Beyond Reach Read Free Page A

could be smart enough,
good
enough, to reach such a position. Even when Sara bought the clinic from her retiring partner, people had still been skeptical. It had taken years to carve herself a place of respect in the community.
    All for this.
    Sharon Connor finally looked up from her papers. She frowned. “Dr. Linton, you yourself were raped. Isn’t that correct?”
    Sara felt all of the saliva in her mouth dry up. Her throat tightened and her flesh turned hot as she struggled with an unwelcome shame that she had not felt since the last time a lawyer had deposed her about being raped. Just like then, Sara’s vision tunneled and blurred in such a way that she saw nothing, just heard the words ringing in her ears.
    Buddy shot to his feet, arguing something, stabbing his finger at the lawyer, at the Powells. Beside him, Melinda Stiles from the Global Medical Indemnity said nothing. Buddy had told Sara this would happen, that Stiles would sit silently by, letting opposing counsel tear into Sara, speaking only when she thought Global might be exposed. Another woman, another failed role model.
    “And I want that on the goddamn record!” Buddy finished, pushing his chair away from the table as he sat down.
    “Noted,” Connor said. “Dr. Linton?”
    Sara’s vision cleared. She heard a
whoosh
in her ears, as if she had been swimming underwater and suddenly pushed herself to the surface.
    “Dr. Linton?” Connor repeated. She kept using the title, making it sound like something vile instead of a position Sara had worked for all of her life.
    Sara looked at Buddy, and he shrugged as he shook his head, indicating there was nothing he could do. He had predicted that the deposition would be nothing more than a fishing expedition with Sara’s life as bait.
    Connor said, “Doctor, would you like a few minutes to collect your emotions? I know that your rape is a hard thing for you to talk about.” She indicated the thick file on the table in front of her. It had to be the trial transcript from Sara’s case. The woman had read everything, knew every disgusting detail. “From what I gathered, your assault was very, very brutal.”
    Sara cleared her throat, willed her voice to not just work but to be strong, fearless. “Yes, it was.”
    Connor’s tone turned almost conciliatory. “I used to work at the district attorney’s office in Baton Rouge. I can honestly say in my twelve years as a prosecutor, I never saw anything as brutal, as sadistic, as what you experienced.”
    Buddy snapped, “Sweetheart, you wanna quit with the crocodile tears and get to the question?”
    The lawyer hesitated for just a second then continued, “For the record, Dr. Linton was raped in the bathroom of Grady Hospital, where she was working as an emergency room intern. Apparently, the perpetrator accessed the women’s room through the drop ceiling. Dr. Linton was in one of the stalls when he literally dropped down on her.”
    “Noted,” Buddy said. “You got a question in there, or do you just like giving speeches?”
    “Dr. Linton, the fact that you were brutally raped figured greatly into your decision to return to Grant County, did it not?”
    “There were other reasons.”
    “But would you say that the rape was your primary reason?”
    “I would say that it was one of many reasons that figured into my decision to return.”
    “Is this going somewhere?” Buddy asked. The lawyers exchanged words again, and Sara reached for the pitcher of water on the table, poured herself a glass with hands she willed to be steady.
    She felt rather than saw Beckey Powell stir, and wondered if the woman was feeling guilty, seeing Sara as a human being again instead of a monster. Sara hoped so. She hoped Beckey tossed and turned in her bed tonight, realized that no matter how much she and her lawyer vilified Sara, nothing would bring back her son. Nothing would change the fact that Sara had done everything she could for Jimmy.
    “Dr. Linton?” Connor