Doubt (Caroline Auden #1) - C. E. Tobisman Page 0,92

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