Fool Me Once(63)



“You think that’s all I care about?”

Again Maya didn’t bother replying.

“Without headlines, the truth never gets out. Without headlines, we can’t recruit more truth tellers.”

She didn’t need the speech again. “All the more reason to release the audio, Corey. So why didn’t you?”

He moved toward the couch and sat down. “Because I’m also a human being.”

Maya sat down.

Corey lowered his head into his hands for a moment and took a few deep breaths. When he looked up, he was more clear-eyed, calmer, less panicked. “Because I figured that you’d have to live with yourself, Maya. With what you’d done. And sometimes that’s punishment enough.”

She said nothing.

“So how do you live with it, Maya?”

If Corey expected a truthful answer to that question, he would have to get in a very long line.

For a few moments, they just sat there in silence, the din of the club seemingly miles away. Nothing more to learn here, Maya thought. It was time to go to Judith’s office anyway.

Maya rose and headed for the door. “See what you can find on Tom Douglass.”





Chapter 21


Judith’s office was located on the ground floor of an apartment building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, one block from Central Park. Maya had no idea what sort of patients Judith saw nowadays. She was a Stanford University–trained MD and now a clinical professor on staff at Weill Cornell Medicine, though she didn’t teach any classes. That someone who worked part-time could hold these positions was only a surprise to those who didn’t recognize the power of the Burkett name and big donations.

Shock alert: Money means power and gets you stuff.

Judith went professionally by her maiden name, Velle. If this was to semihide the conflict of the Burkett name or because that was what many women did was anyone’s guess. Maya headed past the doorman and found Judith’s office door. Judith shared her space with two other part-time physicians. All three names—Judith Velle, Angela Warner, and Mary McLeod—were on the door with a long list of letters after them.

Maya turned the knob and pushed open the door. The waiting room was empty and small—one love seat, one couch. The artwork was generic enough to work in a roadside chain motel. The walls and carpeting were beige. A sign on the far door read: “IN SESSION. PLEASE HAVE A SEAT.”

There was no receptionist. Maya guessed that the patients were often high profile, and so the fewer people who saw them, the better. One patient would be in session. When finished, that patient would exit into the corridor via a door located in the doctor’s office. The waiting patient—or, in this case, Maya—would then be shown in. Neither patient would see the other.

The desire for privacy and discretion was understandable, of course—Maya didn’t want anybody knowing about her “disorder” either—but it was probably harmful too. Doctors kept stressing that mental disease was the same as physical disease. Telling someone who was clinically depressed, for example, to shake it off and get out of the house was tantamount to telling a man with two broken legs to sprint across the room. That was all well and good in theory, but in practice, the stigma continued.

Maybe, to be more charitable, it was because you could hide a mental disease. Maybe if Maya could hide two broken legs and still somehow walk, she would. Who knew anymore? Right now, she had to get through this and then worry about treatment. The answers were out there, tantalizingly close. No one would be safe until she got to the truth and punished the guilty.

She might not be able to do that with broken legs. But she sure as hell could do it with PTSD.

Maya checked her watch. Five minutes until the hour was up. She tried to read whatever inane magazines were there, but the words swam by her. She played with her mobile phone, some game with making words out of four letters, but her concentration was shot. She moved close to the door. She didn’t put her ear against it and listen in, but she stood close enough to hear the low murmur of two female voices. Time passed slowly, but eventually Maya could hear the inner door open. The patient was probably exiting.

Maya hurried back to her seat, picked up a magazine, crossed her legs. Ms. Casual. The door opened, and a woman Maya guessed was a well-kept sixty smiled at her.

“Maya Stern?”

“Yes.”

“This way, please.”

So there was a receptionist, Maya thought. She just worked from inside the office. Maya followed the woman inside, assuming she would find Judith sitting at a desk or maybe on a chair next to a couch or some such shrink-like environment. But Judith wasn’t there. Maya turned to the receptionist. The receptionist stuck out her hand.

“I’m Mary.”

Maya got it now. She glanced at the diplomas on the wall. “As in Mary McLeod?”

“That’s right. I’m a colleague of Judith’s. She hoped that maybe we could have a chat.”

According to the diploma, both women had gone to medical school at Stanford. Maya spotted an undergraduate one for Judith at USC. Mary had gotten her BS from Rice University and did her residency at UCLA.

“Where is Judith?”

“I don’t know. We both only work part-time. We share this office.”

Maya did not bother hiding her annoyance. “Yes, I read your name on the door.”

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