Fuck that. You worked hard to get into law school, you worked hard to even be able to go to college. You promised your dad and yourself you wouldn’t end up like your mother, that you’d make something of yourself. And you’re not going to let some man you just met take that away from you.
I opened the door and walked in.
The office was small, but Professor Worthington had made the most of the space, with a long conference table in the middle of the room, and a flowery green plant in the corner. A keurig coffee machine sat on a table near the door, and a bookshelf with volumes of law books was pushed up against the opposite wall.
Josh sat at the conference table, a cup of coffee sitting in front of him.
“Hey,” he said when he saw me. “The professor’s not here yet.”
“Great,” I said under my breath and sat down at the other end of the table. I wanted to leave the room and come back after Professor Worthington got here, but I didn’t want to give Josh the satisfaction. So instead, I plugged my phone into its new charger and set it down next to me on the table. Then I pulled out the file Professor Worthington had given me at the police station, the one filed with photos and reports I was supposed to have studied. I hadn’t really had a chance.
That’ s a lie. You did have a chance, you just decided to spend your time out at a BDSM club instead of working on the case.
“Is that the file on Cutler?” Josh asked.
I nodded, not looking up from the documents, even though I wasn’t really reading them. My mind was a mess, because of Noah, because of Josh, because of everything. The words swam on the page, blurring into one big black smudge.
“Interesting, right?” Josh asked.
“Definitely.”
“He’s a psycho.”
“No, he’s not,” I said automatically.
“Oh?” Josh said. He leaned back in his chair until the front legs were off the floor. He grabbed the side of the table and balanced himself. “Are you fucking him?”
I had to resist the urge to get up and give his chair a good hard shove. I imagined him hitting the floor, his head cracking against the linoleum, the blood pooling underneath him. It was a violent fantasy, and I was surprised at myself. I wondered if spending so much time with a probable murderer was making me prone to having violent tendencies.
I ignored Josh and pretended to be engrossed in my reading.
“I’ll bet your pussy gets so wet,” Josh said. “I’ll bet you get so wet and you scream while he drills that ass. You have anal, right? Julia won’t let me get anywhere near her ass. But I’ll convince her.”
I fought hard to control my breathing, but tears of rage filled my eyes. Josh seemed to like this.
“Aww, are you gonna cry?” he asked. “You’re going to have a thicker skin than that, Charlotte. What if they call you to the stand? They’re going to ask if he ever got rough with you, if he ever took you to that club, what’s it called? Rape?”
He was talking about Force, and he knew it wasn’t called Rape.
He wanted me to refute him, wanted me to get into a back and forth with him so he could get a reaction out of me.
But it wasn’t going to work.
“It’s called Force,” I said evenly, my eyes still trained on Noah’s file. “Which you would have known if you’d read the report.”
I glanced up at him, and he smiled at me, like he knew exactly what the club was called. He took in a breath. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The guy’s a psycho for sure, but I still don’t think he did it.”
I looked up at him, interested for the first time. “Oh, yeah?” I said, still struggling to keep my tone light “Why do you say that?”
He swallowed, then bit his bottom lip nervously. The skin there was all torn up, like he’d been chewing on it a lot. “There’s something weird going on in this case,” he said. “Have you noticed – ”
But before he could finish, the door to the office opened and Professor Worthington walked in.
“Good,” he said shortly. “You’re both here.”
“Yes,” I said, nodding and smoothing down my sweater.
Professor Worthington took a seat in the middle of the table, in between me and Josh. I was happy for the buffer. He spread out a bunch of papers and a legal pad, then turned his attention to his laptop.
“We’re going to have to do something about Noah’s inbox,” Professor Worthington said, not wasting any time. “He’s turned his password over to me, and he has emails that are going to make him look exceptionally guilty.”
“What kind of emails?’ I asked, my heart sinking.