Caroline looked away. The child was blissfully oblivious to their impending death via plane crash. And Annie? She scribbled sudoku answers in the back of the in-flight magazine.
The plane jolted, dropping twenty feet before righting itself and nosing back up to its altitude.
“The captain said there was unstable air over the Rockies,” Annie offered.
Caroline looked over at her and grimaced. Unstable air. She knew all about the sheer currents that came screaming up the jagged peaks of the Rocky Mountains, sending updrafts that felt like they could tear a small plane apart.
“Have you been a lawyer for long?” Annie asked. “Have you had many cases?”
Caroline appreciated the scientist’s effort to distract her but wished her choice of topic had been better.
“I just got licensed. This is my first case,” she answered.
“Oh.” Annie paused, and Caroline got the feeling the scientist might be rethinking her decision to put her future in her hands.
“What did you do before lawyering?” Annie asked.
“Software engineering,” Caroline said. “Mostly sitting in front of a laptop. Writing code.” It had been peaceful. Calm. Uneventful. Nothing like her current nightmare.
Another tremor rippled through the fuselage.
A corresponding wave of nausea coursed through Caroline’s esophagus.
She closed her eyes until the turbulence passed, but the nausea remained. After a moment, it occurred to her how she must look to Annie. Sweaty and pasty and grim. She needed to reconstitute. To gather the pieces of herself and pull them back together so she resembled someone worth trusting.
“We should get you prepared to testify,” Caroline said, grasping at the practical task like a lifeline. If they didn’t perish, they’d land in New Haven and be in court twenty-four hours after that. That was a far more inevitable boogeyman on the horizon than the plane crashing.
When Annie didn’t answer, Caroline glanced across the aisle.
Annie’s face had grown ashen. At first, Caroline thought perhaps the scientist had realized the peril of their flight. Or perhaps she’d grown nauseous, too.
But then Annie stood up, bracing her hands between the seats to stabilize herself in the choppy air, and made her way over to Caroline’s row.
Caroline scooted toward the window seat so Annie could sit beside her.
“What do you mean? What do we have to do?” Annie asked softly.
“We need to anticipate the hard questions the judge will ask. And the other side.” Caroline had heard Louis lecture to her law school class about the need to prep witnesses, but he hadn’t gotten into specifics. She wistfully wished they’d spent a little more time on that particular lesson.
“Like what?” Annie asked.
“Like why didn’t you submit the article? Why didn’t you talk to the police? Why did you run?” Caroline knew those would be the first questions everyone would ask.
Instead of answering, Annie looked across the aisle. At her son.
“I got scared,” she said, meeting Caroline’s eyes. “Our lab started getting . . . calls. They were vague. Just phone calls from people asking to speak with Franklin and me about our new article about SuperSoy. Someone must have seen Franklin’s teaser in Hawaii . . .”
“How’d you figure out it was Med-Gen?”
“I didn’t. Not at first. But then the calls got more persistent, and I knew . . . they had to be from Med-Gen. The questions were too pointed. At first, they wanted to offer support for our research. When we turned them down, they wanted to know who had funded our research. I didn’t say anything, of course. Neither did Franklin. We’ve been up against intimidation before. It’s pretty awful, but it’s all talk. The climate change scientists get the worst of it. You should see the e-mails those guys get sometimes.”
“So you didn’t take them seriously?”
“No. Not yet. At that point, I thought they were just leaning on us. Trying to pay us off. Trying to at least just get us to talk to them . . .”
“But then Franklin died,” Caroline supplied. She didn’t need Annie to relive telling Kennedy’s agents where Franklin was jogging. That wouldn’t come up at court, and she needed Annie to stay focused on the bigger picture.
“You mean got killed,” Annie said, meeting Caroline’s eyes squarely.
Caroline nodded.
“After that, I didn’t feel like I had a choice . . .” Annie looked away, her eyes brimming with tears. “Do I really need to relive this?”
“You need to be prepared to say all of this in front of the judge and a courtroom full of people. You can’t look unsure or uncertain. I’ll be there to help you, but you’re going to be the one up there. It’s important that you’re able to get through this.”
Annie hugged her arms around herself.
“Okay, let’s keep going,” Caroline said. “What happened next?”
“Franklin was dead. The article had disappeared from his computer, and all the links to our research had been taken down. By someone. I don’t know who. Or how. The only thing left was me. I knew they’d come for me. And they did . . .”
Before Caroline could ask for more details, the plane shuddered. The pocket of choppy air gave way to a gust that jolted the passengers hard to the right.
Grasping for the armrest, Caroline gasped. Her stomach lurched, and her esophagus clenched.
Caroline lunged for the barf bag in the seat-back pouch. She barely had time to open it before she vomited up the contents of her stomach.
“Let me help,” Annie said, holding Caroline’s hair off her face until the wave passed.
“Thanks.” Caroline gasped. “Sorry.”
“Why?” Annie asked.
“I’m supposed to be helping you,” Caroline said, embarrassed by her performance. An anxious wreck, retching on a plane. Just the thing to inspire confidence in your attorney.
“You’ve done great so far. Now it’s my turn.” Annie glanced at her child across the aisle. “I’m kind of an expert at it.”
“Thank you,” Caroline said before diving back into the bag again.
Caroline led Annie and Nolan down the Jetway. After hopscotching across the country, she felt like roadkill. Her mouth tasted like a turtle had crawled underneath her tongue and died. Still, she forced herself to look around the New Haven airport, scanning the space for danger. Other than an early-morning cleaning crew, the terminal was quiet.
Behind her, Annie held Nolan in her arms, the boy’s eyes half-closed, his menagerie of stuffed animals tucked safely in her duffel bag. Despite Annie’s efforts to soothe him into sleep, the five-year-old hadn’t dozed off until they’d begun their descent. Now Nolan’s deadweight caused Annie’s legs to buckle and her back to arch as she carried him into the empty terminal.
At the sight of the long walk ahead of them, Annie groaned and shifted her hold on her sleeping son. Her dark eyes were ringed with puffiness. Her steps were uneven and exhausted.
Caroline pointed toward a vacant row of seats in the waiting area. “Sit for a second. We need to get a room.” The hearing wasn’t until tomorrow. They had time to rest. For a few hours, anyway.
Pulling her laptop out of her bag, Caroline sat down on the seat beside Annie.
But then she stopped. She couldn’t use her credit card. Or her phone. Either one or both could have been used to track her down in Mendocino.
“Do you have any cash left?” Caroline asked, turning to Annie.
Without even checking her purse, Annie shook her head. “We used the last of it in Denver.”
Caroline opened her wallet. Her stomach sank. The small bills wouldn’t cover a room at even the seediest hotel.
Beside her, Nolan roused, lifting up his curly head from Annie’s lap. He looked around with a befuddled look on his face, blinking his long-lashed eyes. Annie leaned toward his ear, trying to shush him, but his curiosity at his new surroundings brought him to full wakefulness.
A
nnie met Caroline’s eyes.
“We need somewhere to sleep,” Annie said with quiet desperation.
Caroline stayed silent. She believed that everything happened for a reason, that everything in life occurred exactly as it should. She knew the line very well might be bullshit, since atrocities throughout human history defied the subscription of any grand belief. But sometimes the fatalistic mantra still gave her peace. If everything happened for a reason, her sole mission was to divine that meaning, to suck the nectar from the moment, hummingbird-like. Even if that nectar tasted horrible sometimes.
So then, this, too, was happening for a reason. This latest hiccup in her already convulsive travel plans was to be embraced, not fought. The path was obvious to her. And yet, her mind still jangled with nervous tingles of worry. A week ago, she’d left the map of the normal and now she was improvising madly, just trying to make it to the next sunrise.
She knew where she needed to go to do that.
“My dad lives outside New Haven,” she said finally. “We can go stay with him.”
It had taken two hours for Caroline to find a rental car company willing to let her drive a vehicle off the lot with only a hold on her debit card for security. Now she estimated it would take thirty minutes to reach Shelton. Thirty minutes until she’d see her father’s new home. His new life. His new kids. She wasn’t ready, some part of her heart protested. Not yet. Not now. It was too soon. And she hadn’t even been able to call to prepare him. She’d be ambushing him. Unannounced with two strangers in tow.
And yet, she knew he’d be happy to see her. He’d take her visit as a thaw in their relationship. She just wasn’t sure she was ready for that thaw. He’d left. He’d disappeared from her life. He’d made a new one, far away. She knew he had the right to his happiness, but his departure had caused her so much difficulty. So much sadness. So much loneliness.
Caroline checked the clock. Seven thirty a.m.
With luck, she’d catch her father before he left for work. Despite her trepidation about seeing him, she preferred to speak to her dad rather than just Lily.
Entering the historic district of Shelton, Caroline was struck by the differences between this neighborhood and the ones where she’d been raised. Built in the eighteenth century, these homes boasted gracious porches and filigreed gables. Their postcard perfection begged a comparison with the places where Caroline had grown up. Hoboken, New Jersey, and Chatsworth, California. Tract homes with identical doors and windows, indistinguishable from the other houses on the block. If you knew where the bathroom was in one house, you knew where it was located in every house.
Finally she saw it. A Federal-style mansion halfway up the block. With a brick facade and black shutters, it sat confidently on its lot with a big front yard for her father’s young sons to enjoy.
Caroline checked the address on her phone. Yes, that was it.
A sleek black Porsche sat parked in the driveway. Cybersecurity consulting had been lucrative. Or maybe Lily had money. Caroline hadn’t ever cared enough to ask.
She pulled over to wait for her dad to exit the house.
Shivering, she crossed her arms to ward off the chill. Yet again, she didn’t have a warm enough coat for the eastern weather. That was okay. She wouldn’t be staying long. And she wouldn’t be coming back any time soon.
“Is this where you grew up?” Nolan’s voice drifted over from the backseat.
“No,” Caroline answered. “My dad moved here with his new wife.”
“What happened to the old one?” Nolan’s voice held a serious note. “Did she die?”
“Shush, honey,” Annie said, half turning to make eye contact with her son.
“It’s okay. She’s not dead,” Caroline answered. “My parents just didn’t . . . get along.”
“I’ve just got a mom,” Nolan announced. “I don’t have a dad.”
“I’ve got a dad, but I don’t see him too often,” Caroline said.
“Do you miss him?” Nolan asked.
“Yes,” Caroline said, her throat clenching with sudden emotion.
Silence reigned in the car again. Even Nolan seemed to sense the topic was closed.
After another ten minutes, the door of the house swung open. A man stepped out. With wavy mahogany hair and green eyes, his resemblance to Caroline was unmistakable. Three small boys followed him out the door. The two eldest were sandy blond. But the youngest, the three-year-old, had a mop of dark hair, just like their father’s. Just like Caroline’s.
Caroline swallowed at the recognition.
Instead of walking to the Porsche, Caroline’s father walked to the minivan. Clicking the key, he opened the sliding door. Then he ushered the boys into the backseat.
Caroline glanced back at the front door. Where was Lily? Surely, she’d come out soon to drive the boys to school. When Lily had gone, Caroline figured she could approach her father for the long-awaited, much-dreaded meeting. With Annie and Nolan as spectators.
She winced at the thought of it.
Her dad opened the driver’s door and climbed into the minivan.
Caroline’s mouth opened in surprise. Her father was driving the boys to school? She couldn’t recall him ever having driven her to school. Always early to rise and early to leave for the office, he’d been a ghostly presence in Caroline’s mornings, grabbing coffee on his way to the garage, and work, and a day away from the family until late at night.
The door of the house opened. A woman with blonde hair emerged.
Lily, Caroline identified her. Ah, here she was. Ready to take the kids to school. Except she was wearing pajamas. She jogged down the brick walkway holding a backpack. When she reached the minivan, Lily opened the sliding door and held the backpack out to the smallest boy.
He leaned out to take it with a sheepish smile. Lily kissed the boy’s cheek, then straightened up. Meanwhile, Caroline’s father had climbed out of the driver’s seat to talk to his wife. While Caroline watched, the two grown-ups talked, smiling and laughing. Reluctant to part.
Caroline’s mouth hung open in disbelief. Who was this man who looked so much like her father? Lingering in conversation? Smiling with ease? Driving his kids to school? Choosing a minivan over a Porsche? The evidence was irrefutable. Her father had followed his affinities to greater prosperity. And greater happiness, Caroline realized as she watched him laughing.
Watching the scene, Caroline was suddenly struck with a revelation so profound she almost gasped. She’d always chalked up her father’s distance and remoteness to personality. Now she was faced with evidence that it wasn’t personality at all. It was circumstance. Maybe he hadn’t ever known which Joanne he’d get when he walked in the door. Maybe he’d faced the same Russian roulette of moods that had unsettled Caroline, too, when she was growing up. Maybe his distance from her wasn’t a result of personality at all. Maybe it was collateral damage.
The realization and the reshuffling of what Caroline thought she’d known about her father made way for yet more insight. Perhaps, she realized, her own recent distance from her father had something more to do with the lingering effects of his remoteness growing up or her disappointment at his departure. Perhaps the guilt that he’d almost gone to jail on her account had driven a wedge between them. Maybe she’d been looking for reasons to avoid reconciling so that he could be the bad guy and she wouldn’t have to deal with the shame.
Maybe there weren’t good guys or bad guys in her family’s story. Maybe it was just like Eddie said—there were just people trying to get by as best they could.
At bottom, Caroline faced a simple emotional truth: she wanted a relationship with her father. Perhaps her short visit now, as unlikely and strange as it would be, would begin that new chapter.
A spark of hope lit in her chest.
She edged the car forward toward the Auden residence. Still nervous, but growing more confident in her choice, she floated toward her dad’s new house.
But then she saw something. An a
wning repair truck sat parked up the block.
Caroline’s neck prickled with electricity as her instincts flared to alert.
There was something wrong with the scene.
The reason for the wrongness hit her: there were no awnings in this historic neighborhood.
Squinting, Caroline made out the shape of two people sitting in the front seat. Waiting. She knew exactly who they were waiting for.
She drove slowly past the house, then turned the corner. As soon as she was out of sight of the awning truck, she jammed down the accelerator, racing back toward the expressway. When she hit Highway 8, she turned south, glancing in her rearview mirror. She didn’t see the awning truck following, but she knew they were back there. Somewhere.
“Where are we going?” Annie asked.
“We’ve had a change of plans,” Caroline answered.
CHAPTER 17
“I know I told you to drop by whenever you wanted to, but this is ridiculous,” said a long-limbed young man at the door of the New Jersey row house. His dark-blue eyes twinkled.
“It’s good to see you, too.” Caroline smiled. She turned to introduce Annie. “This is Joey Calvuto, my best friend from junior high. We hung out until my family moved out west.”
“And then we e-mailed every day,” finished Joey.
Annie nodded a hello, her eyes narrowing at Joey’s perfect hair and toned biceps.
Caroline watched with amusement as Annie tried to surmise how this Adonis had come to live in a frumpy neighborhood in Hoboken.
“Come in,” Joey said. “My mom’s going to be thrilled to see you, Caro.”
He stepped aside to allow them to enter the foyer. Loud furniture and louder wallpaper greeted them. Lawn signs leaned up against the wall of the foyer, stating in big magenta letters:
LET JUDI SHOW YOU!
“Mom’s real estate business is booming,” Joey said, just as the Judi from the sign appeared coming down the hall.
“Oh my God! Is that Caroline Auden?” said a woman in a hot-pink dress and bangles of costume bracelets climbing up both of her arms. With her too-bold eyeliner drawn around her large brown eyes, Judi Calvuto gave off an overexcited air that worked better than coffee on those around her.
Doubt (Caroline Auden Book 1) Page 27