Page 24 of To Have and to Hold

“Noelle, wait.”

She paused in the doorframe.

“I need to tell you about Emme,” I said.

“Do you think that’ll help you?” she asked.

I opened my mouth to confess, to explain that Emme wasn’t just a “friend,” but Noelle’s expression stopped me.

It was written all over her, in the pained slant of her shoulders, the deep downward curve of her lips. Her brows were tight with both concern and strain.

She already knew.

“A woman was taken against her will in the middle of the night,” Noelle said softly. An excuse, handed over with gentle hands.

I took a step toward her.

“If it were me I would want everyone I knew to tear down walls and try to figure out where I was,” she finished.

I nodded, unwilling to admit to my girlfriend that Emme’s abduction was churning up an ocean’s worth of emotions that I thought were long ago stanched.

“Anyway, I’m going to start dinner, because I refuse to let you turn into a husk in here,” she said with forced brightness. “So…I’m here for you.” Her voice cracked on that part. “And I’ll be right outside this door whenever you need.”

This time I didn’t pause. I went straight to her and kissed her, making sure to pour in every sentiment I possessed. The stuff I was never any good at voicing.

“Thank you,” I said, then kissed her temple. I meant it.

She squeezed then let go, leaving me to my devices in the sparsely furnished space, since I spent most of my time at my office at work. But the essentials were here—my laptop, pens, paper, even a whiteboard I had installed on a particularly epic day of efficiency.

And hours later, that whiteboard was covered in pictures, arrows, recent blog entries and theories about Emme’s case. Noelle came in at one point to feed me, and I put food to mouth like an automaton, never tearing my thoughts from the task at hand. I outlined Emme’s history from her Facebook page. Back in college she was obsessed with it and posted every status update imaginable, from “I love mint choc chip ice cream yummmmm” to “date with my hot tutor tonight.” I smiled at that one, the first muscle twitch I’d had in hours. February 16 she wrote that. The day we started liking each other.

Knox and his fellow cops were probably doing the same thing and going through her habits and interactions, maybe even as far back as I was. But I had something they lacked, which was the knee-jerk knowledge of this woman. In two and a half years, Emme could’ve changed, but I didn’t think so. Emme had that surety about her. She introduced herself to somebody the same way she’d greet a friend after knowing them for years. She made friends easily, but lovers carefully. She’d accept Wednesday evening trips for Coney Island fireworks and water balloon fights in Battery Park unabashedly and was known to apply that same fervor when someone (me) ate all her salt and vinegar chips. When she cried, it was with full force, eyes washed over, tears falling and pooling at her jawline, cheeks pink with exertion.

When I left her…that was how she was.

She had two roommates, Becca Reese and Jade Montague, who were also her best friends and usually her coconspirators in anything gone awry, like where all my boxer briefs went when Emme decided she wanted to see me writhing in my seat while going forced commando during our classes together.

That was to get me back for eating all her chips.

But when I first started dating her, there was someone lurking around. A guy she’d broken up with, at college like us but—that was right—her high school boyfriend. They started NYU together.

I found him after a few clicks. Trevor Knowles.

He was an obvious add-on to my list of interested persons, since it wasn’t easy for him to let her go. He and I had gotten into it at one point and it became physical almost as soon as we entered each other’s crosshairs. Trev wasn’t backing off, Emme was getting upset, and showing up at her door at random intervals to scream at her was enough to have me flying out of her bed and into his face.

In fact, I figured I’d call Knox about it, see if he’d gotten a bead on this guy.

I pulled my phone out and was in the midst of pressing the call button when Noelle knocked at the door and tentatively pushed it open.

“Spence? Knox is here.”

“Really?” I stared at my phone like it had the ability to teleport people. Then the reason he could be here set in.

I burst out of my chair and into the main room.

“You found something new?” I asked as soon as I cleared the office doorway. Noelle came up beside me and held onto my upper arm as we awaited the news—any news.

Knox shook his head. “Not yet.”

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