“Because I can’t, Charlotte, okay? I can’t.”
“That’s bullshit.” I started to push past him, but he reached out and put his arms on either side of me, pinning me in.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. “Do you have any idea what it would be like to be with me? To really be with me?”
“I’m not talking about being with you,” I said. “I hardly even know you! I’m talking about just being nice to me. You know, polite. Keeping up with social norms?”
He shook his head. “There is no middle ground with you, Charlotte. If I let my guard down, if I even – ” He dropped his hands, walked over to the other side of the lobby, put his hands on the wall and leaned over and stared at the ground.
“What?” I asked. “If you even what?”
“You don’t understand my demons, Charlotte,” he said, his voice soft. “You don’t understand the kinds of things I require from the women I’m with.”
He turned and looked at me then, all traces of bravado gone. An electricity thrummed between us, and I had the feeling that even this tiny admission, this tiny bit of nothing, was hard for him.
I reached out and put my hand on his arm, but he pulled away.
“What kind of things?” I asked gently.
He ran a finger down my cheek. “Things a woman like you would never understand.”
“Try me.”
His eyes searched mine, and I had a feeling I was standing at the precipice of something dangerous, like staring into an abyss at the moment right before you’re about to fall. I wanted him to pull me in, to pull me under, to take me wherever it was he was going.
“Please, Noah,” I pressed. “I want to understand.”
His face darkened, and a second later, all traces of vulnerability were gone. He straightened up. “I wish you could, Charlotte,” he said. “But I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking me,” I said. I put my hand back on his arm, and this time, he didn’t pull away. “I want to.”
We stood there for a moment, neither of us saying anything, the silence stretching for what seemed like forever. And then his cockiness came back, that disarming grin of his returning to his face.
“Very well, Charlotte,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “I’m texting you an address. Be there tonight at nine o’clock.” He slid his phone back into his pocket, and then his eyes slid up my body. “Wear the sexiest thing you own.”
***
I’d done what I was told. I was ready by eight, dressed in the sexiest thing I owned. Well, the sexiest thing my roommate, Julia, owned. She’d let me borrow a little black dress that was too big for her. Which meant it was a little too small for me.
It plunged down in the front, showing off my ample cleavage, and hugged my hips before ending right above the knee. I’d blown my hair out into big waves, then slipped into high-heeled stilettos. Bangle bracelets adorned my wrist, and dangly silver earrings clinked as I walked.
Noah sent me a text at 8:15.
Are you ready?
Ready.
Willing?
Willing.
Show me what you’re wearing.
I snapped a selfie and sent it to him, and the reply was immediate.
I can’t wait to get you out of that dress.
I paced around my apartment until my phone finally rang at 8:30.
It was Jared.
“Hello, Miss,” he said, which felt weirdly formal, since he knew such intimate details of my life. “Are you ready for your evening?”
“I am, Jared, thanks,” I said. “I’ll be right out.”
I went to grab my purse before realizing that wherever Noah was taking me, there was no way I could bring my huge messenger bag. I needed something sleek and tiny.
I rummaged around in my closet before coming up with a tiny black Coach wristlet. I started switching over the essentials – lipstick, keys, ID, cash…. All the small stuff was in the bottom of my messenger bag, so I had to pull everything out to get to it, including the file folder I’d been given on Noah’s case, the one I’d been avoiding looking at.
It dropped to the floor as I went to grab my credit card out of my wallet, the documents spilling out onto the carpet.
I reached down to pick them up.
And then I froze.
It was a picture of Dani DeClair, another one from her autopsy. The top was labeled “DeClair, Dani.” Only this one was a split frame, with a picture from another woman’s autopsy on the other side of the page. “Hogan, Nora” it was labeled. Noah’s ex-fiancé.
The pictures were taken from the same angle, close up on both women’s wrists. It was an unremarkable shot, especially for autopsy photos. The pictures hadn’t been taken because they were gory or shocking in any way. They were taken because of their similarities.