Turning the Tide (Eastern Shore Swingers, #5)

by Phoebe Alexander

  She took in a deep breath, making her shoulders heave up and down as she released it slowly. “I don’t like that you’re going through this,” she answered. “But I really don’t like the fact that Connie is stuck in the middle of it.” She turned toward her sister and put her arm around her. “I’m just worried about you getting hurt.”

  “I’m going to do everything in my power to keep her safe,” Luke promised.

  “I was thinking more of her heart...” Casey’s voice trailed off as the realization that her sister might be in physical danger raised her hackles. “You think she’s in actual danger?”

  Luke cleared his throat. “No, I don’t. But I plan on doing everything I can to make sure her heart stays intact too. I care very deeply for your sister, Casey, and I see a future for us when all this blows over. The tide is turning...you’ll see. We’ll get it all figured out.”

  “You better!” Casey gave him what appeared to be a warning look, then turned to help Joshua with the grill. The other parties slowly filtered off as well.

  Connie took Luke’s hand into hers. “The tide is turning, huh?”

  He smiled at her then squeezed her hand. “I think it finally is.” He took her face into his hands and stared deeply into her eyes with a silent promise before pressing his lips against hers. The spark they created traveled through every synapse, every nerve in his body, igniting the resolve that had begun to grow deep inside him.

  After they broke away from their embrace, he looked off into the sky in the direction of the water for a brief moment. He couldn’t see it, but only a mile or two away the ocean was crashing against the sandy shores of Assateague Island on a tide schedule that had endured for millennia. It took a powerful force to turn the tide: the moon, a giant celestial ball emitting a mighty pull, which had beamed down on every earth night for countless eons. He’d been buried under a high tide of depression, complacency and hopelessness for a decade now. It would take all his strength to turn the tide, but with this woman by his side, he finally felt capable of doing it.

  FOURTEEN

  When a man cheats, it is said it is because he is a dog. When a woman cheats, it is said it is because her man is a dog. ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, Divided & Conquered

  He awoke early Tuesday morning to a phone call from his daughter Chloe. He hadn’t spoken to her in a couple of weeks, not since Barbara’s trip to DC the weekend her mother ended up hospitalized. He smiled at Chloe’s wedding photo gracing the screen of his phone before answering, “Hey, honey, what’s up?”

  A heavy weight filled with guilt swung right into his head when he realized how long it’d been since he’d checked in on her. He usually tried to send his two adult children a text or call them at least once a week, but to say he’d been distracted by all that was going on with Barbara and Connie and the financial situation—not to mention needing to hire a P.I.—was a vast understatement.

  “How could you, Daddy?” came a whimpering, sobbing voice.

  His heart lurched again, just as it had on Saturday when Connie disclosed the rumors Casey heard about him. “Chloe, what’s wrong?”

  “How could you cheat on Mom with your nurse and then lock her out of all your bank accounts?” She barely got the words out before she began to choke on more tears. A string of short, staccato sobs sounded before she managed to spit out, “I thought you were better than that, Daddy! I can’t believe you betrayed our family like that.”

  “Hold on,” he tried to keep the panic from surging up his throat, “I don’t know what your mom has been telling you, but she left me.”

  “Jasmine, though, Daddy? She’s not even that older than me!” She drew in a sharp breath. “It’s disgusting!”

  “Wait, what?” Now he was really confused. Naturally, he first thought of Connie when Chloe accused him of cheating on his wife with his nurse. He had no idea how the story could have morphed into something so blatantly false. “I’m not having an affair with Jasmine!”

  “Daddy!” she wailed. “Stop with the lies! I can’t believe you’d treat Mom like that. I thought you were a good man, a good husband who was taking care of your wife when she was sick. And now I find out this. And to cut off her money, too! She has nowhere to go, you know. She’s coming to stay with me until she can figure out what to do.”

  Damn it. Calvin Sr. didn’t tell him Barbara had left the Eastern Shore. Why didn’t he know this? He’d just seen his son the day before at the barbecue.

  “Chloe, please, sweetheart, you have to believe me. Your mother was the one taking money out of my accounts, the accounts I use to pay things like my student loans and my liability insurance. She has her own account that I put money in every two weeks. She still has access to it—I didn’t take that away. If she’s told you anything different, she’s the one lying, sweetheart. I don’t know how to tell you that any other way. She’s lying to you.”

  What the actual fuck?

  There was only a brief pause before he heard his daughter clear her throat. “I don’t want to have any more contact with you, Daddy. I thought maybe you would come clean and tell me the truth, but it’s just more lies. You are not who I thought you were.” There was a long sob before she uttered, “Goodbye.”

  With that, she hung up. His phone returned to the home screen flashing a message that read “Call Disconnected.”

  “Damn it...” he mumbled under his breath as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and pressed his feet into the carpet. He stumbled for the bathroom, hoping he would wake up and realize that conversation had been a dream, but his phone clearly showed a two-minute call from Chloe only a minute before.

  He needed to get ready for work. He was going to have to calm down and figure out what to do. And call Calvin Mitchell to find out why he hadn’t told him that Barbara had left Delaware for DC. His mind was buzzing with so many questions, he could barely grab on to any individual one and wrangle it into submission long enough to attempt an answer. But the question of why his soon-to-be-ex would implicate Jasmine in an affair was probably at the top of his list.

  Jasmine had worked for him for three years and was a petite woman with olive skin and long, dark hair that she always pinned up in a bun on top of her head. She was pretty, yes, but Luke had never so much as given her a sideways glance. It had always been strictly professional between them. Besides, she was in her early thirties, so definitely not age-appropriate, and she was the single mom of two children.

  He drove to work, making plans about all of the phone calls and following up he was going to do when he was settled in his office. He’d have about thirty minutes before his first patient arrived. He had a surgery later in the day, but he could get all of this settled before then. Or at least get the ball rolling. Maybe he could have Jasmine call Chloe to explain that they in no way, shape, or form had any relationship beyond that of employee and boss.

  Should I tell Chloe about Connie? She seemed so eager for him to admit to some wrongdoing.

  No, no he wouldn’t do that. I need to protect Connie.

  Not only did they need to wait for this whole thing with Barbara to blow over before going public with their relationship, but they were going to have to do something about the work situation too. He was certain the anti-fraternization policy in he and Jim’s partnership agreement was pretty cut and dried, though he couldn’t remember the exact consequences.

  He parked and headed up the stairs to the back entrance of his practice. He found Jim standing with his arms firmly crossed over his chest in the hallway as if he was just planted there, waiting for Luke to arrive.

  “Hey, Jim. How was your weekend?”

  He began to brush by his partner, but Jim firmly grabbed his arm. “Stop. We need to talk. Now.”

  Luke’s chest began to burn as he took in a sharp breath. “Okay?” He was getting a little tired of being confronted by angry and hurt people who’d been fed lies about him. Maybe Barbara had told Jim something bad about him too. It made sense, especially if she’d b
een at his beach house.

  He followed his partner into his office before he shut and locked the door. Luke’s heart began to pound anxiously against his chest as he took a seat across from the desk. Jim sat with a heavy thud in his executive chair and then spun it around dramatically to face Luke.

  “What the hell is going on, Jim?” His brows furrowed as he leaned forward with his hands clenched together on top of the desk.

  “I am hereby placing you on administrative leave,” Jim announced. His voice was relatively calm, but there was a sinister undertone that Luke picked up on immediately—if it wasn’t just his imagination.

  “On what grounds?” Yes, Barbara definitely has something to do with this. His head was beginning to ache from extra blood flow squeezing through constricted vessels.

  “I’ve been investigating your affair with Jasmine for a while,” Jim began. “And after collecting some additional evidence from your wife last week—”

  “So she was at your beach house,” Luke accused. “What the hell?”

  Jim’s expression didn’t change. “She came to me as soon as she suspected something. I dug a little deeper. Luke, you know our by-laws expressly prohibit interoffice relationships.”

  I knew there was something in there about it, but I had forgotten the specifics. Luke sighed. So, even if he wasn’t guilty of sleeping with Jasmine, he was still guilty of sleeping with Connie—even if they had met and started their relationship before either of them knew they’d be working together.

  “And the by-laws state that anyone caught violating this rule will be placed on administrative leave until a thorough investigation can be completed,” Jim continued.

  “But there’s no evidence,” Luke insisted. “There’s literally nothing because nothing happened between me and Jasmine. So I don’t understand how you can—”

  “Jasmine has come forward and admitted to the affair,” Jim explained.

  “What?!” Luke fired back. “But she’s lying! I would never—”

  Well, not with Jasmine.

  He blew out a deep breath. “What about my patients? What about the surgeries already on the books?”

  “I’m going to see your patients and will reschedule the surgeries. Anything that can’t wait, I’ll perform myself, with the patient’s consent.” Jim folded his hands in front of him with a smug look on his face.

  “What will my patients be told?” He moved his own hands under the desk, where he wrung them together, noticing how sweaty they’d grown.

  Why would Jasmine falsely accuse me? Barbara must have put her up to it.

  “They’ll be told you took a personal leave of absence,” Jim answered. “That’s what our partnership agreement dictates. You aren’t too up on our by-laws, are you? You might want to refresh yourself.” He tossed a copy encased in a one-inch three-ring binder that also contained their Employee Handbook and a Policies and Procedures document all employees were required to follow.

  “So what happens next?” Luke glanced down at the clear cover of the binder, and their Atlantic ENT logo stared back at him.

  “Guess you should read and find out.” Jim crossed his arms over his chest and glared at him. “Don’t bother coming in until you hear from me. Or my lawyer.”

  Luke’s eyes lowered to the ground and fixed upon his black dress shoes. His mind was scrambling for something he could toss out, something that would exonerate him or change the circumstances. He wouldn’t put it past Jim to bring in his lawyer and sue him for breach of contract if he didn’t comply with the by-laws. He would be perfectly within his right to do so, but he couldn’t figure out why Jim would believe Jasmine and his wife over him. He felt like he was swimming through molasses, his brain was thick and sticky. Every part of his body seemed to be battling the brutal viscosity of this blow to his career, his reputation.

  He looked up at his partner again as he rose to his feet. He gave one solemn nod and left the room, putting one foot in front of him, the only way he knew to move forward. He grabbed a few items from his office and stuffed them into one of the bags they sometimes gave away to the public at health fairs or open houses, then made his way down the hallway toward the back door again. As soon as he opened it, he spotted Connie walking from her car toward the door.

  “Hey,” he shouted across the lot, then realized he needed to be more covert. He’d wait for her to get closer so he wouldn’t need to shout. The only issue was that there was a camera on the parking lot. He’d have to make whatever he said look professional, work-related. It was reasonable to stop and tell her he’d been put on leave, right? He’d tell any employee that.

  She glanced up at him, her features gripped in the vise of an angry glare. She picked up her pace and looked like she was about to blow right past him.

  “Hey, stop, please?!” he shouted right as she passed. She didn’t even look at him.

  She whipped around. “Casey was right. You are a fucking sociopath. Stay the hell away from me!”

  And with that, she marched up the stairs and disappeared into his office building.

  Stop the rollercoaster, I want to get off, he thought as he steered his car toward Berlin’s charming downtown. He hoped Calvin Sr. was in his office, because he hadn’t even had a chance to warn him he was stopping by. He didn’t know where else to go at this point.

  He couldn’t remember a period in his life that had more ups and downs than the past few weeks had. Maybe medical school, he reflected. He really didn’t want to dredge up those memories. Some of them were downright painful. But med school was different because there was a sense of camaraderie between him and his peers. They were all in it together. Jim included, at least back then. Right now he felt alone. So alone.

  He jogged up the stairs to Mr. Mitchell’s office as fast as his legs would carry him, then practically pounded on the door. He was out of breath, but more because of panic than physical exertion. He saw the doorknob turn and the flash of a dark hand attached to the other side of it before Calvin Sr.’s tall, broad body came into view.

  “What’s up?” the bald-headed detective questioned. Luke noticed how the light overhead bounced off his shiny scalp, which looked as though it had been freshly shaved.

  “Why didn’t you tell me Barbara went to DC?” Luke spewed as he followed the man back to this desk and slumped in the metal chair.

  “Whoa, hold on. I have some info for you too. First of all, she never left Delaware. At least her car never did.”

  “What do you mean?” Luke’s chest was still heaving as his eyes bounced between Calvin’s.

  “Her car never left the driveway at your partner’s house. And as far as we know, she didn’t leave either.”

  “I don’t understand.” He stared at the detective with a blank expression, trying to unscramble the clues, make some sense of them. “My daughter called me this morning and accused me of sleeping with one of my nurses—not Connie, by the way—and then she said her mother was in DC with her. She implied I’d kicked Barbara out or something,” Luke explained.

  Calvin sniffed in a breath and narrowed his eyes. “Your daughter accused you of having an affair with a different nurse in your practice? Not Connie?”

  “Yeah, Barbara called our daughter, apparently, and told her all that bullshit. Then I went into work, and my partner placed me on administrative leave until this mess gets straightened out. Supposedly my nurse, Jasmine, has admitted to the affair.”

  “But you didn’t have an affair with her?” Calvin questioned with one eyebrow raised.

  “What? No!” Luke shouted back before realizing he needed to lower his volume. There were other tenants in this building. “I am seeing Connie, but that didn’t start until a few weeks ago, around the time I started to notice the missing money and the credit card transactions and all that. As far as we know, no one at work knows about that—we’ve tried to be really careful.”

  “How much do you think Barbara stole from your accounts total?” Calvin questioned with his finger
s steepled together.

  “I’m not sure on the total number... Ten thousand, maybe twenty? Plus she probably had thousands in her own account from hoarding her allowance over the years.”

  “How much do you want to bet that money was used to pay Jasmine off?” Calvin theorized, tapping his long fingers against the metal desktop. “You need to get a total number, by the way. When your divorce is being negotiated, you’ll need to know specifics, have it documented.”

  Luke sighed. “There’s that word again. Can I file first? I don’t know the laws in Maryland.” He’d never looked them up, afraid he’d be too tempted to start the ball rolling.

  “She can file now if you’ve been unfaithful. You could probably file under cruelty or excessively vicious conduct, but you’d probably need more evidence than just the missing money.”

  “She left me, though. That’s not grounds? Abandonment or something?” That headache he’d started to develop in the office when Jim confronted him was back with a vengeance.

  “No, not till she’s been gone a full year. Same thing for a no-fault divorce. You have to be separated for twelve months,” he explained. “And that means living in different places.”

  “Fuck.” Luke scrubbed his hands down his face. “This is the most fucked-up situation I’ve ever been in, and I survived medical school.”

  The edges of Calvin’s lips curled up into a smile. “I hear you. The police academy is no picnic either.” He folded his hands neatly on top of the desk and cleared his throat. “I do need to share something else with you, and it only complicates the situation further.”

  Luke rolled his eyes. “Great, can’t wait to hear what it is.”

  Calvin clicked a few buttons on his laptop before turning the screen around to show his client. “You told me your wife was incapable of having sex, right? She has a medical issue?”

  Luke’s eyes bulged as he studied the first photo. It appeared to be his wife straddling a man, her hands on his chest and her head thrown back in pleasure. The quality was a little grainy, but it was unmistakably her. He felt like he was watching a magic trick, an illusion. It was hard to envision his wife’s decrepit body in that position when she could hardly get in and out of beds, chairs and cars. But there she was. It was, without question, her.