A Conflict of Interest by Anna Adams Page B

you need a doctor?” Images flew through his mind, his barely-a-toddler daughter laughing as she’d pedaled her tricycle like a guy in the Tour de France. A few years later, running to him with a bee-stung finger he was supposed to make all better. He’d always been the parent in their family. Kate had rarely been available. He’d listened to other men talking about their daughters turning into strangers, and he’d counted his freaking lucky blessings. His daughter and he had been through the wars in a dysfunctional family—and he’d managed to protect her from most of the battles.
    Then, in college, she’d stopped talking to him or crying on his shoulder. She’d tried to stop needing him. “Why are you seeing a psychologist, Leila?” What waswrong with his daughter, who’d grown too mature for him to reach?
    She misunderstood.
    “You’re ashamed, Dad?”
    Maybe he’d become so adept at keeping pain private, he didn’t know how to let even Leila see his true feelings. “Never,” he said. “I’m sad that I didn’t know something was wrong. And I’m afraid. How long have you been seeing Maria Keaton?”
    Leila scrubbed at her tears.
    “Tell me,” he said, hardly recognizing his own ragged voice.
    Leila lifted one arm, then pushed up her shirtsleeve. The blankness in her eyes distracted him at first. He couldn’t see what she was trying to show him.
    Then she shook her arm, like a talisman.
    He moved closer, enough to see raised pinkish welts on his beautiful child’s skin. Crisscrosses, like a pattern of tracks.
    “Leila?” He felt sick.
    She pushed back her other sleeve, and that arm was scarred, too. Jake looked her up and down, fighting tears of his own.
    “My God.”
    Neither of them moved. He heard his daughter breathing. Now was the moment to fix things.
    “How long have you been doing this to yourself?”
    “You are blind, Dad.”
    “My girl.” The words escaped him. For the first time in his life, in Leila’s life, he couldn’t stop first to make sure he wasn’t saying something wrong.
    Panic had him by the throat.
    “Leila.” He cried out for the lost little one who’d trusted him all those years ago with her secrets and her fears and the anger she’d since learned to turn inward. He reached for her, but she yanked her sleeve down and turned away. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “Tell you what?” He’d heard her tone before, when kids were desperate and afraid and grasped at defiance in a last attempt to save their secrets.
    “I—” He couldn’t think. All those years he’d tried to do the right thing for Leila. Apparently, he’d made everything worse.
    “Tell you what, Dad?”
    He could let her push him away emotionally, as well as physically, or he could wade in and try to drag his daughter to shore. “I don’t know.” He rubbed his mouth. “But I want to know. I’d like to help you.”
    She whirled away from him, her hair clinging to her face and her throat.
    He’d been passive. She’d moved out after the divorce, refusing to talk. He’d tried to give her space, to help her by not forcing her to accept their new life until she was ready. Now he had to act, even if he only put his arms around her. He had to make her see how much he loved her.
    “Help me?” Her voice was harsh. “You took away the one person who’s been able to help me.”
    “Maria.” He cleared his throat. “How did I take her away from you?”
    “You did the wrong thing. Like always, Dad.”
    He tightened his hand on her arm but immediately loosened his hold, too aware of those scars beneath her sleeve.
    “I didn’t do anything.” He touched her hair. “I didn’t even call the review board.”
    Leila eased his hand away. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
    “I should have,” he said. “I’ve been telling myself every day that I ought to, but I didn’t.”
    “You actually gave Maria a break?” Her wide eyes pushed the years away.
    “Tell me why you’ve been cutting