Page 23 of To Have and to Hold

When I unlocked the door to my apartment, Noelle wasn’t there. I dropped my briefcase by the door, shedding my suit jacket along the way and draping it across the kitchen table as I passed. I headed straight for the fridge and rooted around Noelle’s crates of veggies and fruits and prepackaged, chef-selected ingredients that she subscribed to weekly. This evening’s meal was meant to be some kind of chicken burger with carrot “fries.” Yum.

My six-pack of Yuengling was nestled in the back like the cherished treasure it was. Grabbing one, I uncapped the bottle and took a long swig, the fridge door still hanging open.

After requesting an adjournment from Judge Anderson, I was soundly rejected. My superior heard about it and within the hour he was in my office inquiring as to my mental state.

My deputy bureau chief stated that while Emme’s disappearance was important, so were the victims piled up on my desk, and I couldn’t argue. As a solution—or punishment—he was moving my cases to other, less burdened, ADAs. My gut had spiked with denial, even though I’d asked for a delay in my duties only hours before, but he’d held up a hand before I could protest, and said that I would stay on the Torro case, but only because I’d done enough ass-kissing that Abrams demanded it.

My relationship with the DA wasn’t exactly embraced by my colleagues. Or my superiors.

And so, hours later, after a few guzzling seconds where I allowed the dread to freeze my throat and clog my lungs, I set the empty beer bottle onto the countertop, the fridge thunking shut behind me. I hunched over, my palms braced on the marble’s edge, thinking there would never be an evening where I’d come home after a complicated day of trial prep, swig a beer and relax on the couch with my girlfriend the same away again.

Emme’s face kept conjuring up behind my eyes. All those moments my mind harbored, along with the sheer ability to recall her every tic after a mere blink. Now it was being used in the most horrible way, in the sense that I could envision, with perfect clarity, exactly how she would be reacting right now.

If—of course always fucking if—she were still alive.

My hands fell onto the counter in loose fists.

“Babe?”

The front door clicked shut and I heard footsteps approach, though I didn’t acknowledge them.

“Hey,” Noelle said, so soft. A hand went to my back and rubbed. “Come here.”

She pulled at my shoulders until she could nestle into my arms and perch her chin in the place she called her “nook,” still massaging.

“I can’t fucking think,” I said into her hair.

She lifted a hand to palm the back of my neck, pulling away enough to meet my gaze. “You’re doing everything you can.”

“Emme gets taken and the rest of us are just standing around with our dicks in our hands with no idea why she was abducted in the first place.”

I pushed out of Noelle’s hold. “Each minute that goes by and there’s nothing to show for it, Emme’s closer to becoming a statistic.”

“But not yet.” Noelle cut me off as I turned to pace the length of our apartment again. “She’s not a cold case. You still have time, Spence.”

I closed the space between us and cupped her cheeks, a move she didn’t expect, because she gasped and stiffened before relaxing into my hands. “You have so much hope, sweetheart,” I said.

“You’ve got to hold onto it,” Noelle said.

“That’s too fickle, always will be.” I trailed off, let her go, and turned. I disappeared into the second bedroom that I used as an office, then reappeared holding a legal pad and a fistful of pens.

“Spence?” she asked, still standing where I left her.

“I need tangible. Instead of draining this household of alcohol products, carving trails into our wooden floors and eating into the security deposit, I am going to sit my ass down.”

“And do what you do best,” she said. “Figure it out.”

That was the whole problem. My entire life, I’d been classified as clever. The street rat turned prosecutor—the real deal guy who’d crawled out of the garbage on wit and good sense alone, at least on paper. The cons, the beat-downs and near misses never made it on my resume. Problem solving wasn’t only my gift, I thrived off it. Without puzzles, the world around me would be grey. Useless. Bland. I needed to find the tricks and work-arounds, the loopholes and weak spots. It wasn’t just about leaving Emme to the professionals. None of my abilities mattered if it meant I couldn’t help her.

The pad of paper hovered in my hand in front of me, and for once I was dumbstruck at its blankness and the fact that I’d have to fill it in.

“Go into your office and write what you can. Start with doodling if it helps,” Noelle said and ushered me forward. “You’ll only drive yourself—and me—crazy by hovering in the kitchen.”

“Like creating a timeline. From way back. Who she knew, who we saw…” I was muttering, and it was a distant communication because like clockwork, my mind was rifling into placards and chronologies, factoring and substituting with evidence, the small amount of leads gathered at Emme’s abduction site, and the past we had together.

Noelle, positive thinker that she was, had a point. It wasn’t a matter of reasoning or nudging me out of the black hole I was too easily falling into. I was a fool to allow myself even these temporary moments of blinding panic.

“Go. Be productive,” she said, and readied to shut the office door behind me.

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