Chapter 10
Two days later, Ziggy glanced over her coffee mug.
Cormac’s truck was parked in the street, and she could see his cowboy hat resting on his head.
Setting down her coffee, she marched toward the front door of Noah’s house.
She swung it open and was halfway down the porch steps when he opened his truck door.
“Is there something wrong?” he asked.
“Yeah. I can’t stand seeing you sit out here a second longer. You can either come inside and get some real food, because those sugary breakfast bars you’re eating aren’t good for you, or I’m bringing the kitchen to your pick-up.”
Cormac smiled. The man actually smiled. “I guess I can come in for a refill of some coffee and one of those muffins Noah is always bragging about.”
“Not as good as what comes from Crystal’s bakery, but they aren’t bad, if I do say so myself.”
Cormac jumped in front of her and opened the door. “Smells like my mother’s kitchen in here.”
“I hope you like blueberries.”
“I sure do.” He took the muffin and the mug and strolled into the family room with his back to the wall and his gaze on the water. He didn’t move, except to take a nibble or a sip.
It was a start.
She broke off a piece of her muffin and turned the page on the segment outline.
The Port commission piece needed a tighter cold open.
She'd circled that note twice already. Down the hall, Noah's voice carried from his home office. It was low, and she couldn’t make out the words, but she could hear the timbre, and it told her that whoever he was talking to, or trying to reach, it was important.
And for some reason, that made her nervous.
She glanced up. The only thing Cormac had done in the last few minutes was set down his plate with a half-eaten muffin on it. "You know there's a couch," she called toward the family room.
"I see it," Cormac said.
“You’re allowed to use it.”
“Okay.”
"Noah picked it out himself," she said. “Which means it’s really comfortable because he’s the pickiest man I’ve ever met.” Not that anyone in her family, except maybe her and her mom, was all that particular about furniture, but still.
"I'm good where I am."
She shook her head. “You’re a tough one.”
“That’s what my mom says about both my dad and me.” Cormac glanced over his shoulder. “I take it as a compliment.”
“I’m sure you do.” And it wasn’t a dig, it was just… well, he wasn’t much different than Troy or Jag when they got in this mode. She turned back to her notes and told herself to focus on work and not the sudden silence from down the hall.
Two minutes later, Noah came around the corner.
More like stomped and shuffled his feet at the same time.
He carelessly tossed his phone on the counter, and it slid toward the center, but that didn’t seem to bother him.
He reached for a mug, shoved it under the coffee maker, hit the button, and tapped his fingers on the counter.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
He turned, both hands cupping the mug. Ever since his visit with his father, he’d been in a mood. She wasn’t shocked by that. But it had surprised her that he hadn’t pushed her away. He didn’t draw her in, but he hadn’t told her to leave his bed, leave his house, or break up with her.
She took that as progress.
“I can't get a hold of Monica," he said. “I’ve texted. I’ve called. I’ve left messages. Nothing, and I’m genuinely worried about her.”
Cormac appeared in the kitchen doorway. “I’m sorry if this is too personal a question, but how long did the two of you date?”
“Just a couple of months,” Noah said. “It wasn’t some big romance. It was barely a thing. But she’s a nice person, and no one deserves to be…” Noah let out a long breath.
"Did Jag confirm a police report? A date for when she was beaten? A hospital visit?” Cormac asked.
All the questions Ziggy had been thinking about but was almost too afraid to ask. It wasn’t jealousy. She was long over that. But Noah was a private person, and his past love life was just that. And she respected it just like he’d always respected hers.
"No." Noah blew into his coffee, but didn’t bring it to his lips.
"Last time I saw her was about a month ago.
It was at a party where we called it quits.
After that, there was nothing on either side.
No calls, no texts, nothing." He lifted his mug and took a slow sip, staring into the liquid like it had answers.
“Who initiated the breakup?” Cormac asked.
“I was going to break up with her before the party, but we hadn’t seen each other for a few days, and I figured I’d do it after the party.
But things were weird and awkward, and she pulled me aside and told me she’d been done with me for weeks, but could never find the right time to tell me.
I laughed and told her it was mutual, then left.
That was it. There was no fight, nothing. It just ended.”
“Most relationships don’t just stop like that,” Ziggy asked. “Something had to have happened.”
“It was more like what didn’t, because I couldn't show up the way she wanted or needed me to.” Noah locked gazes with Ziggy. “But mostly because she knew, and we did fight about that.”
"Knew what?"
“That I was in love with someone else." There was no drama in the way Noah said the words.
He stated them as fact. “Most of the women I went out with figured it out at some point.
Some knew it was you. Others just knew there was someone else who pulled my attention.
Monica knew, going in, that I was in love with you, and it was always the problem.
I never claimed otherwise because I was so exhausted by the whole pretense that I just stopped. "
Ziggy stared at Noah with her breath caught in her throat. She’d loved this man for as long as she’d known him. And for a few months, five years ago, she thought that maybe she could have him. But that all changed the moment he decided that her knowing his secret made him a liability.
That was never true. But she’d watched the women he dated walk in and walk out, and in that moment, she thought she’d allowed herself to be another one of those girls. Somewhere, for Noah, all that changed, but he’d kept it to himself. “You could have told me," she said.
“It wasn’t that simple or that easy, and you know it.”
“It’s as simple as three little words.”
"I’ll be apologizing for that for the rest of my life. But at the time, I’d convinced myself my reasons made sense." He set his mug down. "I was a complete idiot. And for the record, you haven’t said those words back to me.”
“And I’m not going to in the present company.”
“Fair enough.” He smiled. “But the second Cormac walks out that door, I expect them to come flying out of your mouth.”
She glanced at her notes, picked up her pen, and didn't write anything. She’d been avoiding those words.
Not because she didn’t mean them. She loved Noah.
That wasn’t up for debate. But there was a small part of her—a very tiny sliver—that still worried that before this was over, the sky would come crumbling down and her heart would break.
“I guess I’ll step outside. I don’t want to be in the way of words.” Cormac set his mug on the counter. "I appreciate the coffee."
Noah's phone buzzed on the counter.
Cormac stopped with his hand gripping the doorknob.
Ziggy's phone went off at the same moment—Jag's name on the screen—and she stepped away from the island and answered.
“Hey, big brother.”
“Is Noah nearby?” Jag asked.
“He’s on the phone.” She glanced at Noah, who mouthed, Andrew. “He’s talking to the show’s director.”
“Shit. Turn on the news,” Jag said. "But make sure Noah doesn't have anything in his hands first."
“Why?”
“Just trust me,” Jag said.
She turned.
Noah stood at the counter with his phone turned sideways in one hand, staring at a video, voices coming out of it, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.
He held his coffee mug in the other. His brow was pulled together, and his mouth pressed flat.
His face contorted into something that looked like pain.
Then his eyes widened, and he shook his head.
"Fucking bastard." Noah tossed his mug into the sink. It wasn’t a gentle toss. It was a slam dunk, and it shattered, the sound cracking through the kitchen like a mini explosion.
"Jag." She pushed the phone to her ear. "What the hell is going on? Noah just watched something on his phone, and now he’s pacing and cursing.”
"Hand him your phone," her brother said. “And ask him for his so you can watch what he just did.”
She crossed the kitchen. “Jag wants to speak with you, and can I see what’s on your phone?” she asked as softly and kindly as she could manage, but her voice shook. So did her hand.
Noah didn’t say anything. He just swapped phones and quickly turned his back, pressing her phone to his ear.
She focused on the small screen and the video. She slid her finger along the progress bar, rewinding the footage, and tapped play.
Monica Payne stood outside a police precinct with a reporter beside her, another person next to her, two cops behind her, along with a half a dozen other people.
A microphone was attached to the podium she gripped as if it were the only thing holding her up.
Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, that showed off the bruising and cuts on her face.
The swelling had gone down, and her eyes were less puffy.
She was certainly recognizable, but the effects of her injuries were jarring.
However, it was the words coming out of her mouth that made Ziggy fall back into one of the stools.
“Noah Chase. My ex-boyfriend. He did this to me.” Monica held up her phone, screen to the camera, showing her call log with Noah's name at the top—multiple calls. Timestamps from the night Ziggy had gotten the image. From yesterday. From this morning.
“…And he just tried to call me moments ago. He wants to silence me, and he thinks he can threaten me to…”
Ziggy held the phone with one hand, while she gripped the side of the counter with the other. “…Noah told me that if I went public, he’d come for me, and that I’d pay.”
As a reporter, Noah was many things, and he knew how to pressure people. But this, this wasn’t him. And especially as a man, he would never. Ziggy knew that.
But she understood what this looked like and how it could and would be spun. Facts often didn’t matter in the age of social media.
Ziggy sat in Noah's kitchen and watched the clip a second time, and her brain did what it usually did in a control room when something was going wrong on air—it tracked everything simultaneously.
The anonymous text on Sunday night. The photograph. The calls Monica had recently received. Noah had admitted he’d left message after message. And the slew of odd deliveries.
On the surface, it didn’t trace back to Matias, not even for those who knew Noah was indeed Angel.
Rapid-fire questions filled her brain, but she landed on one. Who was Matias using on the outside, and how were they going to find them? Because that was the key to all of this.
"I'll be ready,” Noah said, and that brought her back to the present.
"Ready for what?" She turned.
Noah set down the phone. Pressing both hands onto the counter, he dropped his head forward. "Your brother's five minutes out. He's bringing Baxter Allen."
“My dad’s golf buddy?”
“That’s the one.”
Baxter Allen had been coming to Bowie Christmas dinners since she was twelve-years-old.
He'd also been a criminal defense attorney for thirty years.
Those two facts had lived in completely separate parts of her brain until this exact moment in this kitchen with a shattered mug in the sink and Monica Payne's voice still coming from the phone in her hand.
"Why is he with Jag? Why are either one of them…” she let the words trail off as it all snapped into place nice and neat like it had been tied in a big pink bow.
Noah lifted his gaze. “Because Jag says I need to voluntarily offer myself up for questioning. Get ahead of it and redirect the narrative." The corner of his mouth pulled in a way that had nothing to do with smiling. "Which sounds exactly like something I'd say on air about someone else's crisis."
This couldn’t be happening. This kind of thing happened to other people. To the people they brought on Noah’s show. Only, Ziggy should know better, because this shit had been happening around her family in different ways for years.
"What it actually means," Noah said, "is that I need to turn myself in."