Free Doubt (Caroline Auden Book 1) by C. E. Tobisman Page A

tucked onto a bench amid the dense crowd outside the courtroom.
    “I’m not rattled,” she said. “I just need to get back to the office.”
    She began walking toward the elevator.
    Eddie kept pace beside her, his footsteps almost silent.
    Caroline stole a glance at him. Full lips graced a generous mouth. High cheekbones attested to some Native American ancestor. He was handsome. But even more than that, he had a natural grace. He moved with the subtle confidence of someone who knew he belonged in every room where he found himself.
    “So, you’re on the Hale Stern team giving a final look at the science?” he asked.
    “I am the Hale Stern team,” Caroline said. “There’s no one else. Except for Louis.”
    Even without looking over at Eddie, Caroline could feel his eyebrows rising in surprise.
    “Well, then, how’s the science looking?” His voice held a hint of mirth.
    “Hard to say,” Caroline said, hedging. “Louis put me on this case yesterday and then sent me to court today. So I haven’t had much time.”
    “That’s just Louis’s way, I hear,” Eddie said. “He throws y’all in the deep end to see if you float.”
    “Or drown,” Caroline muttered under her breath.
    “Let me help,” Eddie said. “It’s what I’m here for, after all.”
    When Caroline didn’t answer, Eddie stopped walking.
    Caroline stopped, too. Turning to face him, she watched him scowl, his handsome features darkening as if clouds had moved cross the sun.
    “Louis told you I’m Paul Tiller’s spy, didn’t he?” Eddie asked. “That he only let me come out here because he was being—”
    “—diplomatic,” Caroline finished for him.
    Eddie’s black eyes flashed. “Diplomacy is saying, ‘Nice doggy,’ while you look for a rock. I promise I’m no pit bull. We’re fighting on the same team here.” The urgency in his voice suggested he had something to prove to someone. Probably to his boss, Caroline realized. She knew the feeling.
    “If I need any help, I’ll come find you,” she finally acquiesced. Even as she recognized that Eddie was another of the loaned associates, she found it difficult to maintain her wariness. Unlike Deena, whose abrasive manner sparked hostility, Eddie’s soft drawl and easy manner exuded likability. If Deena was like a car sideswiping her way through the tunnel of life, Eddie glided, leaving no marks from his passage.
    “Good,” Eddie said, gracing her with a luminous smile.
    A phone buzzed in Eddie’s pocket.
    He withdrew it and glanced at the caller.
    “My boss. Calling me back,” he said, looking at Caroline with an apologetic expression. “This’ll just take a second.”
    Caroline stepped back to give Eddie symbolic privacy, but she watched him while he talked. With his well-styled hair and well-tailored suit, he looked the part of a confident young lawyer. But on his neck, just above his perfectly pressed collar, there was a small burn scar, perhaps the size of a cigarette tip. She wondered how he’d gotten it.
    Eddie hung up and turned back to Caroline.
    “Sounds like this new judge is trouble for us,” he said.
    “Why?”
    “Paul didn’t say much, but he didn’t sound too happy about the shift to New York. He just said Jacobsen’s a god-awful draw for us.”
    “Maybe Louis knows something,” Caroline said, already hurrying toward the elevator.

    Caroline sat in Louis’s guest chair with a legal pad balanced on her lap and a pen in her hand, waiting for her boss to say something.
    Louis stood silently by the window, his glasses perched atop his head, his neck craned down at the file’s contents. In his gray suit, he looked as monolithic and formidable as the gray buildings behind him. Upon learning the name of the new judge, he’d called Silvia, who’d appeared in his office seconds later holding the file folder with the judge’s name typed across the top. Now he studied the pages. One by one. Deliberate but fast.
    When he’d finished the last page,