She was at the park ten minutes early. On the walk over she’d reassured herself that nothing could happen in daylight on a busy street, but she was still hypervigilant. There weren’t many people in the park-an elderly woman tossing birdseed to pigeons, a few mommies and nannies watching toddlers in a sandbox. People were away on vacation. Like she used to be in August.
“Lake?”
She spun around in surprise at the sound of Harry’s voice. He’d also arrived early. He was dressed in his standard dark pants and cobalt-blue dress shirt.
“Thanks for meeting me,” he said. “Shall we find a bench?”
They walked farther into the park. Across the Hudson the buildings in New Jersey gleamed in the sunshine and through the trees she saw a speedboat slicing through the water, leaving a row of foam. It made her remember last night, holding on to the pylon for dear life in the deep, dark water. Harry motioned for them to take a seat on an empty bench.
“So what is it you need to talk about?” she asked. As she caught his eyes, she was shocked at how troubled they seemed.
“Look, I may be on the periphery of things at the clinic,” he said, “but I’m involved enough to know that something isn’t right.”
It was all Lake could do to keep from shaking the words out of Harry.
“What do you mean exactly?” she said.
“I don’t like what’s going on with you.”
“With me?” she blurted out.
“The way they’ve just suddenly terminated your agreement.”
“I told you I was aware of that,” she said. “I haven’t received the letter but I hear it’s on the way.”
“But are you aware of what they’re saying?”
“No-what?” she said hoarsely.
“As soon as I heard that they’d ended things with you, I asked Levin why. He said that you’d been unprofessional. In fact, he said some of your behavior could even be categorized as unethical.”
“What?” Lake exclaimed in shock. “Did-did he explain what he meant?”
“He said you’d been caught going through patient records. I pointed out that part of your job is to 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 engaged in some kind of espionage for another clinic. Word would get around in her professional circles and the story could dog her for years, perhaps even ruin her business. Was this Levin’s backup plan? If he couldn’t manage to kill her, he’d destroy her reputation?
If, of course, Levin was the one behind it all. What if someone else at the clinic was the mastermind of the embryo stealing? Maybe it was Sherman, in cahoots with Hoss. Or, if he’d found the right person in the lab to assist him, even Steve might have been able to pull it off. It would be in his interest, too, to keep the clinic’s success rate high. If it was someone else, that person could have convinced Levin that Lake was stealing information-while also arranging to have her attacked.
She hailed a cab at 11:40 and was outside the coffee shop by 12:05. She felt exposed standing right in the front of the restaurant, so after a few minutes she ducked into the doorway of the shoe store next door, where she’d still be able to see Maggie coming. As she waited, she rehearsed what she’d say to Maggie. She would have to sound very credible, especially if Maggie had been told that Lake was a spy.
By 12:40 Lake started to worry. Based on her routine, Maggie should have been there by now. Maybe, in light of everything going on, Maggie felt the pressure to stay close to base. Lake shifted her position again and again because her body still ached from last night. Please, please come, Maggie, she pleaded in her head.