Page 37 of To Have and to Hold

“Good enough for me,” she said as she followed me in and up the stairs. “Good lord. I think I’m about to lick the walls.”

A mixture of spices lingered in the hallway, becoming stronger the closer we approached. My mouth watered at the scent.

“Noelle must be home early,” I said, and heaved the door open.

Too late, I remembered Noelle’s habit of topless cooking.

“Hey, babe—ah!” Noelle ducked behind the support column that separated our main area from the kitchen.

Boney pressure smacked into my back as Becca walked into it. “Shit, sorry!” she said, to me or Noelle or both as she scampered into the hallway.

“No—Becs, it’s all right. Come back.” I turned my attention to the column. “Noe, I’m sorry. I brought company.”

“Woulda been nice!” she said before a blur of rouge nakedness streaked from the column to our bedroom.

“I thought you were working late,” I tried to say before our door shut with a smart click. “Shit.”

“I guess it could’ve been worse,” Becca said as she sidled back in. “I could’ve been Knox or one of your clients.”

I threw my jacket over one of the high-top chairs. “Prosecutors don’t have clients. I represent the People of the State of New York.”

“You’re missing the point.” But Becca sauntered past me, led by her nose to the kitchen. “I have to say, I did not think that the socialite on your arm in New York Magazine was a professional chef.”

“She’s far from a socialite,” I said, and loosened my tie. “Noelle’s at one of the top white-shoe firms in the city.”

“’Cause I know what that means.” Becca lifted a pot on the stove and sniffed.

“She’s a badass lawyer like me,” I supplied. “Mind if I leave you to your own devices?”

“Sure,” she said. “But I can’t promise there’ll be any of this chicken left when you come back.”

“There’s beer in the fridge if you want it. Maybe some kind of world-ending shit on TV. I’ll be right back.”

“Oh, you’re sooo original and creative with your quips.”

I stepped into the bedroom, where I found Noelle shrugging into a gray sweater of mine over black tights. “Noe,” I said.

“I get it, you’re sorry,” she said through the fabric. Her head popped out as she said, “Minor embarrassment. At least it was a woman who also has breasts. Who is she?”

“A friend of Emme’s,” I said. I sat down at the foot of the bed and patted beside me. She acquiesced, and I draped an arm around her. “Her name’s Becca Reese.”

“Did you know her, too?”

I nodded. “Emme introduced us.”

“Why is she here?”

Noelle didn’t ask it to be rude. She was honestly curious, and hell, so was I. “I went to her house to ask her some preliminary questions and get to know Emme as she is now, why she may have been kidnapped. Turns out, I adopted a stray puppy. When I left, Becca wanted to come with me to the scene.”

Noelle lifted her head. “She saw where Emme was taken? God, that’d be so traumatic.”

“No, I wouldn’t let her. But she helped with questions, since she knows Emme better. The doorman, parking valets, anyone in the vicinity. But we came up with nothing. Including empty stomachs.”

“Well, I’m glad I was here to at least help you with that.”

I’d have to be a douche to miss the bitterness in her tone. “Noelle? What’s going on?”

Her shoulders deflated, but she met my eye as she rested a hand on my thigh. “I just…I haven’t felt like you’ve been talking to me about what’s going on.”

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