One Little Secret (ARC)

by Cate Holahan

  “God, I’m the worst. I’m the absolute worst.” Shame mixed with the relief and unspent anger in her bubbling stomach, giving her new reason to be sick. “I’ve been drinking too much, clearly. That’s no excuse. But I’m going to cut way back on the alcohol.”

  “Well, that might be good,” Nadal said. The quick agreement suggested to Susan that he had considered talking to her about her wine consumption before. “Better to stop a problem before one really takes hold.”

  Nadal ran a hand through his dark curls. “It’s not all your fault, though. I’ve been working so much and then acting secretive on top of it. I can see how you’d be concerned.” He sighed. “I should have told you right away. Rachel got this personal-injury case a month or two ago, I guess, but she only recently realized that she could rope in Doc2Go. She met with me about it Tuesday afternoon. Completely blindsided me. I thought she was coming to offer her legal services or to consult, since everybody I say hello to in our new town tells me I need to put them on the payroll in some capacity.” He shook his head. “You’d think people didn’t have jobs before I showed up.”

  Susan felt even worse. She’d been nagging her husband to befriend the neighbors, and they’d all been trying to shake him down for money. “I’m so sorry.”

  Nadal shrugged, as if to say he’d expected as much once his firm began doing well. He started back toward the bed. “I’m sorry you worked so hard planning this vacation and she would do this right before we left.” He plopped atop the mattress. “It didn’t even occur to me how her email could be read because I knew what it was about. But, in hindsight, she really does have a messed-up way with words. I can’t walk away now. Keep this just between us.” He rubbed a palm over his face and then held it out toward her. “I get why your first thought wouldn’t be that the neighbor was taking us to court.”

  Susan dropped onto the duvet beside her husband and leaned miserably into his side. “But it shouldn’t have been cheating.” She fell backward onto the mattress, letting the fluffy fabric envelop her, wishing she could sink into it and disappear. “I suppose I’ve been feeling self-conscious since leaving my job. More of my self-worth was tied up in my paycheck than I realized. I’m just … ugh.”

  Nadal laid down beside her and slipped his arm beneath her neck. He pulled her into him, letting her nuzzle into his chest. “You’re not ugh. I’m to blame also. I shouldn’t have kept this from you.”

  “I understand why you did, though. You thought you were helping me have a nice vacation.” She groaned. “I am so sorry.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “You said that already.”

  She pressed her face between his pectorals, letting his chest hair tickle her nose. “How can I make it up to you?”

  Nadal’s fingers pulled through her wet hair. “I don’t know. Sex?”

  Susan pressed tighter into her husband, letting the towel slip below her breasts so that her bare skin touched his naked torso, hoping it would be enough for the moment. The emotional roller coaster she’d been riding was poor medicine for a hangover. Her stomach still debated whether it wanted to keep down the water from earlier. “I drank myself into a stupor last night,” she mumbled. “I can’t bounce around too much right now.”

  Nadal’s chest shook as he laughed. “Oh, babe.” Another kiss landed on her forehead. He rolled over and got up from the mattress, leaving her half naked on the bed. “Actually, I could use your help with the case, when you feel up to it. We have our team looking at it, of course. But they’re all Valley lawyers used to thinking that everyone plays by Facebook rules: think fast and break things. We’re in New York now, and I think a criminal defense attorney might be more accustomed to critically examining culpability.”

  The request reinflated some of her self-esteem, enabling her to sit up and take a deep breath—which she immediately regretted. It threatened to make her retch again. “Fresh air might do me some good. Talk me through it on the beach? We can watch the sunrise.”

  Nadal grimaced. “It’s that early?”

  “There’s no sleeping beside a wall of east-facing windows.”

  “Is it a nude beach?”

  “No.”

  Nadal kissed her shoulder. “Then I guess we should both get dressed.”

  * * *

  Susan sucked in salt air and stepped onto the sand. The aroma coupled with the cool breeze eased her nausea. Holding her husband’s hand also helped settle her churning stomach. The pressure of his fingers between her knuckles made her feel less sick with herself for her terrible mistake. He was a good man and he loved her. She could take confidence from that.

  They walked slowly, pacing themselves to the sunrise. During the time she’d taken to get ready, a golden circle had peeked above the horizon line. To Susan, the sun’s face resembled a godly child peering above a rippling navy blanket. She missed her kids.

  “The case involves a nine-year-old boy.” Nadal looked straight ahead at the jetty looming in the distance. That was a difference between her and her husband, Susan thought. He was always focused on a goal while she got enveloped by the atmosphere.

  “The same age as our twins, as Rachel has reminded me countless times in an effort to horrify me into forking over money. Remember when she dragged me into the house for wine?”

  Susan stroked the back of Nadal’s hand, an insufficient gesture of affection for all the trouble she’d caused.

  “Anyway, the boy had strep throat.” Nadal cleared his throat, as if for emphasis. “He suffered a fatal allergic reaction after being treated at his home by a doctor contacted through Doc2Go. Apparently the kid was allergic to penicillin. And the doctor prescribed amoxicillin, which is basically the same fucking thing.”

  The epithet drew Susan’s attention from the scenery back to her husband. When they’d met, Nadal had cursed often, a consequence, he’d claimed, of his upbringing on the outskirts of Boston and his teenage rebellion against his strict Muslim parents. But he’d reined himself in since having the boys. For Nadal to drop an f-bomb, he had to be pretty upset.

  “So, okay,” he continued. “The doctor screws up, says he wasn’t informed about the allergy. Fine. Usually there’s a second line of defense—the pharmacy. Unfortunately, this boy’s parents can’t go to their usual place, which has the allergy on record, because it’s closed. So they visit a new convenience store to fill the prescription and forget to tell the pharmacist that their son is allergic to the most commonly prescribed antibiotic.” Nadal’s stride lengthened. “I mean, what happened to these parents is horrible, and I don’t want to vilify them. I really don’t. But how do you have a kid with a penicillin allergy and not realize that’s what you’re giving him? How do you not check?”

  Susan thought of all the sick visits with their boys over the years. Often she’d been so exhausted from the night of soothing, cleaning up vomit, and forcing down unwanted medicines that, by the time she’d reached the urgent care, she’d forget to tell the doctor anything beyond the past twenty-four hours. Of course, she hadn’t had a kid with a deadly allergy. Still, she could sympathize. For someone with an ill child and no medical training, doctors were akin to gods. The assumption was that they knew everything already.

  “And the boy died?”

  “I guess the parents gave him the medicine and put him to bed.” Nadal’s walk slowed. “The boy’s throat closed up and he couldn’t alert them. They woke to find him on his bedroom floor, unresponsive.” Nadal stopped to examine the sand creeping up the sides of his sneakers. “It’s all so fucked.”

  As his wife, Susan wanted to come to his defense. Doc2Go hadn’t made the diagnosis. It was the physician’s job to ask the family for allergy information and the pharmacist’s job to explain the risks of the medication before filling a prescription. Her internal lawyer, however, made her consider the other side. Nadal’s company had provided the family with the doctor’s information and, by allowing him to use the site, certified his qualifications for the job.

&nb
sp; “The site asks for allergy information, right? I remember a long questionnaire.”

  Nadal nodded vigorously. “Of course. The patients have to supply it, just like they would at a hospital.”

  “Did the parents neglect to include the allergy information?”

  Nadal’s hands went to his hips. He shook his head. “Damn doctor didn’t read it.”

  “Isn’t there a check box that doctors are supposed to tick, saying they read it?”

  “It’s on the site …”

  Nadal’s lack of eye contact told Susan to probe. “But?”

  He kicked the sand. “Doctors can see the patient’s location and agree to take the case without checking the box first. It’s a stupid glitch. We already fixed it.”

  Susan sucked air through her teeth. “You fixed it?”

  “Yeah. It was a fucking glitch. That’s all. We fixed it.”

  The swear betrayed that Nadal suspected—and didn’t want to hear—what she would say next. Susan looked out over the water, taking a moment to judiciously select her words. The sun’s glowing face had moved an inch higher and light stretched toward the shore, indicating that the day was finally serious about starting.

  “Fixing things could be an admission of guilt, honey.” Susan kept her gaze trained on the horizon. “You wouldn’t have changed anything if there wasn’t something wrong.”

  Nadal tossed his hand, dismissing her argument. “Someone pointed out a user experience issue and we fixed it. That’s what we do. It’s not because we think we’re responsible for every doctor that uses the site.”

  She understood why her husband felt that way. Technologists were, at heart, scientists. They operated according to the same method: see a problem, develop a hypothesis to fix said problem, test it, note the relative success and complications of the solution, improve the methodology, repeat. Mistakes were part of the process. They didn’t fear them as much as they should.

  “How much do they want?”

  Nadal picked up his pace toward the jetty, his frustration fueling his speed. “They sued the doctor’s insurance for a million six weeks ago. He apparently responded by putting all the blame on the site, claiming he’d never been alerted to the allergy information, didn’t know it was on the application, and hadn’t been informed by the parents. Rachel hinted to me that she could make it go away for double that without needing to go to court.” Nadal scoffed. “Two million dollars! That’s two years’ salary for five senior developers. Do you know how much that will slow progress and the profitability timetable? And the payout alone will enrage the investors. The VCs will probably want to move up the IPO so they can cash out before anything else happens, but we’ll be less equipped to do that because we’ll have spent the new-hire budget on legal fees.”

  Nadal’s nostrils flared like an enraged bull as he charged toward the rocks. “I’m sure Rachel told the family that the company doesn’t want any bad press before the big dog-and-pony IPO show, so they feel well positioned to fight. And, unfortunately, she’s right.”

  Susan put an arm around Nadal’s side and pulled herself close, offering her physical support since she couldn’t promise to make anything better. Negative headlines would erase much of the work Nadal had done building up the company’s presence and brand on the East Coast. He’d have no choice but to give Rachel what she and her clients demanded.

  She focused on the water, not wanting Nadal to get worked up from her lack of fight. The pale-blue sky was streaked with gold and grayish green. Cirrus clouds swirled high above, adding white wisps to the beautiful painting. “I’m sorry that you’ve been dealing with all of this.”

  “It’s not your fault. It’s Rachel. She’s fucking shameless.” He snorted. “Do you know she told me that she was helping me out with the suit?”

  “How’s that?”

  “According to her, another lawyer, one not tied to our family, would try the case in the court of public opinion. They’d shame the company into a massive settlement for God only knows how much. However, because she knows us and knows how reasonable and, her words, ‘forward thinking,’ I am, she’s certain we can come up with a number that compensates her client for their unimaginable loss without making a big scene.”

  Susan’s inner lawyer couldn’t help but feel a bit impressed by Rachel’s argument—the way she’d delivered the threat under the guise of friendship. I’ll play nice, but only if you play ball. Susan looked up at Nadal and rolled her eyes, trying to make light of the solid intimidation tactic. “Remind me to thank her.”

  “Yeah. What a bitch, right?”

  Susan resumed walking, feeling more guilty with each step. She’d mentally called Rachel that word a thousand times in her mind the prior night. But the truth was, the woman really hadn’t deserved it. She hadn’t been a husband stealer, and she also wasn’t a greedy monster who had sought out a suit to screw her neighbors. She’d taken the case before she’d known it involved Nadal. Dropping it simply because she had a burgeoning friendship with one of the named parties could be considered unethical. And, if Susan were honest with herself, Rachel probably was doing Nadal a favor not involving the press and dampening enthusiasm for his IPO. He couldn’t expect her not to seek a multimillion-dollar settlement. Two parents had lost their little boy. Rachel’s job was to ease their pain and suffering with as big a payout as possible.

  “I wouldn’t be too harsh on her, honey. Rachel can’t simply drop a case that she’s already been working on. And two million, for the death of a child, isn’t exorbitant. Another lawyer might just have read the hype-heavy business articles and asked for an amount that you’d never be able to absorb with your current resources.”

  They reached the jetty as Susan finished her defense. The wall of rocks pierced the water like an arrowhead. The ocean slapped against it, creating little white crests that rippled toward a female figure reclining against the rocks.

  Susan startled at the realization that they weren’t alone. From the forward tilt of the stranger’s head, Susan guessed that she was napping, though she couldn’t imagine trying to tan or sleep at such an early hour, and certainly not with the tide creeping in.

  “Lawyers.” Nadal named the career with more venom than he’d injected into countless four-letter words. “You always take each other’s side.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m only saying to give her the benefit of the doubt.” Susan shielded her eyes from the sunlight to better see the sunbather. Without the glare, more details became visible. Wrinkled heels. White legs. Hair, darkened with seawater, pasted to a pale neck. A white bathing suit.

  She recognized the suit. She’d thought about it more than once the prior night on the couch, torturing herself by imagining it pooled on the floor beside a floral kimono while the pale body it had covered draped itself across her husband’s torso.

  “You really don’t see the immorality of—”

  She nudged Nadal with her elbow. “Hi, Rachel,” she shouted.

  “Speak of the devil,” he muttered.

  He turned back toward the house. Susan braced herself to apologize. With luck, Rachel hadn’t yet read her email and therefore hadn’t been stewing about it. Susan decided she’d be humble and self-deprecating, taking responsibility while also explaining the mitigating factors of her drunkenness and exhaustion. She might apologize on Nadal’s behalf as well, explaining how hard he’d worked for years to bring Doc2Go to fruition and how unnerving it was for him to see his “baby” sued for the first time.

  “Rachel?” Susan called out.

  A wave crashed against the jetty, spitting water toward her friend. Susan forced her legs forward despite a deepening sense of foreboding. “Rachel?” she shouted again.

  The lack of any response stopped her from saying the name a third time. She dropped to her knees beside the mannequin form. Rachel’s chest wasn’t moving. Susan knew CPR, but she was in no position to perform it. Already she felt bile building at the base of her throat.

  She scr
eamed for Nadal. Footsteps beat toward her. Moments later, he was kneeling by her side, pressing two fingers into the skin below Rachel’s jaw, shifting her bent head to reveal the paisley print of bruises spread across Rachel’s neck. After ten seconds, he dropped his hand to his lap.

  “Try again,” Susan insisted. “Maybe it’s faint.”

  Nadal pressed his fingers into another spot. He counted only five seconds this time. Each one felt like an eternity. “There’s no pulse. Her skin is cold.”

  Susan suddenly became aware of a smell wafting from Rachel, a funky odor, like brackish water without as much sulfur. Sour liquid reared into Susan’s throat. She scrambled from Rachel’s body on all fours, a crab scuttling toward a hole. Her ears filled with the sound of rushing blood. Susan heaved. Frothy yellow bile poured onto the glistening sand.

  This was her fault, she thought. She’d fallen asleep wishing the worst things upon Rachel, praying for the woman to disappear, permanently, from her life. Such entreaties were never answered by God. And the devil never did anything for free.

  PART III

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE DAY AFTER

  Gabby observed Nadal through the one-way-mirror, scanning for signs of the murderous rage required to hold a struggling woman underwater for a full five minutes. He didn’t exhibit the behaviors that she’d come to associate with violent men caged in small spaces. He didn’t pace like a tiger, or compulsively fidget, rubbing his hands over his arms, drumming his fingers on the desk, or jiggling his knees. He didn’t close his eyes, retreating to some place in his mind where he was still free. He also didn’t cry, as so many did upon realizing that one act of extreme selfishness or explosive anger was about to cost them everything.