the steps. Raising her pounding head, she saw Rory descending the stairs.
“Rory,” she said weakly as her head fell back onto the hard floor. “I must have passed out.”
“Of course you did,” Rory said, stepping in front of Lake. She smiled down at her.
“What?” Lake asked groggily.
“I know you did. I gave you a little something in your tea.”
Lake felt a sudden urge to vomit, tasting it in her mouth.
“I’m really very angry with you, Lake,” Rory said. “If you must know, I’m in a rage. But I’m too professional to let it show.”
“What…have I done?” Lake asked.
“What have you done? I think you know, Lake. You’re the reason Mark Keaton is dead.”
You must stay calm, Lake commanded herself, you must try to reason with her. “That’s not true,” she said. “I—I had nothing to do with that. I barely knew him.”
“But you knew him well enough to fuck him. You were with him that night, Lake. Don’t lie to me. You gave it away for sure when we were in that stupid piano bar—you knew about his terrace.”
Lake’s heart was pounding so hard she could hear the sound in her head.
“I’d called him that night, you know,” Rory said. “I’d told him before I left that day about our baby. It was a little bit of a shock for him but I knew he was going to be very, very happy. We just needed to talk it through and work out all the details. But as soon as I heard his voice on the phone I knew he was expecting someone. I didn’t have any choice but to go there—and of course, I’d been smart enough to make a copy of the key.”
“And in case you’re thinking the police are going to figure out it was me because they have a record of the call, don’t. I made a point of telling them that I’d spoken to Dr. Keaton that night. I said he’d asked me to call him to follow up about a patient. But as you know very well, Lake, the last thing on his mind that night was a patient. When I walked in his bedroom, it was disgusting. I could tell from the smell he’d had sex with someone. And I was almost positive it was you.”
I have to do something, Lake thought desperately. She raised her head a little, just to see if she could.
“Rory, I—”
“Hush, Lake. I’m not some kind of fool. I’d seen you being super flirty with him for days. One night I’d even thought you might have lured him to your place. Women are such predators—they won’t leave men like Mark alone.”
“But—”
“Don’t you dare give me any buts. I know all about women like you. I knew I’d guessed right when I saw how petrified you looked when the police came to the clinic. I mentioned to the police how upset you were and I could tell they thought you’d been up to no good as well. At that point I had to flush you out and see how you reacted.”
“Did—did you shave Smokey?” Lake asked. She was stalling for time, trying to think.
“Is that what you call that fat ugly cat of yours? You never said a word about it to anyone. That’s when I knew you had something to hide.”
“I—”
“Oh, shut up, Lake. Don’t you see what you’ve done? Because of you, Mark will never see his baby.”
“But why kill him?”
“You’d obviously poisoned his mind against me. He wasn’t going to make any time for me or the baby. I’d be all by myself up here with our son and he’d be busy fucking you in the city.”
“Rory, I did go to Dr. Keaton’s place—but it was only to talk to him,” Lake said. Her words sounded hollow to her, but a lie was all she had left. “It was about the clinic. He’d been in touch with one of the women—one of the women who was given someone else’s embryos. I need your help to expose the clinic. What they’re doing is wrong. No one has to know about Dr. Keaton.”
Rory just stared down at Lake, her face blank. Lake couldn’t even guess what was behind her eyes. Was she possibly considering what Lake had said? she wondered.
“Liar,” Rory spat out. And then before Lake even saw it coming, Rory kicked her hard in the side of the head. She was wearing thin ballet flats, but the blow stung and her head was knocked back to the