Doubt (Caroline Auden #1) - C. E. Tobisman Page 0,122

data I’m sending them, they’ll know where else to look. And they’ll look. They’ll find everything. False fronts for assassins, mobsters, and Lord knows what else.”

She looked down at Louis’s chess set. In the morning light, the antique pieces cast shadows across the board. The game had progressed since she’d come to work three weeks earlier. Black had a king and a pawn left on the board. White had only its king remaining. Black would checkmate with the pawn. It would take time, but she could see the endgame.

Caroline picked up the black pawn. Its dark facets glittered in the sunshine.

“You might be a good chess player, Louis. But you’re a really bad boss.”

She tucked the black pawn into her pocket and put the envelope on his desk.

“I’m out,” she said.

Then she turned and walked away.

Caroline sat at a table at Black Dog Café, staring unseeingly at the chess game on her laptop. She knew that by now, the data transfer had finished. Information tying Louis to Dr. Heller’s death and a bevy of other crimes had flowed to the police and the district attorney at thousands of bits per second. Auction records. Financial records. Case records. All laid out in incriminating detail.

The long-due reckoning had come for Louis.

Still, Caroline felt no joy. She’d trusted Louis Stern. She had looked to him as a mentor, maybe even as a kind of father figure. And he had betrayed her. The beginning of her career had nearly taken a sharp left turn off a cliff . . .

Someone put a mug in front of Caroline.

The smell of hot chocolate wafted up to her nostrils.

She looked up to find the barista with the blue Mohawk smiling down at her.

“It’s on the house,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said, wrapping her fingers around the warm cup.

“Any time,” he said and withdrew. Something about the expression on her face must have warned him not to make small talk.

Caroline turned her attention back to her laptop.

It might take the police time to untangle all of Louis’s evil dealings, but that was their problem, not hers.

For her, the long day was over.

EPILOGUE

Caroline stood at the kitchen counter, chopping zucchini. For the first time in a long time, she had the luxury of time. She intended to savor it. The slow-to-prepare, quick-to-eat meal was the perfect activity for the day. After that, she’d figure out the next activity, and then the next. Reentering the work force remained somewhere on the horizon, a glowing necessity on her to-do list. But she hadn’t yet figured out the details.

Visiting her father was on the list, too. When she’d seen him standing on his front yard with his sons, she’d wanted to talk to him. Even despite all that had transpired over the years. Even despite the guilt. He might have made some mistakes, but Lord knew, she’d made so many of her own, too . . .

The sound of the doorbell broke Caroline’s reverie.

“I’ve got it,” she called to the back of the house.

She found Deena standing on the front porch. The New Yorker wore a short white jacket with a wide collar. An alarmingly pink miniskirt hugged her hips.

Caroline glanced down at her own ripped jeans and tank top.

She mentally shrugged. She’d make no apologies for who she was.

“Sorry for the short notice, but I wanted to say good-bye before I left,” Deena said in a rush. Behind her, a black town car sat on the curb with its engine running.

“Thanks for coming by,” Caroline said. Since leaving Hale Stern, she’d been surprised when Deena had reached out to her, sending her texts, asking how she was, how her uncle was, why she’d left. Even as she’d dodged the questions, Caroline had come to realize Deena cared. The woman might have a voice like a chain saw and a cadence that left the listener feeling vaguely bludgeoned, but she was a good person.

“I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right,” Deena said.

“I’m okay. I just had a family emergency that I needed to take care of,” Caroline said. She wondered how the firm had explained her abrupt departure.

“Did you hear Louis got indicted?” Deena asked.

“I saw it in the news.” Caroline had watched the media coverage with fascination. The police had arrested Louis the same day she’d left the firm. They must’ve decided he was a flight risk. Two weeks later, the indictments had been handed down, laying out thirty-five charges of bribery, extortion, jury tampering, and murder. All