What He Desires(4)

“He was having an inappropriate relationship with Katie Price,” Professor Worthington said, shaking his head as he scrolled through the emails. “Jesus Christ, Noah, you really should learn to keep your dick in your pants.”

“Can I see them?” I asked, the blood rushing in my ears.

Worthington slid the laptop over to me. It was open to Noah’s email account, and there was an email between Katie and Noah up on the screen. It was a long conversation, the kind of conversation that only happened when two people were emailing back and forth incessantly, all day. The kind of conversation you usually only had with someone you were involved with. My stomach turned.

“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 – ”