gather information, but he said he had reason to believe that you were passing confidential details about our procedures on to another clinic.”
Lake’s eyes welled up in anger.
“That’s a lie,” she said. “I would never do something like that.”
Harry leaned back against the park bench, his face pensive. A light breeze lifted the waves of his black hair. “Do you have any idea why he’s claiming it, then?”
“I—no, I don’t,” Lake said. She wondered why Harry was sharing all this with her. Was he trolling for information of his own?
“You don’t know? Or you don’t want to share it with me?”
“Maybe I should start by asking what your role is in this,” Lake said. “Why are you being so forthcoming?”
Harry bit his lip, as if hesitant to say.
“We’ve only known each other a few weeks, but I like you, and I respect you a lot,” he said after a moment. “It’s hard for me to buy what Levin said. And I want to help you if I can.”
“Help me?” Lake asked. She could feel her anger close to the surface. “Like you helped me when you told the police things about me?”
“What are you talking about?” Harry asked, looking surprised.
“When we were having coffee last Sunday, you pointed out that I’d seemed unusually upset after the murder. And then suddenly the police are at my apartment, telling me that someone told them the same thing.”
He took a deep breath and leaned toward her.
“So that’s why you were so cool to me the other day. Lake, I give you my word—I never said anything about you to those detectives. For starters, I’m a therapist, and breaking a confidence runs against every instinct I have as a person and everything in my professional training. Secondly, I’d never do anything to hurt you.”
She studied his face as he spoke. His eyes, his mouth, his body language—everything suggested he was telling the truth. But as he’d just pointed out, he was a therapist, someone all too familiar with how people could be manipulated and fooled.
“Look,” he added. “I can see that you’re still skeptical. So I’m going to admit something that seems ridiculous to put out there right now, but it may lend me an ounce of credibility.”
He lifted his shoulders and flipped over both palms in an almost boyish gesture. “The reason I asked you for coffee the other day is that I was looking for an excuse to be with you. I’d like to go out with you, Lake. So the last thing I would have wanted is to put you in any kind of weird situation with the cops.”
Lake almost laughed at the sheer absurdity of it all. People were trying to kill her, the cops might suspect her of murder, and this guy was confessing a crush on her.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I mean—”
“There’s no need to say anything at the moment. We can cross that bridge later. The thing we need to deal with right now is your situation with Levin and Sherman. There’s obviously been some kind of terrible misunderstanding and we should clear it up. I’d be happy to intervene.”
Lake shook her head emphatically.
“Thank you, but once I get the letter from Levin and have a chance to digest what he’s saying, I’ll make my case with him myself.”
“Is there anything I can do, then?”
Should I tell him? Lake wondered. What if she enlisted him rather than Maggie to search through the files? But despite how genuine he sounded, she felt a lingering suspicion about him. And she needed to stick with the plan she worked out with Archer.
She glanced at her watch. She wanted to position herself near the coffee shop at just a little after noon so as not to risk missing Maggie.
“No, Harry, but thank you. Look, I have an appointment and I need to get back.”
“I’m off for the rest of the afternoon, but I’ll be at the clinic tomorrow,” he said. “Let me know how it goes, okay?”
“Will do.”
They stood and walked back toward the entrance. Two boys, nine or ten years old, whooshed by them on skateboards, their faces tight with concentration. One made Lake think of Will, pinching her heart. At the same moment she felt a cloud pass over the sun and she glanced up instinctively. She quickly said goodbye to Harry and hurried home.
Back in her apartment, she made coffee and paced. She felt outraged about the approach Levin was taking—telling people that she’d