“Maybe I should be emailing you from my personal account,” Katie had written. “Since the conversation is getting so personal.”
She’d followed it up with a smiley face. Was she that stupid? Didn’t she realize Noah was the head of the firm, and therefore, they couldn’t really get in trouble? Noah owned everything. If anyone found out they were emailing using their work email addresses, there was nothing they could do about it.
I kept scrolling through the conversation, which started out being flirtatious and funny, then quickly devolved into something borderline X-rated.
“I’ll bet you’re a good kisser,” Katie had written.
“I’ll bet you taste so good,” Noah had written back.
Bile filled the back of my throat. I didn’t want to see how far it had gotten, so I pushed the computer back over to Professor Worthington. I pretended to make a note on my legal pad, hoping Josh and Worthington wouldn’t be able to tell how upset I was.
I was devastated, not only because it pointed to Noah being guilty – this made three women now he was involved with who’d been killed – but because he’d lied to me. He and Katie had been involved.
I wondered how long they’d been together. Why had he killed her? Did it have to do with why she’d called him last night? Why had she called him last night? Was Katie in love with him? My thoughts swirled together, and I had to summon all my strength to bring my attention back to the meeting.
“Charlotte?” Professor Worthington was asking. “Can you take care of that?”
“Can I take care of what?” I asked.
He sighed and looked at me like I was useless. Which, honestly, I supposed I was at this point. “Of interviewing Katie’s friends. Poke around, find out who she hung out with, if there was anyone else who might have wanted to hurt her. Find out who she was, where she hung out, what she was like. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” I said, even though I would have rather poked my eyes out with a fork than find out exactly what kind of person Katie Price was.
“Here’s her address,” Worthington said, pushing a piece of paper over to me. “You can start there.”
I folded the paper in half and placed it in my purse. What had Noah said? That Katie still lived with her parents? I’m sure they weren’t going to welcome me showing up at her house, asking them all kinds of questions about what Katie was like. Especially when I told them I was a defense lawyer for her boss, who might have been the last person to talk to her before she was killed.
There was a headache starting at my temples, and all I wanted to do was go home and have a long, hot bath, followed by a glass – or a bottle – of wine before crawling into bed.
But I had reading for tomorrow’s classes that I was behind on from spending my weekend with Noah, and I needed to get it done. And then there was the matter of my stepfather’s birthday party. I still hadn’t bought him a present.
This is why I usually kept to a meticulous schedule, and why there was no room for anything else in my life. Distractions needed to be minimized. It was imperative that I stay focused, because as soon as one thing slipped, it was like dominos.
“Josh,” Professor Worthington said. “I’ll need you to go through Noah’s email, line by line, mail by mail. Any emails with Katie should be deleted. Any mention of Katie to anyone else should be deleted.”
My attention snapped back to the conversation. “Should we really be doing that?” I asked. “Isn’t that destroying evidence?”
“There is no case yet,” Professor Worthington said. “So none of this is evidence. And we’re not destroying them, we’re deleting them. If the prosecutor’s office is that determined to find the emails, they can access the back up files. Which reminds me, we’re going to need access to Katie Price’s work email account.” He made a note on his legal pad.
“Yeah,” I said. “But if they find out we – ”
“We’re not doing anything wrong,” Josh said, shrugging. “It’s a gray area.”
My phone buzzed with a text before I could reply, and I looked down.
Noah.
“Come back to my apartment. Immediately.”
God, he was so arrogant. What gave him the right to think he could just demand where I went or what I did? It was barbaric, when you really thought about it.
You like it. It turns you on, how demanding he is, how he wants to take control of you.
This was how he roped women in. He got them all confused, caught up in a whirlwind of sex and lust and hormones, so they couldn’t see what was really going on. Well, I wasn’t going to be another Katie.
I picked up my phone to text him back and tell him to leave me alone, but before I could, the screen died again. Lovely. The cheap charger I’d gotten was already worthless.
“We have bigger problems than the emails, anyway,” Professor Worthington said. “There’s also the matter of Noah’s juvenile record.”
“His juvenile record?” I asked, frowning.
“Yes, Charlotte, have you not read the file I gave you?”
“I’ve read it,” I lied. “But I must have missed that part.”
“Noah has a juvenile record,” Josh piped up helpfully. “But it’s been sealed. And he won’t tell anyone what’s in it.”
“Which is going to be a problem, because the first thing the prosecutor is going to do if Noah is arrested is ask for it to be unsealed and admitted.” Professor Worthington sighed and rubbed his temples.
Great. On top of everything else, now Noah had a secret sealed record from when he was a juvenile. It was so absurd I almost wanted to laugh out loud.
A moment later, Professor Worthington dismissed us.
“See you in class tomorrow, Charlotte,” Josh said happily as I walked out.
I ignored him.
When I got back to my apartment, there was no sign of Julia. I breathed a sigh of relief, happy I wouldn’t have to deal with her yet. I peeked into my room, my eyes taking a quick inventory to see if anything had been messed with after I’d left last night. But everything seemed like it was in its right place. Of course, there was still the matter of the panties Josh had defaced, the ones he’d placed back in my top drawer.
I decided I’d deal with that later, too. Maybe I’d just toss everything in that drawer into the garbage. I could buy new underwear and bras.
I plugged my phone into its charger, then drew a bath and poured myself a glass of wine. I slid the tap as hot as I could stand it and lowered myself into the tub, letting the searing water wash over my skin.
I sipped my wine and closed my eyes.
I stayed in the bath until I was pruney and drowsy, then got out and dressed in a tank top and cotton shorts.
I was pouring another glass of wine in the kitchen when there was a knock on the door.
I tiptoed to the door and peered through the peephole.
Noah was standing on the other side of the door, looking fierce.
He knocked again, harder this time. “Charlotte,” he called. “Open the door.”
“No,” I said before I realized it probably would have been better to just pretend I wasn’t home. “Go away or I’ll call the police.”
“You’re not going to call the police, Charlotte” Noah said, sounding exasperated. “Now let me in.”