by Hannah Ford
“We’re going to need to put in an information request for Katie’s computer, find out if there’s anything on it that could be helpful.”
I was scribbling furiously, trying to keep up with everything he was saying.
“We’ll also need her phone.” He was looking through his own phone, and I wondered if he was considering finally calling Noah. “We’ll need a computer expert, get Courtney Randio, she’s the best when it comes to that stuff. And tell her we’re going to need a lower rate, that I know what she charged Fitzgerald.”
I was writing faster and faster, trying to keep up with all the information. The whole time, all I could think about was Noah. Noah, Noah, Noah.
Could he have killed someone? Could I have spent last night with a killer? My instinct said no. But that was how sociopaths and psychopaths got you. They charmed you and made you think they could never be capable of the heinous things they did. It was part of their personality disorder. We’d had to read all about personality disorders in intro to criminal law last year when we studied insanity defenses.
Would Noah be charged with murder? Would we have to plead him as being insane? Would I be defending a man I’d slept with from murder?
“Oh, good,” Professor Worthington said, looking down the walking path toward the police barrier. “There’s Josh.”
I turned to look. Sure enough, there was Josh. He was standing on the other side of the barrier, obviously having been stopped by the policemen. He was gesturing to Professor Worthington.
“What’s he doing here?” I asked.
“I asked him to come down,” Worthington said. “You’re going to need help with all the paperwork.”
My head was spinning, adrenaline pumping through my veins. Now not only did I have to worry about Noah being a murderer, but I had to worry about working with Josh.
“I thought Noah said he didn’t want him on the case,” I said, trying my best to keep my voice from betraying any emotion.
“Noah?” Professor Worthington asked, raising his eyebrow.
“Um, I mean, Mr. Cutler.”
“Mr. Cutler didn’t want Josh working directly with him, that’s true. But I’m sure he wouldn’t have any objections to him working on paperwork.” Professor Worthington put his fingers in his mouth and whistled down to the police officers. “Hey!” he said. “Let him through! He’s with me!”
“Why are we allowed back here anyway?” I asked. Now that I thought about it, it was definitely bizarre. Why was someone’s lawyer being allowed onto an active crime scene? Especially since Noah hadn’t even been charged with a crime.
Worthington turned to me and glared. “Charlotte,” he said. “Please don’t be so naïve. With the law, it’s all about who you know.” His gaze focused on something over my right shoulder. “Josh,” he said. “Finally.”
“What’s up?” Josh said, obviously deciding to be totally unprofessional. Not that I was surprised. Someone who’d been jerking off into my panties twelve hours ago probably wasn’t too concerned with decorum.
“What’s up is that there’s a dead body,” Worthington said. He shook his head, like he couldn’t believe how obviously incompetent we were.
“Hey, Charlotte,” Josh said. He gave me a big smile and held out a paper Starbucks cup. “I brought you a coffee.”
I thought about taking it from him and throwing it in his face, or spitting in it and then throwing it in his face, or maybe just spitting in his face. But then I thought, fuck it, why should I even give him the satisfaction? I knew he would have loved to see me rattled, would have loved to see me squirm and have some kind of freak out in front of Professor Worthington. Josh was a pervert and a snake. And perverts and snakes had a lot in common, especially their desire to get under your skin.
So instead I pasted a big smile on my face and took the coffee. “Thanks, Josh!” I said. I put the cup to my mouth and pretended to take a sip. I drew the line at actually drinking the coffee -- I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d done something nasty to it.
“No problem,” he said. And then he winked at me.
Yesterday I’d felt violated and disgusted, almost scared of him. Today I still felt the same disgust toward him, but it had morphed into something else. Now I wanted him to know I wasn’t going to back down from him, that just because he’d done something revolting to me , I wasn’t going to let him get to me. Inside, I was shaking. But outwardly, I kept my cool.
“What are we doing here anyway, boss?” Josh asked. He took a swig of his own coffee.
“We’re making sure the police don’t fuck everything up, like they’re wont to do,” Professor Worthington said. “They’ll be more likely to follow the rules if they know someone from the defense is here.”
“We’re not the defense, though,” I interrupted. “I mean, you know, because um, he’s … Mr. Cutler hasn’t been charged with a crime.”
The two of them looked at me like I was a naïve little girl. “Now,” Worthington said, totally ignoring my comment. “We’re going to have to have a meeting as soon as this is over. Are you two free this afternoon? Say around three? We can meet at my office.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I’m not sure this is going to take two of us. I have more than enough free time to make sure all the paperwork is getting done.”
I avoided Josh’s gaze as I said this last part.
The last thing I wanted was him thinking I wanted him off the case because of what he’d done last night, even though of course that was the reason. I wondered if I should just tell Professor Worthington. I imagined the shocked look on his face if I just blurted it out. “Professor, Josh shouldn’t be allowed to work on this case with me because I caught him jerking off in my room.”
But of course I could never do that, even if I wanted to. It would be extremely unprofessional.
“You think you can handle this whole case by yourself, do you, Charlotte?” Professor Worthington asked. “You think one student should be able to take on the workload of three paralegals?” I wanted to ask him why he didn’t have three paralegals working on the case then, but I already knew the answer. It was because paralegals didn’t want to do this kind of shit – they weren’t putting together summaries of evidence and filling out forms, they were looking up case law and practicing trial arguments.
“No,” I said. “I just meant that if there’s something else Josh could be working on, then –”
“What the hell are you doing here, you little fucker?” a voice growled from next to me. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of a dark coat, a black glove, and then a crack as a fist hit Josh in the face and sent him sprawling to the ground.
“Oh my God!” My hand flew to my mouth and I turned to see Noah standing there, his eyes blazing in fury.
“Jesus Christ, Cutler,” Professor Worthington said. “What the hell are you doing?”
But Noah wasn’t done. He reached down and picked Josh up by the collar of his polo shirt, pulling him close until their faces were inches apart. “You stay away from her,” Noah commanded. “You don’t look at her, you don’t talk to her, you don’t even think about her. Do you understand me?”
All trace of bravado was gone from Josh’s face. Just a few moments ago, when he’d handed me that coffee, he’d been cocky and confident. Now he was shaking like a little boy. Noah shook him again. “Do. You. Understand?”
“Yeah,” Josh said. “Yes. Yes, I understand.”
Noah released his grip on Josh’s shirt. But I could tell he was going to hit him again. It was like he wasn’t there, like he’d had some kind of break with his body and didn’t know what he was doing.
“Noah!” I yelled, grabbing his arm and pulling at him. “Noah, stop it!”
He looked at me, and our eyes met, and that seemed to snap him out of it. “Noah,” I said. “Please, stop. Just stop. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
His breath was coming in ragged gasps, but I could tell he was coming back, he was ca
lming down. I kept my eyes on his, my hand on his arm. I wanted to pull him close, to wrap my arms around him, to tell him everything was going to be okay, but I didn’t dare do that in front of Professor Worthington. From down by the barriers, the policemen had turned to see what the commotion was.
“It’s fine!” Professor Worthington yelled down to them. “Everything’s fine.” The police shook their heads and went back to guarding the barrier. A couple of police cars were pulling up on the other side, two men in suits climbing out of them. They must have been the detectives who were going to be cataloging the crime scene.
“Took them long enough,” Professor Worthington grumbled. He turned to Josh. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Josh said, a track of his cockiness back, now that he could see there was no immediate threat. “I’m fine.”
Professor Worthington looked at Noah and shook his head. “I don’t have to tell you how ridiculously stupid it was to show up at a murder scene when you know you’re going to be a person of interest. And beyond that, it was even more stupid to get into a physical altercation with a member of your defense team. In front of cops.”
“I told you I didn’t want him working on my case,” Noah said. “And I stand by that.”
“He’s not going to be working directly with you,” Professor Worthington explained.
“Mr. Cutler,” I said, hoping my voice sounded professional. “I can assure you that Josh will behave with the upmost professionalism.” I gave Noah a warning look. The last thing I wanted was Josh on this case. He was my competition, not to mention a complete and total pervert. But it was already clear that something inappropriate was going on with Noah and I, and it was going to look even worse for me, and for Noah, if Josh got thrown off the case – Professor Worthington would be even more annoyed than he was when I suggested I could handle everything myself. He might even fire me.
Noah’s jaw set in a straight line, and a vein pulsed in his neck. I could tell it was taking every last ounce of his self-control not to insist Josh be thrown off the case. Finally, he shook his head.
“Whatever,” he said. He turned and started walking away.
I stared after him as he retreated, fighting the urge to follow.
“Charlotte,” Worthington said. “Go with him.” He gave me that knowing look again, the one he’d given me at the police station when Noah had called me into his limo. He knew there was something going on between me and Noah, probably not exactly what it was, but he knew there was something. And he didn’t care. I thought about telling him no, about saying it wasn’t my job to babysit our client. But of course it was my job, at least to some extent.
I was a law student. I was lucky to even be working on this case, and even though I would have preferred to be working on it in some other aspect, if Professor Worthington wanted me to go after Noah, then I had to go after Noah.
You want to go after him.
I raced down the path toward Noah, who was striding through the trees, taking a short cut back toward the main road. There were sirens in the distance now, and I could hear the voices of the detectives turning up at the crime scene.
“Noah!” I called, but he just kept walking, not even turning around to acknowledge me. “Noah! I know you can hear me,” I grumbled as I struggled to keep up with him.
Finally, when we got onto the sidewalk, he turned around. “What the fuck was that?” he demanded.
“What the fuck was what?”
“The whole ‘Josh will behave professionally’ bullshit.”
I shook my head. “I had to say that! This is my job, Noah. I can’t look bad in front of Professor Worthington.”
“Well, maybe I’ll fire him, too, then,” Noah seethed. He turned and started walking down the sidewalk, dodging in and out of the Sunday walkers, who weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere. They were strolling along, bags full of things from the farmer’s market, coffees in hand, enjoying the day. Noah almost ran into a man holding a box of doughnuts.
“Noah!” I yelled. “Noah, stop!”
He slowed down, but just barely.
“Noah,” I said. “I understand you’re upset. I would be, too. Katie just died, which I’m sure has been traumatic. And then you had to come and see Josh there. But firing Professor Worthington isn’t the answer. You’re going to need him, now more than ever.”
Noah finally stopped in the middle of the street, walked over to a bench and sat down. He put his head in his hands and didn’t say anything for a moment. I sat down next to him and waited.
Finally, he rubbed his eyes and looked up, his gaze fixating on something across the street. “How did she die?” he asked softly.
“She was strangled.”
“Jesus.” He dropped his head back into his hands. I wanted to reach out, to touch his shoulder, to comfort him in some way, but I had a feeling that would just make him more upset. I didn’t want to risk the chance of him rejecting me, of him pushing me away, his walls coming up and forcing that distance between us. “When did it happen?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “They’d just found her body when they called me.”
He shook his head again. “She was only twenty-two,” he said. “She wasn’t even… she still lived with her parents. She wasn’t even done with school.” Something about the way he was talking about her betrayed a certain familiarity, more than one would have with an employee.
“Did you… did you have a relationship with her?” I asked carefully.
He shook his head. “No.”
I didn’t want to annoy him, or push him, and I knew he was upset. But what I said next had to be said. “Noah, that won’t matter to the police. They’re going to know you had a connection to her. You shouldn’t have shown up at the crime scene like that. And you shouldn’t have punched Josh. You were so lucky that the police weren’t closer. Josh could still press charges, he could –”
“Now you’re defending him?” Noah asked. He shook his head. “After what he did to you?”
“I’m not defending him,” I said. “I’m just saying that you can’t let what Josh did start to effect your case. It looks really bad, Noah.”
He turned to me. “You think I did it?”
“What?”
“Do you think I murdered those women?”
“What I think doesn’t matter.” The last thing I wanted was for him to think that my opinion had anything to do with his case. No one’s opinion did, except for the police and the jury, if it came to that. And I was pretty sure it might be headed that way. One woman dead, okay. Two women, awful. But three women? All connected to one man? It looked bad. Really, really bad. If he wasn’t arrested, it would be a miracle. And if he did get arrested, he was going to need Professor Worthington. In fact, he was probably going to need even more than that -- he was going to need Professor Worthington to head a team of high-powered lawyers, all working together.
“I didn’t ask you if it mattered,” Noah said. “I asked if you thought I did it.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment, and he turned to look at me. His eyes had softened, and it was that same expression I’d seen on him in the lobby yesterday, the expression that made me feel like he did care about me, that this wasn’t just fun to him, that it wasn’t just about sex.
The thing was, deep down, I didn’t think he did it. I’d been with him, I’d spent time with him, and I liked to think I had a good read on people. He just didn’t seem like the type of man who could kill someone, let alone three someones, with his bare hands.
But another part of me felt like I was being ridiculously naïve, that I’d slept with him and my emotions and my hormones were clouding my brain when it came to the facts of the case. How many times had I watched tape of trials or police interviews where someone’s mother or father insisted there was no way their son or daughter could have committed that rape, or that murder, or that assault, even though there was DNA evidence linking them to the victim?
I thought those people were rid
iculously stupid. And now I might be turning into one of them.
“Answer me,” Noah said.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
He nodded, then stood up and started walking down the sidewalk toward his limo, which was parked against the curb.
I watched him go, my heart beating fast in my chest. I had a sinking feeling that if he got into that limo and pulled away, he was going to be gone forever, that I would never get a chance to be with him again. The thought was unbearable. A wave of despair and desperation washed over me, scrubbing away any kind of protests my brain was preparing.
I rushed after him and knocked on the window of the limo.
For a second, I thought he was going to refuse to talk to me.
But then the window rolled down.
Our eyes met, and I didn’t have to say anything.
He opened the door and let me in.
Once we were at his apartment, everything changed.
The vibe, which back on the bench had been about him wanting me to believe him, about him needing something from me, had shifted. Now his mood was dark. He walked over to the bar in the kitchen, uncapped a bottle of something amber-colored, and poured the liquid into a tumbler.
I wasn’t sure what to do, so I stood there for a moment, hovering by the door. He sipped his drink and then stared down at it, brooding. He was wearing a crisp white dress shirt, a dark tie, and a black suit. His clothes hung on his large frame perfectly, hugging his broad shoulders and chest. He was freshly shaven, his hair with just the right amount of gel to make him look gorgeous and put together without coming across as someone who cared to much about their appearance.
We stood there for a moment, not saying anything, and then finally, Noah pulled back and threw the glass he was holding against the wall. It shattered into a million pieces. I jumped at the sound of the breaking glass, my heart stopping in my chest, the sound seeming to echo through the eerie silence that followed.