Doubt (Caroline Auden #1) - C. E. Tobisman Page 0,90
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.