Doubt (Caroline Auden Book 1) (26 page)

Yes, Yvonne had mentioned that when Franklin had started his research laboratory, he’d sold his medical group’s office space to fund his first project.

Caroline kept on scrolling down the page of property purchases and sales.

She stopped on the most recent entry. Five months ago, the Heller Medical Group had sold a single-family residence in Santa Monica.

What was Franklin’s medical group doing owning a single-family residence?

Yvonne and Franklin’s home wasn’t in Santa Monica . . . but Annie Wong’s was.

Grabbing her bag, Caroline pulled out her legal pad. She flipped through it until she found the notes she’d taken in her car after her first conversation with Henrik. Yes, there it was. Dr. Wong had lived in Santa Monica until recently, when she’d sold her place and moved in with her boyfriend before later disappearing.

Caroline turned back to her laptop. She ran a search in the property database for “Anne Wong.” She found no property sales. Nothing in Santa Monica. Nothing anywhere.

She tried “Stengaard.” Still nothing.

Putting her laptop aside, Caroline stood up and ran a hand through her hair. Had Franklin’s medical group owned Annie Wong’s house? And if so, what did that say about the nature of Annie’s relationship with her research partner?

The buzz of a text message startled Caroline out of her reverie.

She lifted the phone from the stained quilted comforter and checked the sender: Silvia. Caroline had texted her assistant when she’d returned from the elementary school, knowing that Silvia would relay her text to Louis. With the time change and the distance, she hadn’t expected such an immediate response. Silvia must have pulled Louis out of a meeting.

You found her?
Silvia wrote.

I did
, Caroline answered.

Seconds later, Caroline’s cell phone rang. As soon as she answered it, Louis’s blue-blood accent came onto the line.

“You really found her?” he asked, his voice giddy with excitement. “I need to hear it directly from you, Ms. Auden. Please. Tell me again.”

“I found her.” Caroline grinned. “Up in Mendocino.”

“Superb. Just superb. And here I thought you’d given up the hunt. Have you arranged for Dr. Wong to come to New York with you?”

Caroline stopped smiling. “I’m still working on that part.”

“You’ve already performed miracles. I am confident you’ll perform another one.”

“It could be . . . hard,” Caroline said.

“Handle Dr. Wong gently, Ms. Auden, but handle her.” Louis’s tone brooked no disagreement. “Do whatever you need to do. Charge whatever you need to charge on the firm card. Just make sure she’s sitting in court in New York in two days.”

“I’ll do my best,” Caroline said, not entirely confident she could achieve it.

“Good. And stay safe, Ms. Auden.”

“I’ll do my best at that, too,” Caroline said, not so confident about that, either.

When she hung up, Caroline sat back down on the bed. Her laptop shone with information: the property report for the Heller Medical Group.

Grabbing her coat, Caroline headed for the door.

Caroline hid behind the tree near the entrance of the school. She hoped Annie Wong would show up. She feared she’d spooked the scientist into grabbing her son early and leaving town. Banking on a mother’s unwillingness to act precipitously, Caroline settled in to wait.

The scent of the fresh-cut grass reminded Caroline of her first day at school. The time folded back until the past seemed separated from the present by only the thinnest of gossamer veils. She’d been small for her age and shy. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it,” her father had told her as she’d clung to his hand. She hadn’t asked what he meant. She’d been too busy planning what to do if the school caught on fire or if her parents forgot to pick her up. Or aliens landed.

The sound of a bell ringing jarred her back to the present.

A stream of parents flowed into the doors to pick up their children. From her vantage, Caroline couldn’t tell whether Annie was among them. But she knew that in the wake of fears of school shootings, all schools now allowed only one public entrance. If the scientist had entered, she’d need to exit here.

Five minutes later, the doors pushed open and Annie emerged. Just as she had before, the scientist paused at the top of the steps. Parents and children flowed around her as she swept the landscape with her eyes.

Annie’s paranoia was justified, Caroline knew. If Med-Gen had murdered Franklin Heller, they were playing the most dangerous kind of hardball imaginable. Annie had to know that the peace of her day could be shattered in a heartbeat. Anytime. Anywhere.

Apparently sensing no danger, Annie began moving down the steps.

From her angle, Caroline couldn’t see Nolan, but she could tell from the way Annie walked that her son walked beside her. The scientist glanced down to her right, a soft smile on her face. In the presence of her son, she seemed less brittle. Less cold.

When Annie reached the bottom of the stairs, she squatted, then lifted up her son for a hug. With his kinky black hair and caramel-toned skin, his almond-shaped eyes, and his uncommon height among the other kindergarteners, he looked like a beautiful combination of Asian and African American.

Caroline stepped out from behind the tree, preparing to approach the scientist she’d been chasing for weeks.

But then she froze.

A plumbing truck sat parked across the street from the school. Through the windshield, Caroline could make out the shape of two men. Just sitting. Watching. Caroline’s fingers tingled with adrenaline as her nervous system keyed up for a fight. Or flight.

Ducking back behind the safety of the tree’s reassuring bulk, Caroline took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves.

She risked a glance toward Annie, whom she could see in the parking lot, entering her silver Toyota with her son. In the other direction, the plumbing truck remained stationary. Good. Even so, plumbing trucks in Caroline’s recent experience had a nasty habit of becoming dangerous.

Perhaps she should call the police? Caroline thought. And tell them what? That a suspicious plumbing truck might be stalking the same scientist she was stalking?

Rejecting the plan, Caroline focused on the task at hand. What she needed was a safe place to talk to Annie. She needed somewhere public yet invisible. Just as Uncle Hitch had said, she needed a perfect place to approach a skittish witness.

She hoped one presented itself soon. She was running out of time.

CHAPTER 14

Caroline stayed three car lengths behind Annie’s silver Toyota. She couldn’t lose her. Not now. Not when she had only forty-eight hours to approach the scientist again, convince her to come to New York, and get her there.

Caroline glanced at the clock glowing on her dashboard. There’d be no chance of catching a flight to New York today if she didn’t talk to Annie soon.

She commanded herself to be patient. She couldn’t blow her chance by acting precipitously. She needed to wait for the right time. A time when Annie would listen. A time when she might be convinced to leave the sanctuary she’d found in Mendocino. Caroline hoped when that time presented itself, she’d find the right words to persuade her.

Annie drove south on Kasten Street. At the end of the road, the blue sheen of the sea glittered in the midday sun. Grassy hills dotted with cypress trees rose up in the distance.

Caroline had already tailed the car from one end of Mendocino to another. She’d watched Annie and Nolan disappear into the library, then emerge with a cluster of other children and parents. While Nolan had spoken animatedly to the children, Annie had kept her face turned away from the well-meaning eyes of the parents.

Caroline felt a kinship with the beleaguered scientist, her nerves frayed by constant worry that there were killers nearby, just out of view. A cap gun fired by a kid on the street had made Caroline jump so high, she’d jammed her shoulder into the seat belt. It had taken a full twenty minutes for her pulse to return to a reasonable rate.

When Annie’s car reached Main Street, traffic slowed. On the sidewalks, tourists clustered around artisanal food shops. A clapboard sign advertised goat cheese from a dairy where “all the goats have names!” Another promised the best baked goods in the county. Priuses and old trucks lined the curb on one side of the commercial district. A pasture of tall grass dipping down toward the bluffs bordered the other.

Annie turned north on Howard Street. A quiet, residential street.

Suddenly, the silver Toyota pulled over.

Caroline froze. Had Annie spotted her?

She cruised past Annie’s parked car, then watched in her rearview mirror as the scientist grabbed Nolan’s hand and tugged him quickly toward the steps of a white clapboard house with a sun-faded play structure in the front yard.

With stomach-sinking certainty, Caroline decided that yes, she’d been seen. This had to be Annie’s home, and she was going to call the police—or, even worse, she was about to run.

Caroline scrambled to readjust her plans. If Annie bolted, she’d have to follow her. And then what? Wave her down on a country road? Cut her off? Follow her until she stopped somewhere for the night? None of the prospects were encouraging.

Reaching the corner at the end of the block, Caroline turned, then gunned the engine, driving fast to get back to the white house before Annie had time to grab her stuff and flee.

But when Caroline turned back onto Howard Street, Annie’s car sat unoccupied. Whatever Annie was doing in the house, she hadn’t finished doing it yet.

Unsure what else to do, Caroline overshot the house a second time. She drove another hundred yards, then pulled over and cut her engine.

With her eyes glued to the rearview mirror, she waited for Annie to emerge.

Ten minutes later, the door of the house swung open and Annie exited. Alone.

Caroline’s brow knit. Where was Nolan?

Then the door of the white house opened again. A red-haired woman wearing a Mendocino Cardinals T-shirt waved Annie down and handed her a backpack. Nolan’s, presumably.

Squinting at the open door of the house, Caroline thought she could see the shape of three small heads craning outside, two red haired, one dark and curly.

Nolan was at a playdate.

The knot in Caroline’s stomach loosened. Annie wasn’t running. Yet.

Caroline slid down in her seat, trying to make herself invisible.

After Annie’s silver Toyota glided past her, Caroline started the engine and followed.

Annie turned east on Little Lake Street, then turned north on Highway 1, heading out of town. Sweat sprang to Caroline’s forehead. Was Annie running?

No. Her son wasn’t with her. Wherever the scientist was going now, it had to be a round trip. And that was just as well, since now Caroline could hope for a chance to talk to the scientist alone. Whenever she stopped.

Driving up Highway 1, Annie led Caroline away from human habitation toward a road bordered by pine trees.

Ahead, a road sign advertised the Point Cabrillo Light Station.

Caroline’s fingers prickled at the name. That was the lighthouse where Annie had recorded her video message to Henrik weeks earlier. Annie must have had Nolan with her at the time, Caroline realized. Maybe she’d promised Nolan some sightseeing, the son excited, the mother struggling to maintain a sense of normalcy, fighting a losing battle to ward off the reality that they were fugitives. Had Annie picked up Henrik’s last desperate voice mail, begging her to let him come to her? Had she then sent Nolan away so she could record her message? Or had Nolan been there, watching his mother’s shattered face, unsure what it all portended?

Now Caroline wondered why Annie was on this same stretch of road again. Perhaps she’d turn off toward the lighthouse? Perhaps she’d hidden something there? Or maybe she was meeting someone there?

But the silver Toyota passed the exit for the lighthouse and continued up Highway 1.

Soon, Annie turned east onto Route 20, a long stretch of windy road, curving through the increasingly pastoral landscape. Caroline hung back, allowing Annie’s car to all but disappear up ahead of her. She needed to be careful. Having approached the scientist once already, she had to assume that Annie would be on guard and watching her rearview mirror closely . . . almost as closely as Caroline herself was watching her own mirror, she thought ruefully, glancing into it again just to be sure no one was following her.

Twenty minutes later, Annie turned south onto the 101 freeway.

The adrenaline of the chase had worn off, leaving Caroline worried about the time—4:38 p.m. They’d already missed so many flights. Dozens left the Bay Area daily, heading east, their frequency tapering off toward night. Caroline had hoped to get to Annie early enough to convince her to catch one of the daytime flights. Now they’d be forced to travel late, or worse, to travel the next day. With no margin for bad weather. Or delays. Or bad guys. And with little time to prepare for the hearing.

The last part worried her almost as much as the rest. Going into court with an unprepared witness was dangerous. Even now, Eddie and Louis would be working with the other scientists to prepare them. Not scripting them, but giving them time to formulate answers. “Don’t ever ask a witness a question you don’t know the answer to,” Louis always said. And yet the longer it took for her to reach Annie, the closer she got to doing exactly that . . . assuming Annie agreed to come with her at all.

After another few minutes, Annie piloted her car down an off-ramp. Up ahead, Caroline saw a gray stucco shopping mall complex, vast and surrounded by parking lots, the whole footprint far out of scale with the environment.

Watching Annie park her car, Caroline considered Annie’s choice of places to do errands. Rather than patronizing the mom-and-pop stores in Mendocino, Annie preferred the stucco monstrosities that had risen like boils on the scenic landscape. Strange choice.

But as Annie walked toward a discount shoe store, a different explanation occurred to Caroline: Annie was saving money. The scientist didn’t know how long she’d be hiding, so she was making sure her money didn’t run out. The behavior struck Caroline for another reason: Annie’s frugality meant no one had given the scientist a pile of money to skip town. Whatever her reasons were for running, they weren’t pecuniary.

Fear, then. That had always been the most likely reason for Annie’s behavior. And having a kid in tow must have affected Annie’s calculus, too. Without Nolan, would Annie have stayed in Los Angeles and risked her life to publish the article she had written with Dr. Heller? Or would she have run anyway? What kind of person was Annie Wong?

As Caroline sat musing about the target of her stalking, Annie emerged from the shoe store holding a red plastic bag in her right hand. The scientist clicked the lock of her trunk, which sprang open far enough for her to deposit her purchase. But rather than climbing into the car, she grabbed a canvas bag from the trunk, then turned toward the grocery store at the edge of the mall.

Annie swung her canvas bag into a shopping cart, then steered it toward the grocery store’s entrance.

When the doors of the store slid shut, Caroline exited her car and followed.

Caroline stood by the magazine rack, waiting for Annie to wend her way deeper into the grocery store. In the middle of a weekday, there were few other shoppers. As a result, Caroline could reckon Annie’s location from the sound of the shopping cart’s wheels.

When the sound had receded, Caroline put the magazine down and went to find a place to ambush Annie. Resolving that the freezer aisle was too cold and the bread zone at the front of the store was too public, Caroline settled on the vegetable section. She positioned herself beside the broccoli to wait. Cruciferous vegetables had always been her favorites. She hoped they’d be a good omen for her now. She sent a silent prayer to the other vegetable gods, just to cover her bases.

Soon, she heard the clatter of Annie’s shopping cart approaching.

Her heart rate accelerated, and her stomach fluttered like a family of frogs had taken up residence in it.

This was it. The moment when she needed to set in motion the events necessary to win the case. She could not fail.

When Annie rounded the corner, Caroline stepped in front of her.

Annie froze. Her eyes widened.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Caroline said, holding up her hands in the age-old sign for harmlessness. “I just want to talk.”

Annie didn’t move. She watched Caroline with unblinking eyes, poised on the balls of her feet, as if ready to bolt.

“I know you’re scared,” Caroline said, pitching her voice slow and soothing and sympathetic. “I know what happened. Please just listen to me. Just for a minute.”

When Annie didn’t run, Caroline continued, “You already know about the
SuperSoy
case. You know about the people who got hurt. You know about the many people who are going to get hurt in the future if we don’t win this case. You know how important this is.”

Caroline took Annie’s silence as agreement.

“The problem is,” Caroline said, “the judge doesn’t believe that SuperSoy can cause kidney damage.”

“But it can,” Annie said. Her voice was soft but sure.

“I know. That’s what your article said.”

“You found it?” Annie’s eyes widened again.

“Yes. We found it, and the judge read it. But it wasn’t published. It wasn’t peer reviewed. He isn’t going to believe what it says until he talks to one of the scientists that wrote it.” Caroline paused. “That’s you, Annie. He wants to talk to you.”

“But if you found the article, then there’s no reason to . . .” Annie looked around the grocery store, her gaze suddenly frantic. “I need to go.” She took a step forward, her shopping cart forgotten.

“Wait.” Caroline stepped into Annie’s path.

At Caroline’s quick movement, Annie’s eyes flashed with panic.

“Please, just another second. Please,” Caroline said, desperation creeping into her voice. “Without you, people will die. People will be injured. It won’t stop. Ever. You’ve got to help. You’re the only one who can do this.”

“I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. Now,” Annie said, stepping the other direction to get around Caroline.

The panic in Annie’s eyes told Caroline that if she lost Annie now, she’d never see her again. She needed to find a way to get her to listen.

“He’s Franklin’s, isn’t he?” Caroline said, remembering Nolan’s coloring and height. So different from Annie. So much like Franklin.

Annie froze again, the stillness of a prey animal descending on her again.

She met Caroline’s eyes, as if trying to divine the lawyer’s intentions.

“Yes.” Annie finally nodded, looking down.

“And the house in Santa Monica. Franklin bought that for you, didn’t he?”

Annie nodded again.

“But something happened, didn’t it? Even before Franklin died, something happened to you,” Caroline said. “And to him. I promise I’m not the enemy here. I just want to understand. So I can help.”

Annie’s eyes darted away, toward the zucchini display. For a long time, she didn’t answer.

“What happened, Annie?” Caroline asked the question softly.

When Annie didn’t answer, Caroline feared she’d overplayed her hand. She worried she’d probed too deeply, too personally, and the scientist was shutting down. But then Annie took a breath and let it out slowly, her shoulders slumping forward, the tautness leaving them.

“Franklin and I got together ten years ago,” she began. “We were at a conference, and we just—” She stopped and shook her head. “We got together.”