.

Jake avoided looking at the gallery where Maria was sitting. While everyone else in the courtroom had wondered if Maria was guilty, she’d studied the jurors with a pleading face, as if she could will them to see Griff through her eyes, as a sick child.

A sick child might not survive prison.

Jake gripped his chair arms, but somehow, he was remembering the silky seduction of Maria’s skin beneath his fingers. He had to stop thinking about her. Her self-destructive refusal to back down reinforced his career-long commitment to keeping his personal feelings out of the courtroom.

He’d heard the gossip. As Buck had said, Maria’s practice was anything but traditional. Apparently, she didn’t believe in the conventional therapist’s tools—a couch, a knowing smile, a “How did that make you feel?”

The obvious question nagged at him. How big a jump was it from meditating on mountains to making so-called love in her office?

Jake had to read that journal. Forcing his attention from Maria’s face, he dragged his mind back to the task at hand.

The jurors sat. Jake nodded to their foreman. “Have you reached a verdict?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” she said.

“Bailiff?”

The uniformed officer took the verdict slip from the foreman and handed it to Jake. He opened it, glanced over it. It wasn’t a total shock. But, completely out of character, all he could think was that he had to decide what to do next about Maria.

Jake handed the slip back to the bailiff, who returned it to the foreman, a woman old enough to harbor grandmotherly sentiments toward Griff. She unfolded the paper and cleared her throat before she gave the boy a warm smile.

“In the matter of the Commonwealth versus Griffin Samuel Butler, on the first count of first-degree murder, in the murder of Channing Butler, we find the defendant not guilty.”

Voices surged like background sounds in a movie. Half the gallery agreed with the verdict. Half definitely did not.

The foreman continued, “On the second count of first-degree murder, in the murder of Ada Butler, we find the defendant not guilty.”

Griff looked stunned, as if he’d been imagining prison walls and found himself transported out of this musty room to the middle of fresh new snow and the twinkling lights blinking holiday colors on the square. That kid had plenty to be grateful for.

Jake picked up his gavel. Conversation ceased except for muffled sobbing as he turned to face the jury.

“Thank you for your service to the Commonwealth,” Jake said. “You may speak to the press if you wish. If you prefer not to discuss this case or the verdict, follow the bailiff, and he’ll escort you to an alternate exit.”

He turned to Griff, who’d reached behind him, turning over his chair as he grabbed at his family.

His aunt, still crying, held out her arms. His uncle extended a strong hand. Griff tried to take both.

Far from gloating, as the guilty tended to do when they got off, he just looked like a kid. Happy to be going home to the people he was supposed to love.

Supposed to. That was the problem. No matter what a man might see in his job, day in and day out, he assumed a sixteen-year-old kid loved his mother and dad.

At least Jake assumed. And unless Griff was adept at a sociopath’s crocodile tears, he was grateful and glad to wrap trembling arms around his aunt and uncle.

Jake searched for Maria. Perched on the edge of her seat, her hands folded in her lap, she might have looked the part of a prim schoolmarm, but Jake felt a grim compulsion to get her out of here before anyone else saw how deeply she cared for the kid who’d thrown her to the wolves.

It was surreal being one of two still people in a room boiling with activity. Usually, a verdict freed Jake of responsibility. His job stopped at making sure the defendant got a fair trial.