Hush (23 page)

“I know he may try again—and it’s terrifying,” Lake said. “But I honestly don’t think telling the police will help. It’s not like this guy left his fingerprints in the park. They’d never be able to trace him.”

“But someone down there may have seen him getting into a car.”

She had to get Archer off the police angle.

“Maybe,” she said evenly. “But if these two homicide detectives find out I was chased into the East River, they’re going to suspect something funny is going on with me. Remember what you said about coincidences? Even if I tell the cops I suspect the clinic of arranging the attack, it still puts too much focus on me.”

“But what they might actually do is investigate the clinic. They could end up arresting people—including this thug from tonight.”

Lake shook her head. “But as you said before, there’s no way the cops can just walk into the clinic and investigate. They need proof, and there isn’t any. All we have is Alexis’s word, and, as your producer pointed out, she has a tendency to come off as a nut job.”

“Okay, let’s talk about proof, then,” he said, leaning back into his armchair. “You never found anything in the files?”

She could feel her whole body unclench now that he’d stopped pressing her about the cops.

“Nothing that indicated what they’re up to,” she said. “But when I looked at Melanie’s file tonight, there was a funny little notation—something I’d also seen in another patient’s file.”

From her purse Lake pulled out the scrap of paper on which she’d jotted down the letters. She handed it to Archer, explaining that she’d seen them next to the names on the information sheet.

“Any idea what they mean?” he asked.

“Not a clue.”

“Could they refer to the specific infertility problem Melanie had—or the treatment the doctors prescribed?” Archer asked.

“I’m not an expert, but I know a fair amount of the terminology now, and those letters don’t correspond to anything I’ve heard of. I’m wondering if they’re a code that indicates Alexis’s embryos were transferred to Melanie. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to look at Alexis’s file again. Brie, the office manager, caught me going through the files the first time, and I didn’t want to take another chance.”

“She saw you going through the files?” Archer said. He straightened up in his chair. It seemed some bell had gone off in his head.

“Yes. I made up an excuse, but I don’t think she bought it.”

“Couldn’t
that
explain why you were attacked tonight?” Archer said, his blue eyes flashing. “You may not have any real evidence, but they
think
you do.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said hesitantly. “I’ve just assumed the attack was connected with Melanie.”

Archer stared at the letters again.

“Can you make another attempt to see Alexis’s file?” he asked. “If the letters match what’s in Melanie’s file, we could have something to go on.”

The idea made her shudder. She shook her head. “After tonight, I don’t know if I’d have the nerve.”

Archer raked both hands through his thick white hair.

“There’s just so much at stake,” he said.

“Even if I wasn’t terrified,” Lake told him, “I’m not sure I’d be welcome back in the clinic. Levin acted so weird tonight.”

“We’ve got to find a way to expose them. What if Alexis Hunt is really right? And if she’s right, she’s probably not the only victim.”

Lake took another swig of tea. As she digested his words, she realized that it was the first time she’d really thought about the bigger picture. She’d been so consumed with her own cause, trying to save her skin, and her right to keep her kids, that she hadn’t focused on how many other lives were being manipulated. What if it were I, she suddenly thought? What if I discovered that another woman had borne my child and was raising him?

“I’ve got an idea,” Lake said. “There’s a young nurse there who seems like a really good person. Her name’s Maggie. I could try to convince her to look at the Hunt file for me.”

“Do you think you can trust her?”

“Yes,” Lake said. “If I can manage to contact her.”

Lake set down her mug and reached for the brandy. As soon as she tasted it, she felt transported back to Keaton’s apartment. She recalled the first sip of brandy she’d taken there, the hint of it later on Keaton’s mouth—and then the sight of him dead in his bed. She choked as she swallowed and set the glass quickly back down.

“Are you okay?” Archer asked.

“Yes,” Lake said feebly. “I’m just spent.”

“I don’t blame you.” He glanced at his watch. “God, it’s after one. Look, why don’t I make the couch up for you. You can stay here tonight, and in the morning we’ll figure out some kind of plan.”

She didn’t protest. As insane as it would be to bunk down at his place, she knew she’d at least be safe for tonight.

While Archer went upstairs for sheets and a blanket, she
stacked the kilim throw pillows on the floor. He returned not only with the bedding but also with a long T-shirt for her to sleep in. She offered to help make up the couch, but he insisted on doing it alone. Was he really this good a guy? she wondered as she watched him. Or was it all because of the story she was bringing him?

“You’re all set now,” he said, shaking out the blanket.

“Thanks so much for this,” she said. She offered the warmest smile she could muster. Then his eyes narrowed in concern.

“
What?
” she asked. Something was clearly the matter.

“There’s a bruise on your face. Is it from tonight?”

Her hand swooped to her cheek like a falcon. After the shower she’d neglected to put on any makeup and he was seeing the shadow of her birthmark.

“Oh,” she said, flustered. “I had a birthmark there once.”

“Ah. Well, it only adds to your fascination factor.” He smiled. “Good night. Try to get a good night’s sleep.”

Minutes later, she was lying in pitch-darkness, the sheets cool against her body. For a while she could hear Archer moving around upstairs, getting ready for bed, and then it was quiet—the only remaining sound the light hum from the central air conditioning.

She hoped she’d be able to sleep. Her whole body ached—from the spill she’d taken on the rocks, from gripping on to the bastion for so long—and yet at the same time she felt totally wired. Memories of being in the river began to rush her mind. They made her panicky all over again, and she shook her head on the pillow, forcing them away. I can’t relive that, not right now, she thought. And then she felt a surge of something else, something that caught her by surprise. Satisfaction. She had saved herself tonight. A man had attacked her, intent, she was fairly certain, on killing her, and she had outwitted him. She knew she had to hold on to that victory like a talisman. She needed the courage to continue to outwit whoever was after her.

Tomorrow she would connect with Maggie. She’d ask her to check the Hunt information sheet for a series of letters, written in pencil. It wouldn’t be easy, but Lake had to convince Maggie and make her see the need to help her.

Finally, she closed her eyes, exhausted. She fell asleep and began to dream—about Amy. She and her daughter were walking by a body of water in a place she didn’t recognize. And then someone was trying to take Amy away, saying she wasn’t Lake’s child after all. But she looks just like me, Lake screamed, terrified of losing her.

Suddenly she was jerked awake, as if she were stumbling off a curb. A thought grew quickly in her mind, like a sponge dipped in water.

She knew what the letters meant.

SHE WOKE THE
next morning to muffled kitchen sounds—running water, a pan scraping against a stovetop burner. In her foggy state she thought she was hearing Will in the kitchen, using the stove when he shouldn’t. But then she remembered where she was—and what had happened.

In the dim light from the living room windows, she located her purse and the sundress, then ducked into the powder room that Archer had pointed out last night. As she ran the water to wash her face, she checked her phone. There was an urgent message from Molly, finally responding to Lake’s call for help last night.

“Are you
okay
?” she asked. “Call me.” The sound of her voice made Lake livid.

“Hey, you’re up,” Archer said as she stepped back into the living room. He was standing in the doorway from the kitchen, wearing a fresh dress shirt and a dark suit, no tie. “How about some break-k fast?”

“That would be great,” she said. She remembered that she hadn’t eaten dinner last night and her stomach was grumbling.

The kitchen fit Archer as well as the rest of the apartment did. Though the appliances were ultra-modern, the space was casual, homey—stacks of magazines and mail on the counter, postcards on the fridge, a bowl full of bananas on the round wooden table. There was a garden out back and the door was open so that a light breeze blew into the room.

“I’ve got English muffins, yogurt—plain or blueberry—granola, and a cereal called banana crunch that my stepson is addicted to but I think may contain massive amounts of sugar.”

Lake smiled. “Plain yogurt sounds good. And an English muffin. But you don’t have to wait on me. I can get it.”

“No, no, sit down. There’s coffee on the table.”

“Your place is great,” Lake said, sliding into a chair. “How long have you lived here?”

“About five years. When I was married, my wife insisted on doing the whole Upper East Side thing, which never really thrilled me. I found this place right after we split, and it’s been great. There’s a little study upstairs and a room for Matt, my stepson. In fact, he lived here the whole year I was working in Washington.”

“What’s he like?”

“A real good guy,” he said, setting her yogurt down. “Twenty-two. Now at Columbia Law. How about some sliced banana with that? As you can see, I’m flush with those. My housekeeper clearly thinks I’m suffering from a potassium deficiency.”

She smiled again and poured a mug of coffee for herself. “No, this is fine.”

After toasting and buttering the muffin, he slid the plate in front of her and pulled out a chair for himself at the table. This is all so weird, she thought. He’s the only man besides Jack that I’ve sat across the breakfast table from in nearly fifteen years.

“We need to make a plan,” he said firmly. Suddenly the no-nonsense Kit Archer was back.

“I know—and I have to get home,” she said. “I need to feed my poor cat.” And yet what if the man from the park was keeping an eye on her building now?

“Where’s your place?”

“The Upper West Side.”

“I thought I’d drive home with you and make sure you got back okay. I’ll head to work from there.”

“Look, you don’t—”

“Stop. There’s no way I’m going to just let you go home alone—not after what happened last night.”

She felt relieved knowing he’d be with her.

“Thank you.”

“That’s just step number one. From there you need to call this nurse you mentioned—as soon as possible. But is there any chance she could be involved?”

Lake shook her head. “At this point I don’t feel sure of anything, but Maggie seems like a pretty guileless person.”

“Okay, then, explain to her what happened to you. Let her know how serious the situation is and that you need her help.”

“I’ll do my best to convince her.”

“Good. How long has she worked there?”

“About three years, I think. She’s the one Keaton had given his keys to so she could pick up his mail.”

“It’s not going to be easy to get her to betray her bosses,” Archer said. He tapped his lips lightly with his fist. “I wish we had some kind of proof to offer her—a way to legitimize your story.”

“I think I have something,” Lake said softly. “Not actual proof, but a strong indication that the clinic used Alexis’s embryos on someone else—and is doing it with other patients as well.”

He raised his chin, expectant.

“I think I know what the letters mean.”

“You’re kidding,” he said, astonished. “Tell me.”

“It seems so obvious now, but it wasn’t until I was lying in the dark last night and saw them in my mind that I figured it out. I think the first letters refer to hair color—
BR
for brown,
BL
for blond,
R
for red, and
BK
for black, maybe, though I never saw that one. The second set is for eye color—
b
for blue,
br
for brown again,
g
for green.”

Archer stared at her, incredulous.

“Geez. Because that way—”

“—they do the best job of matching. Keeping track of a couple’s coloring isn’t necessary for medical purposes, and even if it was, why be so cryptic about it? But if the clinic is stealing embryos and transferring them to other women, it would be important to have that information. You’d want to make sure that the baby had coloring similar to its parents. The first indication that a child might not be yours would be if the coloring were totally off. From what I know it’s fairly rare for two blue-eyed parents to have a brown-eyed child—and many people just assume it’s not possible at all.”

“Right—blue eyes are a recessive trait.”

“If the coloring is really off, a couple might start asking questions. They might even get a DNA test for their peace of mind. And if there’s a discrepancy, they’re going to panic and demand an explanation.”

“But what happens when the kid gets older and his features don’t fit so well with his parents’?”

“If the coloring works, it may not seem like such a big deal. And by then there’s total attachment. Even if the parents have reason to be suspicious, they may not want to rock the boat.”

“Yeah, let sleeping dogs lie. And you just figured all this out last night, lying on my couch?”

Lake smiled. “I think my subconscious has been working on
it for a while. When I spoke to Alexis, she made a point of saying that the baby she saw with Melanie Turnbull matched Melanie’s coloring perfectly. That comment has been playing in my brain somewhere ever since.”

Archer shook his head in disgust. “And all just to improve their success rates. Do you think all the doctors could be in on it?”

She thought of Steve and felt a pang of worry.

“I don’t know,” she said. She took a sip of coffee. “It’s possible that only a few people are involved and doing it without the others being aware. The nurses, for instance, could be totally in the dark.”

“Wouldn’t they be curious about the codes?”

“They might not notice them because they only appear on the basic information sheet that patients fill out in the beginning, not on the medical forms that get used later. Once a patient is under treatment, the focus would be on notations made about procedures, that sort of thing.”

“You need to persuade Maggie to look through a bunch of the files and see how many have these codes. Of course, if she’s in on it, this will be the tip-off that you know as much as they suspect you do.”

“And if she’s not and they catch her going through everyone’s records, this could put her in danger,” Lake said.

“Warn her that she has to be extremely careful.”

“Okay,” Lake said. She glanced down at the table, thinking about all of this. What would be the best way to approach Maggie? She would probably have better luck if she did it face-to-face.

“Speaking of danger,” Archer said, interrupting her thoughts. She glanced back across the table. He had leaned back in his chair and was studying her intently. “Tell me what you know about Keaton.”

Lake’s heart jumped. Where was this going?

“Wh-what do you mean?” she asked.

“How do you think his death fits in with all this? Did he learn something he wasn’t supposed to know?”

Lake slowly let out a breath in relief.

“I’ve wondered the same thing,” she said. “We know that anyone from the clinic could have gotten into his apartment by using the set of keys from Maggie’s drawer.”

She wished she could tell him about seeing Melanie Turnbull’s name on Keaton’s table. Or at the very least that Keaton was going to bail on the clinic. Maybe she could say that Keaton had let that fact slip during conversation. But that would only arouse Archer’s curiosity—and she couldn’t give him even a hint of the whole truth.

“Possibly,” he said. He finished his coffee and set the mug down. “But as much as I don’t like coincidences, there’s a chance that Keaton’s death is just that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I talked to some police contacts I have. They’ve got their own ideas about what went down.”

“Oh?” Lake said, almost in a whisper.

“Keaton had a lady caller the night he was killed. There was a torn condom wrapper on the floor next to his bed. Which explains why the cops seemed interested in you. They’re gonna look at every woman he crossed paths with.”

Lake looked down, running her thumb along the handle of her mug.

“I can see your mind spinning,” Archer said. “Got any ideas?”

“No—no, I don’t,” she sputtered. “I mean, I guess a woman could have killed him. Someone he was seeing. Is that what you think?”

“That’s one possibility,” Archer said. “
Or…
he had sex with this woman and, lucky for her, she left right afterward. And then
after she was gone, someone from the clinic—or hired by the clinic—snuck in and did the job. Maybe it was even the guy who attacked you last night.”

“There’s so much to consider,” Lake said weakly. It was all she could manage to say. She wondered if Archer suspected something and was toying with her. She needed to derail this conversation as soon as possible. She quickly drained her coffee mug and announced that she would grab her things from the living room.

They were in her car ten minutes later. Archer offered to drive and she gladly let him. Whatever sporadic calm she’d felt on and off at Archer’s apartment was shot now—in part because she was headed home but also because of the breakfast-table conversation about Keaton. The traffic didn’t help: the blaring horns on Sixth Avenue made her want to jump out of her skin. She barely spoke to Archer on the twenty-five-minute drive to the Upper West Side.

“I think I should come in with you for a minute,” Archer said as they walked up the driveway of her parking garage. “Just to be sure everything is okay in your apartment.”

Once again she didn’t fight him. Given the mystery doorbell ring from the other night, she knew someone could easily gain access to her floor.

As they approached her building, she looked around. There were a dozen people hurrying along different points on the block, probably all bound for work. Nothing ominous, at least that she could see.

The doorman, Ray, was accepting a delivery of dry cleaning, but that didn’t stop him from greeting her and giving Archer a discreet once-over. She worried briefly if having Archer come up might be grist for Jack’s case, but she figured it was okay if he only stayed a few minutes.

“Does everything seem all right to you?” Archer asked as they stepped into the apartment.

“Yes—at first glance.”

“Why don’t I take a quick look around—if that’s okay with you?”

“Thank you, I’d appreciate that,” she said.

At that moment Smokey shot down the hall toward her.

“Geez,” Archer said. “What’s happened to this poor cat?”

“Someone did that to him.”

“Last night?” Archer exclaimed.

“No, no. Before.” Lake quickly told him the story, as well as about the catnip and the night the doorbell rang. Archer listened with his brow furrowed, not interrupting.

“Okay, I need the actual timeline for all of this,” he said when she’d finished. “When was the cat shaved?”

“Last weekend.”

“And the catnip showed up in your purse…?”

“On Wednesday.”

“This isn’t making much sense to me. The office manager—her name’s Brie?—caught you going through the files a day or two ago. Since then you were given the cold shoulder at your presentation and you were attacked when you were supposed to be meeting with a former patient.
That
makes some kind of sense. But why was your cat shaved last weekend?”

“I—I don’t know,” Lake stammered. “Levin knew I’d found the file with your name. Maybe he already thought I was beginning to snoop around. Maybe he wanted to warn me off.”

“But how were you supposed to guess that having your cat shaved meant to cool it at the clinic? That takes a hell of a lot of translation. No, there’s a piece missing here…”

He swept a hand through his hair and stared off to the side, thinking. Lake could barely contain her agitation. She didn’t want
him thinking about this. Because if he did, it wouldn’t be long before he saw the full timeline in his mind and realized that the incidents had begun shortly after the murder itself. And that she was somehow deeply connected to it.

“Should we look around now?” she asked. “I don’t want to hold you up.”

“Sure,” he said, but when his eyes caught hers she saw that they were questioning. She could tell he sensed she was holding back.

With Lake leading, they ducked into each room in the apartment. Nothing seemed amiss.

“I can’t thank you enough for this, Kit,” she said as they left the family room. She realized it was the first time she’d used his first name. “I honestly don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“I’m just glad you decided to call me. So when do you plan to talk to Maggie?”

“Around twelve-thirty. She goes to the same spot for lunch most days and I think I’ll just wait outside for her.”

“Call me right afterward, okay?” he said, walking toward the door. “And call me if you feel in any kind of danger.”

Their eyes met and he held her gaze for a moment.