GUILTY SECRETS

by Virginia Kantra

  "My brother."

  She swallowed. Which brother? The firefighter or the cop? "Mike? Is he all right?"

  "He's fine."

  So what had his-brother-the-cop said to upset him? We both know she didn't have anything to do with it. A warning shiver ran up her spine.

  Joe patted his empty breast pocket and scowled. Obviously he hadn't gone out for cigarettes yet. Or bagels.

  "Should I offer to cook some eggs?" she asked.

  Joe gave her a level look. "Are you offering?"

  "I don't know. I don't know the rules."

  "The rules." He grinned. "There are rules?"

  She bit her lip to keep her smile in check. This wasn't funny. She was vulnerable. At a disadvantage. "You would know."

  "Other than, 'don't leave the seat up,' I can't think of any."

  Did he need her to spell it out? "I don't want you to feel obliged to stay for breakfast just because we … because I … I don't want you to feel obliged."

  Joe reached out and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. "I'm not obliged. I am hungry." His thumb brushed her jaw, intimate as a kiss. "Where's your frying pan?"

  It was hardly a declaration of devotion or commitment. But it left her breathless and nearly speechless all the same.

  "Under the stove," she managed.

  "Right." He turned from her and dug in the storage drawer for her mother's cast-iron skillet. "Why don't you get out the eggs? You got any bread that doesn't look like a sixth-grade science-fair exhibit?"

  She watched him make himself at home in her kitchen, torn between pleasure at having him here and resentment that this was so easy for him.

  "In the freezer," she said. "I don't go through a loaf very quickly on my own."

  "Practical of you." He tossed a chunk of butter into the pan.

  She wasn't sure that was a compliment. She would have liked to hear that she was beautiful or sexy or exciting. But she was practical, she thought, crossing to the refrigerator. Competent. She yanked open the freezer door. Self-sufficient.

  She dropped two slices of bread into the toaster. "You understand you don't have to stay after breakfast."

  "Yeah, I do." Joe swirled the pan to melt the last of the butter and set it back on the burner. "You've got a detective coming to talk to you this morning, and I want to be here."

  Nell almost dropped the carton of eggs. "Why? I gave my statement to your brother last night."

  Joe took the eggs and broke them one by one into the pan. Crack, plop. "Mike's going to follow up on that. This is something else."

  Misgiving shook her. "What do you mean, something else? Did something happen at the clinic?"

  All his attention focused on the eggs sizzling in the pan. "Not exactly."

  "Then, what? Exactly." Apprehension sharpened her voice.

  Joe shifted the pan to another burner and turned to face her. "The investigation turned up a bunch more phony prescriptions written on clinic pads to clinic patients that the patients never received."

  Her mind struggled to grasp the implications of what he was saying. "But if the prescriptions were never picked up—"

  "The drugs were picked up," Joe said. "But not by patients."

  Nell absorbed the news like a body blow. "Then, who…?"

  "That's what the police want to know. Somebody's making the pickups. The costs are charged to the patients or their insurance companies, and the drugs are resold on the street. The profits are probably split with whoever is providing the prescriptions."

  "Who is the prescriber?" Nell whispered. But she knew. She knew.

  "The prescriptions have your name on them," Joe said quietly. "Your signature. The area sergeant assigned a detective to the case this morning, and they've notified the DEA."

  Nell went numb. This went beyond bad and into nightmare.

  "How many prescriptions?"

  How much damage had been done in her name? To her name?

  "Mike wouldn't say." Joe's tone was flat.

  Why not?

  "Because you're a reporter?" Nell asked.

  Joe opened cupboard doors until he found her neatly stacked plates. "That's part of it."

  She twisted her fingers together. "Or because you're sleeping with me?"

  Joe banged the cabinet shut. "He doesn't know that."

  Her heart constricted. "He knows you spent the night."

  "He also knows you're not guilty," Joe said. "Or he would if he had half a brain. Sit down and eat your eggs."

  Her stomach churned. She couldn't possibly eat now. But she sank onto a chair. "My name was on the prescriptions, you said. Your brother has to think I'm guilty. That's why he called, isn't it? He doesn't want you involved."

  Joe slid the eggs from the skillet onto two plates. "That's because he's not looking at this objectively."

  She appreciated his logic, but his detachment hurt.

  "And you are?"

  "Sure. You're the one who reported a problem in the first place. You wouldn't have called the police if you were guilty."

  Her hands were cold. She was cold all over. "Unless I wanted to divert their suspicions."

  Joe popped toast from the toaster. "Nope. This drug-fraud thing didn't surface until after Mike and Dietz showed up at your clinic the first time. My guess is whoever was stealing from the pharmacy figured they couldn't get away with it anymore and came up with this scheme instead."

  "But prescription fraud is a much bigger deal. Bigger risks and bigger penalties."

  Joe shrugged and set both plates on the table. "It also has a bigger payoff. Your crooks could be desperate. Or greedy."

  "Or convinced they can pin it on me."

  "That's why I want to be here when you talk to the detective."

  The temptation to say yes staggered her. It would be too easy to go along with him, to simply give up control of her fate and the situation.

  She cleared her throat. "That might not be such a good idea."

  Joe stabbed his eggs. "Why not?"

  "Well, for starters, I don't think the detective will let you. You're not my lawyer. And as much as I appreciate your being here last night—"

  "And this morning," Joe put in blandly. "Don't forget this morning."

  Her face got hot. The heat moved low inside her, too, her own personal lava flow. She couldn't forget this morning if she tried.

  Nell took a deep breath. "As much as I appreciate what you've done—everything you've done—I don't need a nurse, either."

  Joe grinned. "Babe, you don't know what you need."

  But she did.

  She'd had the past two years and all morning to figure it out.

  She played with her toast. "Maybe I should say, I know what I don't need."

  His grin faded. "And that would include me."

  She couldn't afford to need him. Didn't he see?

  "It's really nice of you to offer," she said earnestly, and winced.

  Nice. God, that sounded so lame.

  He lowered his knife and fork. "Is this because I'm a reporter?" he asked abruptly.

  She blinked. "What?"

  A muscle worked in his jaw. "Because I get it, you know. I can do 'off the record.'"

  He was angry, which she expected.

  And hurt, which she did not. She didn't want to hurt him. She only wanted to protect herself.

  She shook her head—another mistake, it made her dizzy—and assured him, "It's not that."

  "Then what the hell is it? Because I don't have a clue."

  "It's just…" She struggled for an explanation that would satisfy him. "I'm innocent. I'll be fine."

  He looked at her as if she had the word "stupid" emblazoned on her forehead. Maybe she did.

  "You were innocent before, and you still got dumped and screwed."

  She forced a smile, trying to keep her tone light. Trying to keep their disagreement from getting too close. Too real. "Well, I've been screwed again, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I remember."

&nbs
p; "'Not as bad'? Wow. Thanks. That's one I'll have them carve on my tombstone."

  There was a hollow in her chest and a buzzing in her head. She leaned forward and covered one of his hands, his beautiful surgeon's hands, with her own. "Joe, this is not about you."

  "No, it's about you. About how you can't accept help."

  She didn't want him to see that. She should have realized his sharp reporter's eyes saw everything. "Maybe."

  His mouth tightened. "Or is it just that you can't accept help from me?"

  She drew back her hand. "You know that I like you." Oh, now there was an understatement. She tried again. "That I care for you."

  "But you don't trust me not to let you down. You don't count on me to be there for you when you have a problem."

  She couldn't count on anyone. She'd taught herself not to rely on anyone. Because when you did and they betrayed and abandoned you, you not only had the wreckage of your life to pick up but the pieces of your heart.

  She hid her trembling hands in her lap and tried to keep her voice from shaking. "I thought you'd appreciate me not making any demands on you. You're an observer. You write about other people's lives, about other people's problems. You don't do involved. I don't expect you to."

  "News flash for you, babe. We had sex this morning. That makes us involved in my book."

  That jerked her chin up. "I don't think so. You told your mother we were having a torrid, temporary affair."

  His eyes were like ice chips. "Is that what you want?"

  This wasn't about what she wanted, either. It was about what life had taught her she could have.

  Her head throbbed. Wrapping her hands around her coffee mug, she raised her gaze to his. "Are you offering me an alternative? After one night together?"

  He jolted as if she'd just shocked him with an electric paddle. So she had her answer. It was her own fault if she didn't like it.

  "I'm offering to stay," Joe said, suddenly cautious. "I'm offering to help."

  It was more than anyone else was prepared to do. More, Nell guessed, than Joe in his nomadic, footloose life was used to giving.

  It was almost enough.

  But she couldn't put herself in the position of relying on another person ever again.

  "I don't want you to think I'm ungrateful. But I'd really prefer to handle this myself."

  His chair scraped the floor as he stood. He paced to the sink and turned, glowering at her.

  Already moving away. Moving on.

  "I don't like leaving you alone like this."

  She had always been alone, even when she was married. At least now she recognized it.

  Nell sipped her coffee, but it didn't do anything for the pounding in her head or the churning in her stomach. Or the tears that brewed behind her eyes and in her throat.

  "I'll call Billie," she said, to make it easier for him to go. "I'm sure she'll come over at the end of her shift to check on me."

  He drained his mug and set it in the sink, and one stupid corner of her brain still thought he would ignore her urging and her logic and stay. They scraped her plates and stacked her dishwasher together, and one stubborn corner of her heart still hoped he'd reject the exit she was offering.

  "I wrote my cell number by the phone," he told her as she stood in the hall, waiting for him to leave so she could have a good cry. "Call if you need anything."

  She needed him.

  But pride and self-preservation kept her silent. And he left without her saying a word.

  He should have said something.

  Joe slammed the Range Rover's door. The sound echoed between the rows of cars in the parking lot.

  Yeah, like anything he said could have changed Nell's mind.

  He stomped toward the church hall, where the seven o'clock meeting was already underway in the basement. He so didn't need this. He was tired. He'd worked late filing the first story in his series on Chicago's uninsured. Right now he didn't want to get blind and stupid drunk so much as he wanted to go bang on Nell's apartment door or howl under her window.

  But he knew the triggers: anger, pain, frustration, depression, stress, anxiety. Check, check, check… He was working his way through the list and that meant, like it or not, need it or not, convenient or not, he was due for a meeting.

  He slipped through a door at the back of a room that smelled of floor polish and bad coffee. A tough young Hispanic was talking and gesturing at the front. An elderly woman in a neat navy suit was sitting directly beside him, nodding her head in time to the movement of his hands.

  It was a closed discussion meeting tonight. Joe chose a chair near the back and let the stories wash over him, halting admissions of pain and purpose, haunting confessions of despair and hope.

  "Hi, my name is Carmen…"

  "Rick…"

  "Kathleen…"

  "Joe…"

  "…and I'm an alcoholic."

  He didn't know all the names, but he was one of them. One with them. Gradually, the stories and support seeped through his distraction. Slowly, his frustration drained away, and peace trickled in to take its place.

  Maybe he'd needed this more than he thought. At the end, Joe stood to pour himself some of the lousy coffee and exchange greetings. "Hi." A female voice. Young. He turned.

  Bright blue eyelids, long brown hair, kid in a stroller. The woman looked vaguely familiar. He'd never seen the kid before in his life.

  "Do you come here a lot?" the young woman asked, and then rolled her eyes. "Jeez. I can't believe I said that. Classic pickup line, huh?"

  Joe smiled at her reassuringly. "I'm so out of the bar scene, it sounded new to me."

  She smiled back, her face relaxing. "Joe, right? I've seen you at the clinic."

  He recognized her now. "Melody King. You work there," he said.

  They shook hands, a ritual complicated by his coffee cup, her slipping purse, her dangling umbrella and the stroller.

  Nell's office manager was an alcoholic?

  Joe's gaze dropped to the little girl kicking pink shoes against the stroller's footrest. "And who is this?"

  "That's my Rosie." The young mother stooped to unfasten the child's seat restraint and lift her in her arms. "She's getting too big for the stroller, but it keeps her quiet during the meetings. At least, it keeps her from running around."

  Was it just booze? Joe wondered. Or booze and drugs? Was she relapsed or recovering? Did Nell know?

  He had to say something.

  "Does she usually come with you?"

  "No, I have a sitter." Melody shifted her daughter on her hip. "But she canceled, and I really needed to come tonight, you know?"

  He knew.

  "So I brought her here with me. A lot of the folks in this group, they're kind of old, but they mostly don't mind."

  "That's good," Joe said.

  He was not going to ask, he decided. The purpose of the meeting was mutual support and recovery. He was not going to violate the bond of the group by interrogating Melody King in the church basement.

  "Of course, I've been coming so long, some of them know me from when I was pregnant." Melody pushed back her curtain of hair with one hand and peered up at Joe. Apparently she took seriously the organization's tradition of making strangers welcome. "So, you're like, new, right?"

  "This is my second time here," Joe admitted. "I usually go to the Halstead Street

  group."

  She nodded. "Oh, yeah. I guess that's closer to where you work, huh? Hang on, baby," she crooned to her squirming daughter. "She gets kind of restless after eight o'clock," she confided to Joe. "We probably should get going."

  Still balancing the child on her hip, she struggled to turn the stroller. A wheel bumped the coffee table.

  Joe caught a stack of foam cups before they toppled. "Let me give you a hand to your car."

  "I don't have a car."

  It was only a little overcast. She probably enjoyed her walk home. He had no reason to…

  Nell's comment ra
n through his mind, jagged and clear as a crack in the sidewalk. You're an observer. You don't do involved. I don't expect you to.

  Hell.

  "Can I give you a lift?" he asked. "You probably don't accept rides from strangers, but—"

  "That would be great," Melody said. "Besides, you're not really a stranger. I mean, you came to the meeting. That's got to count for something. And you're seeing Nell, and I figure she wouldn't go with you if there was, like, something wrong with you, you know?"

  Joe dragged the stroller to one side and pushed open the door. Swell. Even the office manager acknowledged his bond with Nell. Why the hell couldn't she?

  Melody scooted past him, still holding the kid. "Unless you're one of her lame ducks," she said over her shoulder.

  He carried the stroller up from the basement, aware of his ankle grinding with every step. "Lame duck?"

  "Oh, you know," Melody said at the top of the stairs. "People like me. People who need help. She collects them."

  Disquiet prodded him. He didn't want to be part of a collection. "Give me an example."

  "Well … me. Nobody else would hire me. I've got the single-mom thing going, and I'm a former crack-head."

  He hadn't asked her. But now that she'd volunteered the information, Joe didn't know whether to be glad or sorry.

  "Besides you," he said, and opened the door to the parking lot.

  A fine rain glowed around the streetlights and gleamed on the cars.

  "Ooh, I'm glad you're driving," Melody said.

  "Do you want me to bring the car around?"

  "No, I'm good," Melody said. "Hand me Rose's sweater, though, would you?"

  He fished in the stroller until he found it, a fuzzy pink thing with a hood. He handed it to her. "So, who else at the clinic owes Nell?"

  "Well, she has her special pet patients. People nobody else wants to see. Mrs. Delaggio—what a bitch—and that grumpy old Mr. Vacek. And then there's Ed Johnson. I know he had to retire from his last job. He doesn't like what he's making at the clinic, but without Nell he wouldn't have a job at all."

  Interesting. But was the elderly pharmacist broke enough or resentful enough to target the woman who had hired him?

  "What about Lucy Morales? Or Billie Parker?"

  Melody kneeled with her daughter and began to coax her chubby arms into the sweater's sleeves. "Lucy's first husband liked to pound on her, and Billie helps support her sister and her little boy."