What He Craves (3 page)

“I was in the shower,” I said.

“Charlotte, if you’re going to be working
with on this case, then you’re going to have to make sure you have your phone
on you at all times.
 
Do you
understand?”

“So I’m still on the case?” I blurted
before I could stop myself.

“Why wouldn’t you be?” Professor Worthington
had gone from sounding rushed to sounding slightly pissed and really
annoyed.
 

“No, I just… I meant…”
 
I couldn’t come up with a good
explanation, so finally I just said, “Professor, I want you to know that I am
one hundred percent committed to this case, and I will do whatever it is you
need me to.”

“Well, then act like it.
 
I need you to meet us down at the
police station in thirty minutes.”

“The police station?”

“Yes.
 
Noah Cutler is going to be questioned, and I’m going to need
you to take notes.”

“Of course.”
 
My pulse pounded.
 
Not only was I still on the case, but I was going to be there when the
police interrogated Noah.
 
It was
amazing experience -- Professor Worthington was one of the best criminal
defense lawyers in the city.
 
I’d
get to witness a true master at work.
 
And not only that, but Noah would be there. The prospect of seeing him
again shouldn’t have excited me, especially given the circumstances.
 
But it did.

“And Charlotte?”

“Yes, Professor?”

“Get it together.”

The line went dead before I could reply.

***

The police precinct was located on Druid
Street, right across from a row of high-end bars and subs.
 
There was no car to pick me up this
time, obviously, so I was forced to take the subway.
 
Which was fine with me.

It had been awkward earlier, sitting in
the back of a limo, knowing that Jared, Noah’s driver, probably knew exactly
what I’d just done with his boss.
 
Although Jared didn’t seem all that thrown by any of it – in fact,
he was perfectly polite and professional. Which made me think this was probably
a normal occurrence – Jared having to take home some girl who’d just spent
the night with Noah.

Not that that was surprising.
 
Noah was gorgeous and rich and
brilliant.
 
He was charming and
sexy and he knew all the right things to say.
 
I was sure he’d had models and actresses and whoever else he
fancied.

When I walked into the police precinct, I
was the first to arrive—there was no sign of Noah or Professor
Worthington.
 
I’d expected it to be
scary and foreboding, but it wasn’t.
 
There was a receptionist sitting behind a glass partition, and a few
officers milled around a desk in the back.

“Can I help you?” the woman behind the
partition asked me.
 
She had a
short blonde bob and was wearing a very chic pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
 
I wished I could pull off glasses like
that, but you had to be a very particular kind of person, usually a hipster.
 
Which I most definitely wasn’t.

“Yes, I’m here with Noah Cutler.
 
I mean, I’m supposed to be meeting him
and his team here.”
 

“Mr. Cutler hasn’t arrived yet,” the
woman said.
 
“But you can have a
seat over-”

But before she could finish her sentence,
the door to the precinct went flying open and Noah came storming in, a
harried-looking Professor Worthington trailing behind him.
 
Neither of them even looked at me.

Instead, Noah marched right up to the
receptionist.
 

“I’m here to see Detective Rake,” Noah
said.
 
He was wearing a long grey
coat over expensive-looking black pants.
 
His hair was freshly styled, his face smoother than it had been when I’d
seen him earlier.
 
He must have
shaved.
 
He looked like he was
about to go to a magazine shoot, not be questioned in a murder.

“Of course, Mr. Cutler,” the receptionist
said without even asking Noah’s name.
 
She must have been expecting him, or maybe she knew who he was from his
reputation as a lawyer.
 
She picked
up a phone and pushed a button.
 
“Detective Rake, Noah Cutler and his lawyer are here.” She replaced the
receiver.
 
“He’ll be with you in
just a moment.”

Noah didn’t reply, instead heading back
toward the front door and pacing angrily.
 
The receptionist was watching him, her gaze moving over his body, his
face, and her eyes caught mine.
 
She raised her eyebrows and shook her head at me, and I knew what was
trying to convey –
wow, he’s hot.

I thought about giving a slight shake of
my head to indicate I didn’t agree, but there’s no way she would have believed
it.
 
So I nodded my ascent.
 
There really was no way around it
– Noah was beautiful.
 
Even
this receptionist, who knew he was here to be questioned about a murder, was
acknowledging it.

“I’m not waiting more than two minutes,”
Noah growled as he paced around the lobby.

“Noah,” Professor Worthington said,
shaking his head.
 
“You need to
calm down.
 
We can’t have you being
questioned while you’re in an emotional state.
 
You need to seem like you have a cool head about you, you
can’t come across as defensive, or …”

“Fuck that,” Noah said.
 
He pulled his gloves of angrily and
shoved them into the pocket of his coat.
 
“This is bullshit, making me come down here, and you know it.”

“It’s a show of good faith,” Worthington
said.
 
“You need to show that
you’re playing by the rules.
 
I
don’t like it, and you don’t like it, but that’s how it is.
 
That’s what you would tell a client,
and you know it.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Noah said.
 
“If I were my own client, I’d say the
police can go fuck themselves, and if they want to question you, they can come
to your apartment.”

Worthington sighed.
 
“Noah, you hired me because you trust
me.
 
Now you have to listen.”

Noah shook his head angrily and continued
pacing around the lobby.

So far, neither he nor Worthington had
even acknowledged my presence.

“Oh,” Worthington said finally when he
saw me standing there.
 
“Charlotte.
 
Good.
 
You’re here.”

Noah still didn’t look at me.

“Yes, I’m here,” I said.
 
I held up the fresh notebook I’d
grabbed from my stash on the way out the door.
 
“I’m ready to work.”

“Good,” Professor Worthington said.
 
He pulled a manila file folder out of
his bag and handed it to me.
 
“This
is some preliminary information about the case.
 
It’s very bare bones, and in the coming days I’m going to
need you to start fleshing it out.
 
I would appreciate your discretion in this matter, Charlotte.
 
You’ll be working directly under me,
and so you’ll be bound under the same rules of attorney/client confidentiality
as I am.”

“Of course,” I said.

“Why the hell are they making us wait?”
Noah raged.

“Noah,” Worthington said.
 
“I’m sure they’ll be –”

Just then, the receptionist slid back the
partition and poked her head out.
 
“Detective Rake will see you now,” she said, her eyes never leaving
Noah.
 
“You can head back.
 
It’s through the double doors, third
door on the left.”

“It’s about damn time,” Noah said.

He pushed through the doors, Worthington
hot on his heels.

I took a deep breath and followed them.

***

They put us in an interrogation
room.
 
It was just like the kind of
room you’d see on TV, only slightly nicer.
 
There was an oak desk in the middle, with a couple of chairs
in front of it, and one behind it.
 
There was a futon against the wall, folded up into couch position, the
mattress covered with an eggplant-colored cushion cover.

Noah and Professor Worthington took the
two chairs in front of the desk, and I figured the other chair, the one behind
the desk, was for Detective Rake.
 
So I sat down on the futon.

The detective hadn’t come in it yet, so I
pulled out the folder Professor Worthington had given me and began reading up on
the case.
 
Noah was furiously
typing away on his phone.
 
He
wasn’t complaining anymore, apparently deciding to take his energy and channel
it into something productive.

The first page in the folder was a black
and white photo of a smiling girl.
 
She was about my age, with gorgeous straight black hair and a perfect
smile.
 
She had a bit of an exotic
thing going on, her eyes done up in a smoky liner.
 
She was pushing her hair back with one hand and she was
looking down, like someone had caught her mid-laugh.
 
It was a picture that was supposed to look candid, but the
lighting and the backdrop made it obviously a headshot.

She must have been a model or an actress.

I flipped to the next document and almost
gasped.
 
It was the same girl, only
this picture was a close up of her neck.
 
And she was obviously dead.
 
There were red and purple marks on her skin, some of them so dark they
were almost black.
 
You could see
the outline of a hand on her throat. Someone had strangled her to death.

I took in a deep shaky breath.
 
I needed to be professional – I
couldn’t have Professor Worthington noticing me having a reaction to what
probably was just some run-of-the-mill autopsy photos.

I went to flip to the next page, but
before I could, the door opened and a police officer walked in.
 
Detective Rake.

He surveyed the room and then spoke.

“Hello, everyone,” he said.
 
“Noah, I presume?” He held his hand out
to Noah, who shook it reluctantly.

“Colin Worthington,” Professor
Worthington said.
 
“Counsel for Mr.
Cutler.
 
And this is my assistant,
Charlotte Holloway.”

The detective gave me a friendly nod.

“How long is this going to take?” Noah
demanded.
 

“It shouldn’t take long.”
 
Detective Rake was speaking in a jovial
manner, seemingly not phased by Noah’s bad attitude.
 
He took a sip from the paper Starbucks cup he was holding.
 
“Would you like some coffee?” he
asked.
 
“I’m sorry, but you’ll have
to settle for what we have here at the station.
 
I can’t stand the stuff myself, but then, I’m a bit of a
coffee snob.”
 
He held up his cup
as if to confirm it.

His tone was pleasant, but it was a
subtle dig.
 
He was drinking the
good stuff, and if any of us wanted anything, we’d have to settle for the
shitty police station coffee.

I shifted on the futon, wondering how
Noah was going to react.
 

But he didn’t reply, just glanced at the
detective and then back down at his phone, continuing to type whatever work or
email he’d been working on before.

“No, thank you,” Professor Worthington
said.

Detective Rake turned to me.
 
“Would you like anything, Charlotte?”
he asked.

I opened my mouth to say no, but then I
remembered earlier, in Noah’s kitchen, him telling me that all serious lawyers
drank coffee, that I needed to drink the good stuff only, black, with no sugar
because that would ruin it.

Fuck
him,
I thought.
 
What
an ass, ignoring me like this after what we did this morning

“I’d love some,” I said.
 

“Excellent,” Detective Rake said.
 
His blue eyes sparkled.
 
He was young for a detective, or at
least, he looked young – I could see a tiny bit of salt and pepper starting
at his temples, but his skin was fresh and unlined, his eyes bright.
 
Something about his face was a little
bit impish, like maybe he enjoyed messing with people.
 
“How do you take it?”