may be wrong, but I sensed the murder really disturbed you. I thought you might want to talk about it. Even if stuff like this doesn’t affect us directly, it can still have an impact.”
She’d been right, she thought anxiously. He’d picked up on her panic. If she tried to deny what he was intuiting, he’d know she was lying. Her mind fumbled for a way to force him off track.
“The murder was upsetting,” she said after slowly taking a breath. “But there’s actually something else that’s been troubling me. I guess I’ve worn my heart on my sleeve without meaning to.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Harry asked as the waitress returned with Lake’s cappuccino.
No, I don’t, she thought. But she might not convince him if she didn’t cough up something. She took a sip of her drink before speaking.
“I was in the process of what seemed to be a fairly amicable divorce, and then out of the blue, my husband filed for full custody. It’s been very stressful.”
“What a creep,” Harry said. He started to shake his head in dismay but stopped and smiled. “That’s my professional opinion, by the way.”
Lake couldn’t help but smile back.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’m so used to having to suck it up and speak neutrally about him in front of the kids; it’s nice to hear someone make a nasty comment about the man.”
“I’m sorry to hear you’re going through that. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“I will, thanks.”
Harry glanced at his watch.
“Are you getting hungry?” he asked. “We could grab a bite of lunch here if you’d like.”
“Um, thanks—but I need to get back to my presentation. Maybe some other time.”
He said he would stay and have his lunch at the café. She took a last swig of her cappuccino. When she set the cup down on the table, Harry reached over and lightly touched her hand with the tips of his fingers.
“I hope that doesn’t hurt,” he said. When he withdrew his hand, she saw that he meant the marks Smokey had made when she’d tried to pull him out from behind the chair.
“Oh, no,” she said. “It’s just—a scratch. I can’t even remember how I got it.”
Flustered, she picked her bag up and rose to go.
“Good luck with your presentation,” he said. “I’m sure it’ll be brilliant.”
Hurrying home, she replayed the conversation with Harry in her head. She hoped her confession to him about the custody situation had quieted any suspicions he might have.
As she opened the door of her apartment, she also considered the comment he’d made about Keaton questioning Levin’s judgment about the patient they’d discussed—the one who’d had eight rounds of IVF. She wondered for the first time if the snag that had developed for Keaton didn’t involve a problem with one of the staff but rather with the clinic itself. She stopped in the hall and closed her eyes, trying to recall Keaton’s exact words that night. He’d said something about the clinic not being the best place for him right now. Perhaps Keaton had stumbled onto something that had alarmed him.
Lake had never witnessed anything the least bit suspicious at the clinic, but with her lack of medical expertise, how would she really know if something wrong was going on? There had to be a way to consider what the possibilities were. She thought suddenly about the reporter Hayden had mentioned, the guy who made Levin apoplectic. He’d written an article on the fertility business, one that Levin clearly didn’t want her to see. Maybe the truth lay in that article—or at least a hint of it. Lake dreaded going to the clinic in light of all that was happening but she knew she needed to read that article. The one sure way to save herself—and her custody of the kids—was to figure out who might have killed Keaton and somehow point the police in that direction, and away from her.
She told herself she would hunker down and work straight through until evening. But rather than light a fire under her, the newest developments seemed to paralyze her. Plus, she felt a growing dread about going into the clinic the next day. If the killer did work there, she was putting herself right in the line of sight. But she had no choice. She had to get her hands on the article; it was the only thing she had to work with. And if she could find the chance without being