After Anna Read online

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice.’ Noah returned his attention to the computer and slid his reading glasses back on, his mouth a bitter twist. ‘I’m not going to fight with you anymore. I have work to do. I have to moderate a panel. I’m leaving Sunday morning until Thursday night. I decided to stay for the closing sessions. I can pick up three CME credits, and Anthony Fauci is speaking, the NIAID Director. He identified AIDS, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ Maggie said, though she hadn’t been exactly sure. ‘You’re going to stay ’til closing?’

  ‘Yes, I wanted to anyway, and given what’s going on here, it makes sense.’

  ‘So you’re running away.’ Maggie folded her arms.

  ‘No, I’m doing my job.’

  ‘Did you remember we have the barbecue on Saturday? I emailed the invitations, and you’re leaving me to prepare by myself.’ Maggie knew it wasn’t what was really bothering her. It was just what she could get him on.

  ‘I’ll be home in plenty of time to help.’

  ‘I can’t leave things until last minute. Food shopping, going to the beer distributor, getting the extra chairs and folding tables from the garage, cleaning up in the backyard, that has to be done in advance.’

  ‘I’ll be here for the heavy lifting. Leave it for me.’ Noah squinted at the screen, evidently dismissing her.

  ‘Fine,’ Maggie turned angrily away. Something was going on with him, but she didn’t know what. She climbed the stairs, starting to wonder about the conference. And why he was staying longer.

  And then she realized. He would see her.

  Jordan.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Noah, After

  TRIAL, DAY 4

  Noah sat at counsel table, as the Commonwealth witness was about to take the stand. He couldn’t help but think that the prosecution had produced enough evidence to convict him. Thomas had warned him that he would feel the worst by the end of the Commonwealth’s case, and even though Noah had been prepared, it was cold comfort.

  Linda stood at the front of the courtroom waiting while her witness was sworn in, a slim Indian woman dressed in a trim blue suit, with steel-rimmed glasses and her dark, glossy hair in a short pageboy.

  ‘Please state your name for the record,’ Linda said pleasantly, as the witness sat down.

  ‘Dr Lydia Kapoor.’

  ‘And please tell the jury your occupation.’

  ‘I am the assistant coroner for Montgomery County.’ Dr Kapoor was probably fifty-something and she gave off an air of experience and clinical authority.

  ‘How long have you been in that position?’

  ‘Approximately seven years.’

  ‘And in that time, how many autopsies would you estimate you have performed?’

  ‘We perform about 220 autopsies per year.’ Dr Kapoor pressed up her glasses.

  ‘And did you perform the autopsy on Anna Desroches, the victim in this case?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Noah could see the jury shifting in their seats, anticipating the testimony to come. The gallery was beginning to crane their necks, and his attention was caught by a woman he recognized instantly. It was Jordan.

  Noah faced front, masking his surprise. He hadn’t seen Jordan since the NAAAI conference in Miami last May. It never occurred to him that she’d come to his trial, and she looked terrific. She had a gorgeous face with big green eyes, a cute nose, and a dazzling smile. Great hair, longish. Of course a killer body. She worked for AstraZeneca, and he remembered when they met at the NAAAI conference in Dallas. His buddies had told him to stop by Jordan’s booth, since he was a widower.

  Meanwhile, Linda was asking, ‘Dr Kapoor, did you produce a report in connection with Anna’s autopsy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Noah tuned her out again. He’d found himself strolling along the trade floor, a massive grid of blue-draped booths staffed by reps hawking meds, instruments, coding software, and billing systems, dispensed with logo T-shirts, crappy pens, totebags, and stress balls in company colors, plus jellybeans, Hershey’s Kisses, and in season, candy corn.

  The autopsy report came on the screen, and Linda faced the witness stand. ‘Dr Kapoor, what is your conclusion about how Anna died?’

  ‘By manual strangulation.’

  ‘What is that process, in layman’s terms?’

  ‘The air supply through the trachea, or windpipe, is cut off by the hands of another person, leading to hypoxia, or lack of oxygen, and death. The obstruction of the windpipe produces a sound called stridor, which is a wheezing, grating noise unique to death by strangulation.’

  Linda paused while the jury reacted, aghast, and Noah stopped listening, preoccupied by Jordan. She’d approached him on the floor of the tradeshow, flashing her fitness-instructor smile, extending a hand.

  I’m Jordan Nowicki. Pleased to meet you.

  Noah, he had said, as if he didn’t have a last name. She would tease him about it later, in bed. (I swear, you were tongue-tied. It was like you never talked to a woman before.)

  What’s your specialty, Dr Noah?

  Noah is my first name. My last name is Alderman.

  I know. I can read your name tag. You’re so serious. I think I’ll call you No-ha. So what’s your specialty, No-ha?

  I’m a pediatric allergist. Noah fumbled the answer, even though it was the first question that every rep asked, probably from the handbook. (Get them talking about themselves, establish a rapport, then pitch your crap.)

  Oh, that must be so much fun, working with children. I love kids.

  Yes, it is fun, Noah had said, finding his bearings. It was the second thing every rep said to him, especially the single women. (He always heard the subtext, I would be a good mother to your son. Ask me out.) It never worked because he couldn’t bear to think of another woman taking Karen’s place. But Jordan had been so distinctly unqualified for that, being so young, that Noah had felt it was okay to be with her.

  Jordan had touched his arm. I have a little brother who has asthma, and I love his allergist.

  Actually, the majority of my practice is asthma patients.

  That’s so awesome! You guys save lives!

  No, not really, Noah had said. It was obvious flattery, but if she had a brother with asthma, she was kind of right.

  My little brother wasn’t diagnosed until he was nine. He almost collapsed at a track meet. He has stress asthma. My mom thanks God every day for his allergist.

  That’s nice, Noah had said, realizing how young she must have been, just from the way she said my mom. He would find out later that she was twenty-three to his forty, and petite, five-one to his six-one, so she was looking up at him like an Allergy God. Karen would’ve laughed her ass off, and normally, so would Noah, but he didn’t feel like laughing, looking down at Jordan. He did feel like smiling, however.

  No-ha, where are you from?

  Philadelphia.

  Jordan’s lovely face had lit up. I knew I liked you! It’s because we both have a Philadelphia accent!

  I beg your pardon, Noah had shot back in a mock English accent, and Jordan had burst into laughter like he was the funniest man on the planet. He’d known she was selling him, but after Karen’s illness and death, the chemo protocols, the radiation burns, the counting of millimeters and cells, Jordan had felt like the first day of spring after a long winter, a new flower in bloom. He remembered even now that she smelled great.

  Noah hadn’t felt ready to ask Jordan out, even after she’d plied him with T-shirts and keychains, but he’d thought about her through the panel he was moderating, Childhood Asthma: It’s All About That Bacteria. And that same night, he’d run into her at the elevator, and she had asked him to have a drink at the rooftop bar. He’d said yes, and, two scotches later, he’d taken her to bed. And the next morning, he had missed the Chronic Rhinosinusitis panel, but he didn’t mind at all.

  Noah remembered every detail of her, in bed. They had spent so much time there, her w
ith the rowdy enthusiasm of a healthy young girl, and him trying to remember pleasure, laughter, and light, trying to find a way back into life itself. Somehow her youth had been all of that for him, and Jordan hadn’t been looking for marriage or kids. At least that was what she’d said in the beginning.

  Noah remembered she’d wanted to meet Caleb, but he’d kept putting it off. His partners had found out about her when she’d dropped by the office in her Miata, with its WE ARE PENN STATE bumper sticker. She’d brought him his phone, which he’d left at her apartment, and when he’d introduced her around the office, he’d been kidded later. (She might not be wife material, but she sure as hell is babysitter material.)

  Noah thought back to the breakup, which he’d felt terrible about. He hadn’t seen Jordan as a stepmother for Caleb, given that she’d had a brother the same age, and by then Noah had realized that their fling was all about him – his conversation, his schedule, his plans. For a while it hadn’t been the worst thing, because nothing had been about him since Karen had gotten sick. He hadn’t known what he had been missing until he met Jordan, and he was grateful to her, but that didn’t mean that they should be, or could be, married.

  Then Noah had met Maggie at the gym, a funny, curvy, curly-headed woman who was always joking with the trainers at the sign-in counter, and he’d found himself on the treadmill next to her. She’d engaged him in nonstop chatter that drew him out by sheer force of will. He’d known that if they started dating, it would matter, so he’d broken up with Jordan.

  Noah thought back with regret for how he had handled things. Jordan had taken the breakup hard, so he’d been surprised when she’d been so friendly to him at the NAAAI in Miami, last May. And after what had happened there, it didn’t make sense that she’d come to his trial. He wondered how long she had been here. How had he missed her? And what if Maggie came?

  Noah didn’t have time to worry because Linda was signaling for a new exhibit, and he knew what it had to be.

  He braced himself.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Maggie, Before

  Monday morning, Maggie walked the grassy track at the Nature Preserve next to Kathy, filling her in on what had happened with Anna and Noah. The air was filled with the chirping of crickets and birds, which usually calmed Maggie down, but not today.

  Kathy looked over, her brow knitted. ‘So what do you think happened on the driving lesson?’

  ‘He’s not the most patient teacher, and it made her nervous.’

  ‘I hear you.’ Kathy huffed and puffed, carrying her foam-covered hand weights.

  ‘And now he’s gone to a conference, and you know who’s going to be there? Jordan.’

  ‘The fetus?’

  ‘Yep.’ Maggie smiled at Kathy’s nickname for Noah’s old girlfriend, Jordan Nowicki, a young rep who was drop-dead gorgeous. ‘She’s not a fetus anymore.’

  ‘So she’s crowning.’

  ‘I wonder if she’s still single.’

  ‘Nah, I bet she got herself a hubby. Her biological clock is ticking.’ Kathy matched Maggie stride for stride. ‘My biological clock is a Casio. That’s how old I am.’

  ‘If she’s there, she’ll find him. I swear she was a stalker. He never saw it, though.’

  ‘Men are dumb. Even smart men are dumb.’

  ‘He told me they started dating when she ran into him at the elevator by accident. What are the odds?’

  Kathy snorted. ‘She probably rode the elevator all damn day.’

  ‘I met her when she came to the office to drop off his tie. She said he’d left it at her place a year ago.’

  ‘What, knotted to the bedpost?’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Maggie laughed. Noah had no interest in anything kinky in bed, which was fine with her. Sex was great, and she could never understand why people couldn’t leave well enough alone.

  ‘She brought him his tie, after a year? Obsess much?’

  ‘Totally.’ Maggie warmed to the story. ‘She goes to the front desk and asks if she can see Noah. In the middle of the day, mind you. He has appointments all afternoon. And she’s so gorgeous that every mom in the waiting room hates her on sight.’

  ‘What is it with these reps? Do you think they have a beauty contest?’

  ‘Anyway she made a big thing that she couldn’t just leave the tie at the desk, then the receptionist called me over and introduced me as Noah’s fiancée.’

  ‘Oh, burn!’

  ‘It was sad, truly.’

  ‘Boo-hoo, bitch. Call me after gestation.’

  ‘She was hurt, but she tried to cover it up.’

  ‘She’s too young to hide her emotions. She’ll learn.’

  ‘Kath, I have to admit, when I met her, she looked so damn young. I didn’t think he was like that.’

  ‘Oh please. Men love young things. It’s fresh eggs. They can smell them.’

  ‘She even asked to see my engagement ring.’

  ‘Did you stick it in her face?’

  ‘No. She called me later, to say it was nice to meet me. The temp had given her my cell number because she was a rep.’ Maggie thought back to how happy she and Noah had been, in the beginning. They’d gotten engaged only six months after they had met. She’d known it was right, or at least she’d thought it was. ‘Marriage is a funny thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘I smell philosophy.’

  ‘You don’t know what’s going to happen in a marriage. In your life. You have to be able to deal with it.’

  ‘Quite true.’ Kathy pumped her arms.

  ‘Like with Anna coming. I would’ve guessed Noah would be great.’

  ‘I said, you just have to give it time.’

  ‘That’s the thing, everything is happening so fast. He said the house is in an uproar, and he’s right.’

  ‘It’s not the worst thing for him to take a week off right now. It’ll give the house time to settle.’

  ‘I hope so, especially for Caleb. I’ll give him extra attention this week, and we have the barbecue Saturday night. You guys are coming, right?’

  ‘I wouldn’t miss it. What do you want me to bring, the Ina Garten corn salad?’

  ‘Yes, you make that great.’

  ‘You have to make those deviled eggs I love. Kick it old-school.’

  ‘That’s me.’ Maggie felt a rush of comfort, having a friend she knew so well that she knew her best dishes. Girlfriends were a blessing.

  ‘And don’t worry about Noah in Miami.’

  ‘I can’t help it. If Jordan’s there, she’ll seek him out.’

  ‘So what? He wouldn’t cheat on you.’

  ‘She’s younger and thinner.’

  ‘He loves you, silly.’

  ‘Right, I keep forgetting,’ Maggie shot back.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Noah, After

  TRIAL, DAY 4

  Noah stiffened at the enlarged black-and-white photo of Anna in death, which showed her face, neck, and bare shoulders. Her eyes were fixed open, gruesomely, since the sclera around the irises was black with blood. Her skin had a gray pallor, contrasting with the dark bruises encircling her neck like a lethal choker. Linda, Thomas, and the courtroom clerk were working through the details of admitting and labeling the photo, which took a horribly long time, whether inadvertently or on purpose.

  Noah let his thoughts travel backwards to the Miami NAAAI conference, which was after he’d married Maggie, Anna had moved in, and everything had gone south. He’d found himself again on the trade floor, knowing at some level that he was looking for Jordan, and as he’d headed toward AstraZeneca, he’d spotted her chatting up another rep.

  They’d been laughing, Jordan throwing her head back, her hair bouncing, her lipstick a fresh pink, her throat open. He’d recognized her suit, a pinkish tweed that was tightly tailored. She used to wear a silky white top underneath, she’d called it a cami. And he’d flashed on the bra she’d have on, a lacy black push-up that she joked was her conference bra. Her skirt had been short, and s
he’d had on high heels, like always. He remembered them lying on the rug next to the bed like a pair of lethal weapons. He used to trip on them on the way to the bathroom, but he’d never complained.

  Noah had approached her, and she’d done a double-take when she saw him, which she’d masked with another pretty laugh. He’d watched her touch the other rep on his upper arm, her fingertips brushing his biceps, but she’d been dismissing him. The rep had probably believed Noah was a sales target, but Jordan had known better.

  Jordan, hey, Noah had tried to sound casual, which was impossible. He was born formal.

  Hi, good to see you again. Jordan’s dark eyes had glittered in the way he recognized from before, connecting with him directly, not bothering to hide her interest.

  How are you?

  How’s married life?

  Fine, good. Noah had noticed she didn’t answer the question.

  I don’t believe you. You still look No-ha to me.

  No, it’s fine. Noah had swallowed hard, unmasked. Jordan had been right, but he couldn’t tell her that.

  I’ve missed you, Jordan had said, which was something he had always liked about her. She was strong in her own way, which was darker than Maggie’s way. Still he tried not to compare the two women. He loved Maggie. He’d never loved Jordan.

  You look busy, Noah had said instead. He hadn’t missed Jordan until Anna had stirred everything up, not only the fighting but problems he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge in his marriage. Something had been missing. He’d realized what it was, looking down at Jordan who was looking up at him, her smile so lovely, her cami gaping in her cleavage. In her eyes, he felt like a man again, not a dad or a doc. He hadn’t felt like that since the early days with Maggie, when they’d clawed each other in bed. But after the forty-pound bags of mulch, the double coupons, and the parents’ nights, they’d lost something that no amount of date nights could fix. He couldn’t say exactly when, because time was a funny thing, backwards and forwards, from the tradeshow to the courtroom and somehow all the same. Somewhere along the line he’d lost himself. He’d become a husband, not a man.