Doubt (Caroline Auden #1) - C. E. Tobisman Page 0,11

all that the new gene did. Maybe it also prompted the soy cells to create a kidney toxin.”

“We need proof, Ms. Auden, not theories,” Louis said. “What do we have to work with?”

Caroline winced at his tone.

She tap-danced a little faster. “We’ve got an article by a scientist named Dr. Feinberg, who says SuperSoy can thin the membranes of kidney cells in rats. Then we have another article by Dr. Tercero that says the thinning of cell membranes is a precursor to spontaneous cell death. And we’ve got yet another article by Ambrose that tells us that if enough cells die, a kidney will fail. We can put those three articles together to argue that SuperSoy can cause a kidney to fail.”

Caroline studied Louis’s face to gauge his reaction.

Louis shook his head in disappointment. “Others on the Steering Committee have already suggested that sort of inferential reasoning. It isn’t enough. Without a direct link, this is going to be a tough sell. Judges like proof that if you take thalidomide, you’ll get a deformed baby. Cause and effect. Simple and direct.”

“I didn’t see anything like that.” Caroline made her voice strong even though she knew she was delivering bad news. She braced herself for Louis’s displeasure.

But instead of anger, Louis met the news with quiet contemplation. He tipped his head back, studying the ceiling where his antique lamp cast green circles of light. When he met Caroline’s eyes again, his gray eyes held a hint of vulnerability, a look that said Louis Stern, who usually won his cases, might lose this time around.

“Are you sure we can’t do better than an inferential link?” he asked quietly.

Caroline didn’t know what to say. She’d already explained her best idea for using the materials in the war room to fashion a coherent argument.

In the silence, a frown formed on Louis’s lips.

Caroline’s face flushed. She could feel the assignment slipping away.

“Actually, I did find one last thing,” she blurted.

Louis raised an eyebrow in silent invitation for her to continue.

“I found a . . . a lead.” She didn’t know how else to describe it. “While I was reading those articles, I did some research. Online.”

Though Louis had forced her to take longhand notes, he hadn’t expected her to completely forgo technology. On her laptop, she’d run dozens of queries. She’d found links to digital versions of the articles. She’d used word searches to skip through the data quickly, sifting studies like a prospector panning for gold. She’d also googled the names of the scientists. She’d read their laboratories’ websites. In other words, she’d done everything possible to broaden the field of information. To find something more than the meager pickings the war room had offered up.

“Feinberg’s study comes closest to saying what we needed it to say,” Caroline continued, “so I looked around to see if he’d ever said anything else about SuperSoy.”

“Had he?” Louis asked.

“Sort of. Dr. Feinberg attended the Pan-Pacific Innovations Conference in Hawaii six months ago. He posted a message just last week on the conference’s chat board about one of the presentations he’d seen. Apparently, some guy named Dr. Franklin Heller gave a talk on flu vaccines. At the end of his talk, Dr. Heller gave the audience a little teaser about a new article he was writing on SuperSoy. Feinberg brought it up on the chat board to see if anyone had heard anything more about that article Heller teased.”

Louis tilted his white-haired head to one side, his lips pursed.

Caroline swallowed. She realized how desperate her efforts sounded.

“And did anyone know anything about this Heller article?” Louis asked finally.

“No, not really. Dr. Heller never published it. But it’s pretty clear he planned to. The Fielding Journal of Molecular Cell Biology was going to publish it for him.”

“And you learned all of this from a . . . a chat board?” Louis asked.

Caroline couldn’t tell if his tone held admiration or disbelief.

“Some of it,” she answered. “The rest I got out of Dr. Feinberg himself.”

“He spoke to you?” Louis’s eyebrows rose. “Scientists tend to be fairly closemouthed in my experience.”

“I pretended like I was doing follow-up for the conference’s organizers. I said I was gathering reviews, feedback about the speakers. That sort of thing.”

Louis’s eyes narrowed at her subterfuge.

Concern lanced Caroline’s chest. She couldn’t retract her words. She could only hope that Louis saw merit in her results. If not her social-engineering methods.

“Once Feinberg began talking, it was easy to get more information out of him. He told me that