Chapter 11
Still tryingto process this bombshell, Noah watched transfixed as Andi stepped into the room beyond the glass. The man rushed to her and swept her into a passionate kiss. If the man had hauled off and punched her, Noah doubted he’d have been more shocked.
“I’m trying to be patient here, but I’m gonna need you to fill in some details. I thought your brother was killed in the Army.”
“No, Preston wasn’t injured in the Army, but my strong, brave, amazing brother was shot saving my life from a monster. To him, he and Andi have been married about two and a half years. He has no clue how long it’s been since he was shot—or that they have a child.”
And the hits kept coming.
Noah needed to sit, but the sofa was too far away.
“Preston joined the Army to take care of me. The summer he went to Basic, he arranged for me to attend this two-month long music camp. We told my father I’d won an all-expenses-paid contest. In truth, we’d worked with my piano teacher to arrange it, and Preston sent her money to cover the tuition out of his Basic Training pay. He also contacted an attorney, told her our story, and so when my brother came for me, he came armed with combat training and the law on his side. He and I had been compiling mountains of evidence against my father. We thought we’d need it to counter his lies, but in the end, we didn’t need nearly as much as we’d thought. He actually pulled a gun on the deputy who came to arrest him, and when the dirt settled, and after a plea bargain, my father was sentenced to twelve years in prison. But at eight, they granted him parole.”
Noah did a quick round of math, and something dark unfurled in his gut like baby snakes writhing to escape their eggs. “So that means you were about twenty-two when he got out of prison, but you told me he was still in prison.”
“Correct on both accounts. The monster has been sentenced to prison twice now.”
Noah ran a hand over her hair, just as he had the night of Abuela’s party when they’d stood by the water and she’d told him about the monster in her past.
Monster.
Hadn’t she just said her brother was shot saving her from a monster? Noah doubted her use of those exact words then or now was an accident.
Somehow, her father was the reason her brother was in that room.
Closingher eyes on the scene playing out before her, Emma placed her forehead on the glass and tried to find the words, but talking about Preston’s shooting always felt like reliving it. The fear, the shouting, the threats, the sound of the weapon as it exploded. Preston’s head snapping back, and his blood on the moving truck, on her clothes.
On her hands.
“They had released my father on parole about a month before he shot Preston,” she explained, “and he was pissed. Well, he was always pissed, but eight years in prison didn’t exactly make him nicer. And I was terrified he’d come for me and do what he said when he’d been sentenced.”
“And what was that, Bomboncita?”
“Kill us.”
Noah gathered her close, and she let him, burying her face in his chest, partly to hide her face as she said the rest and partly to absorb his strength.
“For months after he went to prison, I had nightmares about him tracking me down and killing me. Eventually, though, the nightmares faded, but they’d always start again whenever he was up for parole. And then, when he received parole, they were constant. My work suffered, and I kept having panic attacks. Years of therapy evaporated, and suddenly, I was that frightened child all over again. So Preston talked me into moving to Houston to live with him and Andi. Preston had just started a security firm with one of their Army buddies, and he was all but out of the Army by then. Andi, too.”
“Where were you living at the time?”
“Nashville. I’d recently graduated from Vanderbilt Law School. Preston was so proud of me, and he was so excited for us to be living close again. He and Andi drove up to help me move. We’d nearly gotten everything packed into the moving truck when the shooting started.” She gripped tight to Noah even as he gripped tight to her. “I can still hear each shot ring out,” she whispered. “Bang. Bang, bang. Bang. Then, time slowed to a crawl as my brother’s head snapped back. Oh, God.”
“I’m here,” he soothed. “I’m here. You’re safe.”
She didn’t feel safe. She felt as cold, scared, and exposed as she had that night. “The only reason I’m still alive is that my brother pushed me out of the way. Plus, Andi was there helping me move. She put two bullets in my father’s chest, but as horror movies always show us, monsters aren’t so easily killed. He survived with minimal damage while Preston—”
Her voice cracked, and she turned her head so that she could see her brother again. He and Andi sat at the table, huddled close, hands linked as they chatted.
“The longer Preston’s illness lags, the harder it is for Andi to come see him. She says it’s just too painful. He’s the love of her life, the father of her child, the man she’d pledged to spend the rest of her life with, but...” She paused, exhaled. “But for all intents and purposes, Preston is stuck in time.”
“What do you mean stuck?”
“He wasn’t shot directly. He caught a ricochet, and it ended up lodging in his hippocampus. That’s the part of the brain that helps encode long-term memories. The surgeon said trying to remove it would be too dangerous and that additional surgeries would do more harm than good. So here we are, four years later, and my brother can’t retain recent memories.”
“At all?”
She shook her head. “It’s always worse when he wakes up. He can’t remember the accident, what happened, anything from around that time. Like now, Andi can start a conversation with him. For a while, he seems okay, but he’ll get to this point where he knows she’s there but can’t remember when she got there or how. When that happens, he gets agitated because he knows he should remember.”
“Agitated how?”
“Agitated is a watered-down word for what happens. The bullet also changed his temperament, so he gets violent. It’s why we had to put him in this facility and why Andi must keep her visits short.”
“Is it the same when you visit, too?”
His question sliced across her chest, only it didn’t draw blood; it cut another piece of her soul away. “I’m not allowed to visit him anymore.”
“You’re what? Andi won’t—”
“No, not her. The doctors. I can call him, but this is the only way I get to see my brother anymore: through a damn sheet of glass.”
The sob clawed at her throat, but she fought it back. She’d cried enough the past twelve hours to last a lifetime. Besides, tears wouldn’t help her brother; only a miracle would do that.
Or those nanochips.
“Why can’t you visit him in person anymore?” Noah asked, his hand moving comfortingly over her back.
“Because the last time I did, he got super agitated. I can’t even remember what set him off, but he lunged at me.”
Noah pushed her to arm’s length. “Your brother attacked you?”
“No, but that was only because Andi was there, and she tackled him before he could and wrestled him to the ground.”
“Baby, I’m so sorry.” Drawing her back into him, he kissed her forehead. “How long ago did that happen?”
“Almost two and a half years ago.”
Emma kept breaking his heart.
Noah glanced at Andi and Preston as they sat at the table, hands clasped, heads close. Only the clueless would look at them and not see the love between them; their affection was as beautiful as it was heart-wrenching .
“When’s the last time you spoke with a surgeon or received a second opinion?” he asked. “Breakthroughs in medicine happen all the time.”
“We’ve had second, third, and fourth opinions at this point. I’d sell my left kidney if it would make a difference, but we keep getting the same answers: additional surgeries would have too high of a negative outcome. Without a miracle, this will be his life.”
Noah made a mental note to call Braydon as soon as possible. Regardless of whether they kept the rights to the Lone-Star Tech chip, creating this technology was now one of Whitlow Group’s top priorities. Noah might not be able to go back in time and keep Emma’s brother from being shot, but he’d do everything in his power to heal him, and if Noah had to give Braydon the authority to hire whoever he needed to make this breakthrough, then so be it. He’d tell Braydon the one thing that would make his day: money is no object.
After leaving the Commons,Noah drove Emma to her house so that she could see it—or what was left of it, anyway. Crime scene tape extended to the sidewalk. She couldn’t go inside, but that was okay. She’d just needed to see what was left, but after seeing the remnants of her home, she wished she’d have put off the visit a few more days.
The best she could say of her house was that it still had four walls. Mostly. The front had caved back in on the rest of the structure. She couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but the back of the house looked as if it had missed the worst of the carnage, not that that was saying much. Black marred the rock, and vast swaths of siding had melted away. Puffs of insulation stuck out between structural posts like burnt cotton candy.
At her side, Noah wrapped an arm around her. Without asking, he offered the one thing she’d needed and so rarely received since Preston’s shooting.
Support.
“I’m not sure I’d feel safe going back in even when I’m allowed,” she said.
“We’ll figure something out, Bomboncita. Don’t worry.”
We.
Emma couldn’t help but wonder how long there would be a we. Noah wasn’t exactly famous for his long-lasting relationships, but that was turmoil for another day. Today, her Tragedy Meter was all maxed out.
She pointed to the right of her house. “Even the garage caved in. I wonder if my car’s salvageable.”
“I’d say there’s a fifty-fifty chance. It really depends on how hot the fire got.”
“I hate this.” She fought a wave of anger. “I built this house. Not with my own two hands, but I picked out the flooring, the rocks, the siding, the appliances, the kitchen cabinets, everything. And I know things could have been so much worse, like you and me being trapped inside, but I’m seriously gonna miss this place.”
“I know.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I’ll make sure you have whatever you need to put everything back the way it was. It’s the least I can do seeing that you were attacked for work you were doing for Whitlow Group. But in the meantime, stay with me as long as you want.”
Want, not need.
Don’t over-analyze his words, she scolded herself. Don’t add meaning where there isn’t any.
She was just overemotional. A lot had happened in the past twenty-four hours.
Trying to force comedy into her voice, she turned to face him. “If I didn’t know any better, Mr. Whitlow, I’d think you just asked me to move in with you.”
“What if I did?”
“I’d say you were a liar or practicing your stand-up routine, funny man,” she said with a laugh.
But his serious expression never wavered as he snaked his arms around her waist. “Move in with me, Emma.”
“Excuse me?” She tried to step back, but he didn’t let her go. She had to have heard him wrong. Yes, that was it. No way the sexiest man in the world had asked her to move in with him. Offering her a place to stay last night was one thing, but asking her to move in was something else altogether.
“Move in with me,” he repeated.
“Move in with you? As in for a few weeks until I can get back on my feet?” Yes, that, at least, made sense.
“As in make our addresses the same. Permanently.”
“That’s, that’s, that’s…”
Crazy.
Insane.
Ridiculous.
Had she mentioned crazy?
“You want me to move in with you?” she asked yet again.
He nodded.
“Why?”
He mumbled under his breath in Spanish, but she caught a couple words of interest: exasperating woman.
He cupped her face and held her tight. “Because I want you in my life, Emma. I want you beside me when I go to sleep and when I wake. Is there any better reason than that?”
“I have to sit down.” She stumbled backward to sit on the sidewalk, but her butt connected a little harder than she’d planned. It didn’t compare to the blow Noah had just given her, but they both smarted.
He wanted her to move in with him? That would be an enormous commitment and showed that she was more than his current flavor of the month, which made little sense for a myriad of reasons. The last woman he’d been dating had been Bridget Montague for crying out loud! Bridget, who’d been all legs, bronzed skin, and sex appeal. How was Emma supposed to compete in a class like that?
Then again, how many Bridgets had he ever asked to move in with him? It was a question she needed to find out the answer to.
He lowered onto the sidewalk beside her. “Your thoughts are so loud, Bomboncita, that the reporters across the street can likely hear them.”
“Reporters?”
She sat straight as she scanned the street. About half a dozen people milled about, four men and two women. None looked out of place, though. All wore casual spring clothes: jeans, T-shirts, shorts. She didn’t recognize anyone, but that didn’t exactly mean anything.
With a finger to her chin, Noah drew her attention back to him. “Never mind them. For some reason, they like to fixate on me.”
“For some reason?” Somehow, she managed not to roll her eyes. “Have you ever seen yourself in a mirror? You’re a rich, powerful, gorgeous bachelor. You’re a perfect storm for gossip fodder. Is it any wonder everyone adores you?”
“Including you?”
“Actualy, I adore you despite the fact you’re a rich, powerful, gorgeous bachelor. I thought you knew that.”
Smiling, he tugged her so that their bodies and lips touched, no doubt giving the reporters a show. “Move in with me, Bomboncita,” he said when they came up for air.
She cradled his face between her hands, thumbs tracing over the lips she wanted to be hers and only hers for the rest of her life, but that would be hoping for too much. If life had taught her anything, it was that happiness was fleeting and that happily-ever-afters didn’t exist.
“How about we start by making our living arrangements temporary,” she offered as a compromise, “but with an option for forever?”
The left side of his mouth tipped up. “With an option for forever? Spoken like a true lawyer.”
“Hazard of the job.”
“I can work with that, Bomboncita.” He leaned in to kiss her, but his cell rang. “To be continued.” He dug the phone from his back pocket, and his brow furrowed. “It’s the detectives.”
As he swiped on, she reached for his hand. They’d given Detectives Hill and Tanaka his cell number as hers hadn’t survived the fire.
“Whitlow.” He nodded a few times. “Of course. We’ll be right there.” When he’d disconnected, he turned to her. “That was Detective Hill. They have Franklin Bishop in custody, and they’d like us to come to the precinct right away. Bishop is claiming he’s innocent and can prove it.”
Noah heldEmma’s hand as they neared an interview room at the Houston Police Department. Sweat sprinkled his brow, and with each step, his heartbeat kicked up a few beats per minute. He’d been in a room like this as a teen. Being back was like scratching at a scab he thought was healed, only to realize the wound was infected. But this wasn’t about Amanda or his sins. This was about Emma. For her, he’d make it through this interview, and it was just that, an interview, not an interrogation.
“Thank you for coming in so quickly,” Detective Hill said as she opened the manilla folder sitting on the table when they’d arrived. A stain marred her shirt, and her pants were wrinkled. She was the epitome of an overworked public servant, and it scared the hell out of him.
Hill perused the file. “My partner’s still interviewing Franklin Bishop. So far, he hasn’t provided us with any of that pesky evidence he said he had to prove his innocence, but you know how it goes. We have to cross those t’s and dot those i’s.”
The hairs on the back of Noah’s neck prickled. This isn’t about crossing t’s or dotting i’s, a voice inside screamed. Hill’s inflection was a little too friendly. She was fishing for something. He’d sat with cops before who’d said similar things, who’d tried to put him at ease, but they hadn’t been his friends. They hadn’t been trying to help a scared, guilt-ridden kid. They’d been gathering evidence to hang him.
“Anything we can do to help,” Emma said, taking a seat. Either she took Hill’s comments at face value, or she was playing along. He’d seen Emma in court and knew she was intelligent and tenacious, but she practiced corporate law. Would she be able to go toe to toe with a hungry detective?
Hill pulled a piece of paper from the folder and seemed to skim it for details. “Ms. Morgan, you said you knew Mr. Bishop from work, correct?”
Emma shrugged. “To say, ‘I knew him from work,’ is a massive overstatement. I was opposing counsel on the most-recent lawsuit he filed against my client. They brought me into the lawsuits when the original attorney handling the case had a heart attack and had to take medical leave.”
“And Noah here hired you, correct?” But before Emma could answer, Detective Hill leveled Noah with a stare that held no warmth, only accusation. “And why did you hire Ms. Morgan specifically for the Lone-Star Tech case, Mr. Whitlow?”
More sweat prickled his forehead. Hill was definitely fishing for something, but what?
“Actually,” Emma interrupted. “Whitlow Group hired my firm, and the firm’s managing partner, David Reynolds, assigned me the case after he fell ill. Noah was not part of that decision.”
Hill scribbled something on her notebook, angry slashes of pen on paper. Emma’s answer had surprised Hill. He wouldn’t go so far as to say it angered her, but Emma had no doubt loosened some of the screws in the trap she’d been trying to spring on him. But trap for what?
You’re being paranoid, he chided.
“So, you’re telling me, on the record,” Hill continued, eyes on Noah, “that Ms. Morgan taking over as your lead attorney and the start of your relationship are mere coincidence.”
Get out, the scared little boy inside screamed.
“Don’t answer that.” Emma placed a hand on his arm, and when she spoke to Detective Hill, her voice was sharp enough to draw blood. “What does my relationship with Noah have to do with Mr. Bishop burning down my house?”
“Oh, probably nothing.” Smiling, Hill waved Emma off like her line of questioning was plain silly. “As I said, just gotta cross those t’s and dot those i’s.”
“As a practicing lawyer, trust me, I completely understand that,” Emma responded, straightening ever so slightly in her chair. “But Franklin Bishop was at my house the night of the fire. That evidence is irrefutable. We all saw the video.”
“No one doubts he was there, Ms. Morgan,” Hill said, her voice saccharinely sweet. “I’m just working on establishing a timeline. I just love timelines. They help me sequence the events leading up to and after a crime. When I was putting this timeline together, I just started wondering why Mr. Bishop would suddenly attack you twice after you’ve only been working on this case, what, a month, especially considering he never attacked your predecessor. And when I have questions like that, it makes me think I’m missing something.”
“Oh, I see. I see.” Emma linked her fingers on the table, shifting forward in her seat, a predator going into attack mode. “You think you’ve missed something, and you’re just trying to fill in details.”
“Exactly.” Hill pushed back in her chair, teeth showing in a friendly, let’s-be-pals smile.
“Well, here’s a detail for you, Detective. When it comes to my job, I’m an apex predator. I didn’t just get Franklin Bishop’s newest lawsuit tossed. I shredded it and tossed those shreds around like celebratory confetti, and Bishop, well, let’s just say he didn’t take it well. That’s why he came at me in court. I made a fool out of him, and if you keep interrogating my client without reading him his Miranda warning, you’ll get to experience that kind of legal humiliation firsthand.” Emma pushed to her feet. “This meeting is over, Detective, but the war you just started isn’t.”