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 th
e 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.”
Caroline looked at the scientist with compassion. “And you got pregnant.”
“Yes. Around the time I found out, I’d been thinking about doing a research project in Ghana. The pregnancy clinched it. I went to West Africa for three weeks. When I came back, I talked about the wild fling I’d had with a local Red Cross volunteer. Then, a month later, I announced I was pregnant. Franklin knew it was his, of course, but Yvonne accepted my story. They celebrated Nolan’s birth, came to his birthdays—all that kind of stuff.”
“But he ended it,” Caroline said.
“No. I did. Two years ago, I told him I wanted to stop hiding. I wanted to live with him. Out in the open. No shame. No secrets. I wanted Nolan to know him as his father. But Franklin said he couldn’t.” Her voice held a touch of bitterness. “The reasons were all very sensible. He was too committed to Yvonne. Or to his marriage vows . . . or whatever.”
“So you ended it.”
Annie nodded. “I told him we needed to stop. I said I needed to move on. After that, things were awkward between us for a while. But then we kind of settled back into a rhythm. We just pretended we hadn’t . . . didn’t . . . love each other.”
Caroline watched Annie’s face shift at the admission. Instead of bitterness and anger, the scientist’s eyes held infinite sadness.
“Even after I broke it off, he let me keep the house.” Annie sighed. “I loved that house.”
“But you sold it last year.”
“Franklin asked me to,” Annie said, the bitterness reentering her tone. “Six months ago, he told me he was thinking about leaving his wife. When he called me, though . . . it was like my whole world just . . . shifted. I’m embarrassed to admit I was ready to go back to him. I was going to break things off with Henrik. Just like that.”
Caroline recalled the confusion and frustration on the artist’s face at Annie’s behavior. Henrik must have suspected it had something to do with Franklin.
“Franklin told me after I sold the house, we’d move in together,” Annie said. “He said he was done running from love, from the life he wanted. He wanted to live for the moment.”
“But it didn’t happen,” Caroline said.
“No. It didn’t. After escrow closed, he invited me out to dinner. I thought he was going to say he’d told Yvonne about me. But instead, he told me he’d decided to stay with her. He said he just couldn’t end the marriage. He told me he hoped he’d see me on Monday at work.” Annie’s face flushed at the remembered humiliation and disappointment.
“Actually, Franklin’s medical group owned your house,” Caroline said. “Yvonne was winding up the group and liquidating its assets. Franklin might have worried that she was going to find out the medical group owned a house in Santa Monica . . .”
Annie laughed a mirthless laugh. “That would have been hard to explain. I guess after the sale, he could make up some lame excuse about why his medical group used to own a house in Santa Monica. He could tell Yvonne some bullshit story about how he’d let celebrity clients convalesce there or something.”
The expression on Annie’s face hardened into downward angles. “For such a good person, he was always so full of lies . . .”
“And you got mad,” Caroline finished for her. “Mad enough that when the agents of Med-Gen showed up, you talked to them.”
Annie stayed silent.
“You wiped the computer and ran,” Caroline said, careful to keep any judgment out of her voice.
“I didn’t wipe the computer,” Annie said. “I’d never destroy that article. In fact, I’d still like to see it published . . . someday. If we could submit it to the Fielding Journal, I’m sure they’d still want it.”
Caroline considered the new information.
“I admit I got angry with Franklin when he told me he wasn’t going to leave Yvonne,” Annie continued. “After the shock and embarrassment wore off a bit, I was just so fed up with him. It made me stop . . . protecting him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d always shielded Franklin from Med-Gen’s annoying phone calls. They called us all the time. Offering to take us to lunch. Asking to hear about our other research projects that they might fund. I always got stuck dealing with those calls. Old habit, I guess. Franklin was the senior scientist, and shit flows downhill. Or maybe I just liked taking care of him . . .” Annie shook her head. “Whatever the reason, after the whole thing with my house and Yvonne and the rest of it, I was done protecting his peace.”
A haunted expression crossed Annie’s fine features. “The day he died, I’d answered yet another of those calls from Med-Gen. They wanted to talk to both of us. I told them they should just talk to Franklin when he got back from his jog . . .”
Annie paused. “I keep thinking that’s how they found him that day . . . They said they just wanted to talk to him. I didn’t know they’d . . . they’d . . . kill him.” She choked out the last words in a whisper. Her face screwed up into a mask of grief, her dark eyes quietly stricken.
“Oh my God, I killed him,” Annie whispered.
“You didn’t kill him,” Caroline said, resisting the urge to hug this brittle stranger grieving in the vegetable aisle. “You couldn’t have known. No one could blame you for not knowing.”
Annie gathered her composure. “After Franklin died, they came for me. I might have been braver on my own . . . maybe. But I couldn’t risk Nolan. I promised them I’d just disappear. I told them I’d hidden a copy of the article and that if I died, it would be released . . . I think that was what ultimately convinced them to leave us alone.”
Doubt (Caroline Auden Book 1) Page 24