What He Explores (What He Wants, Book Twenty-One) Page 2

  “He’s a madman,” Noah said.

  “No.” I shook my head. “No, it’s more than that. Professor Worthington doesn’t do things for no reason. He has a reason.” And it probably has something to do with me. The words hung in the air between us, unspoken, but both of us were thinking them, both of us knew they were true.

  Professor Worthington had been there, I realized. At my school. He’d been there, right after I was. He’d probably been following me. My stomach turned and for a second, I was afraid I was going to throw up.

  “His motive doesn’t mean a damn thing, Charlotte. Do you really think the police are going to be rushing to hold a news conference where they have to admit that a murderer they let escape has killed an innocent civilian?”

  “No.” I closed my eyes, the hopeless reality of the situation washing over me. “But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t talk to them. I have nothing to hide, Noah. They said Jason was stabbed, there will be forensic evidence.”

  “Like your DNA all over his office?” Noah shot back.

  “That’s not – ”

  I was cut off by the sound of my cell phone ringing from the depths of my bag, which I’d set on the counter.

  Noah and I went for it at the same time.

  He was faster and bigger.

  He got to it first.

  “I don’t recognize the number,” he said, glancing at the caller ID before answering the phone. “Hello?” he barked. And then his face softened. “It’s your mother,” he said, handing me the phone.

  “Charlotte?” she said when I got on.

  “Yes, Mom, it’s me.” I rolled my eyes at Noah. Who the hell else would have been answering my phone? It was a little thing, but I was already annoyed at her and after the stress of the morning, my fuse was short.

  “Charlotte,” she said. “Oh, thank God.” I could hear voices and street noise in the background.

  “Where are you?” I pressed. “Where have you been? You know, you really should have called me, Mom, to let me know that you were okay. You can’t just –”

  “Charlotte,” she wailed. “Charlotte, I’m in trouble.”

  I froze. Professor Worthington. “Why?” I demanded. “What’s wrong?”

  “I lost my purse,” she said. “Well, I didn’t lose it, exactly, I know where it is, I just can’t get to it. So this nice woman here let me use her phone, but now -- ”

  “Mom, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Slow down and start from the beginning.”

  Noah was crossing the room now, and he took the phone out of my hand, pressed it to his ear.

  “Pamela,” he said. “Where are you?” He listened for a moment, his eyes hooding in confusion and then understanding. “Just stay there. I’m coming to get you.” He ended the call. “Is she okay?” I asked. “Where is she?”

  “She’s fine. She’s at the Union Square Farmer’s Market.”

  “Did someone take her purse?”

  “You could say that.”

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded. “Where the hell was she last night?”

  “Your mother, Charlotte, was on a date.”

  * * *

  Noah drove the two of us to Union Square. He’d wanted to go alone, but I’d convinced him I’d be safer with him than alone in the apartment.

  Not that it had taken much convincing.

  Maddox the security guard was obviously useless – he hadn’t been able to stop Detective Rake from getting right to our front door. And if Noah and I were right that Jason Cartwright had been killed by Professor Worthington, it was definitely going to send Noah’s protective, possessive streak into overdrive.

  I was anxious about what that would mean.

  But right now I was more concerned about my mother.

  “She’s a married woman,” I raged to Noah from the passenger seat of his Bentley. “She was on a date. And she’s a married woman.”

  Noah was stoic, staring straight ahead as he maneuvered the car through midtown Manhattan.

  “Say something!” I demanded.

  “What would you like me to say, Charlotte?”

  “I don’t know. Say you’re outraged. Say you’re surprised, say my mom’s an adulterer!”

  “I am outraged. I am surprised. Your mother is an adulterer.”

  “Whatever,” I grumbled. His hand was on my knee, and I went to push it off, but he tightened his grip.

  “You are getting a little unruly, Charlotte,” he said, his voice laced with a stern warning. “I understand it has been an extremely stressful few hours. But I will touch you wherever and whenever I wish, and that includes right now, in this car.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I must say that I find it very interesting that you were accused of murder this morning, and yet you are choosing to focus your energy on your mother having an affair, which, comparably, is a minor event,” Noah said.

  “It’s not minor to me,” I said. We were getting closer to Union Square now, and I could see the tents of the Farmer’s Market down the block – the tables under the tan awnings were filled with fresh vegetables and homemade soaps and art and all kinds of other things.

  The square was blocked off by police barricades, so we had to park a few streets over.

  I was out of the car and heading for the sidewalk before Noah had even turned off the engine.

  “Jesus, Charlotte,” he said, catching up to me in two long strides. He took my hand, his fingers intertwining with mine, his grip strong. He pulled me to him, forcing me to slow down and meet his pace. He didn’t say anything, but I could feel his desire to punish me radiating off of him in waves, so intense it was almost alive and filling the air between us.

  I turned and looked up at him, letting my gaze travel over his strong profile. His broad shoulders were pushed back, and he walked with an easy, confident gait. He didn’t say anything, didn’t admonish me, didn’t promise punishments or consequences.

  But I knew that meant that when the punishment and consequences came – and they would come -- they would be more severe.

  When we reached the end of the block, we crossed the street.

  “Did she say where she was exactly?” I asked Noah. Union Square was filled with people – families shopping for groceries, college kids playing hacky sack, stylish Upper East Side moms clad in Lulu Lemon, sipping paper cups of designer coffee as they checked out the handmade jewelry and paraben-free cosmetics. There was no way we were going to be able to find my mother in this crowd without knowing precisely where she was.

  “Charlotte! Noah!” a voice called.

  My mother was standing by a pretzel cart a little further down the street, waving her hand in the air at us, saving us from the job of having to search the market for her.

  Noah and I began walking toward her.

  As we got closer, I realized she was wearing a very odd outfit for a farmer’s market in the middle of the afternoon. My mother always liked to look her best -- she wasn’t above putting on makeup and a sundress just for a quick run to the gas station, but this was beyond the pale, even for her.

  A black skintight evening dress clung to her body. But while the dress was elegant and would have been perfect for a night out in the city, it was woefully out of place among the workout attire and jeans and plaid button-downs that surrounded us.

  Not only that, but the material of the dress bulged around her body in certain places. It wasn’t that the dress didn’t fit her – it was obviously her size and it looked expensive, the kind of dress that would have been made and cut well. No, the fit wasn’t the problem. It was more like the dress was stretched, like it hadn’t been cared for properly – either balled up on the floor and forgotten about for a long period of time, or thrown into a dryer when the tag said dry clean only.

  Her hair was in a fluffy halo around her head and last night’s eye liner caked her eyes. But the oddest thing of all was that she was wearing slippers on her feet.

  “Mom,” I s
aid, my heart pounding. “Mom, what the hell happened to you?”

  “Oh, Charlotte, I am so glad to see you.” She practically threw herself against me, her arms wrapping around my neck, her frame feeling even more delicate than usual as she rested her body weight on me.

  When she pulled back, I realized she was eating a soft pretzel covered in mustard.

  “The nice man at the cart gave me this,” she said, looking back over her shoulder at him.

  A man with a bushy beard gave her a smile and a wave. Great. He probably thought she was homeless.

  “Pamela, what happened?” Noah asked gravely.

  “Oh, it’s too embarrassing,” she said, with a nervous giggle.

  “Mom, where are your shoes?” I asked.

  “I just…” She trailed off and fluffed her hair, giving another laugh.

  “Pamela,” Noah said, sounding impatient. “You need to tell us what happened.”

  She nodded, evidently deciding to listen to him even if she wouldn’t listen to her own daughter. “I was on a date,” she said, glancing at me with trepidation.

  It was one of the first times I could remember my mother looking at me with any kind of anxiety or worry about what my reaction might be to something she’d said. I didn’t delude myself into thinking she cared about my opinion – more likely she was afraid I would insist on telling my stepfather she was having an affair. If that was what she was worried about, she needn’t have bothered.

  I had zero interest in getting involved in my mother’s romantic life.

  “Mom – ” I started impatiently, but Noah gave me a warning squeeze of my hand.

  I glanced up at him and he gave me a small, almost imperceptible shake of his head. I knew what he was thinking. Don’t push her or she won’t talk. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming.

  “It was a wonderful date,” she said, taking another bite of her pretzel and wiping at her mouth daintily with a napkin. “He took me to dinner at the Russian Tea Room. I didn’t even know the Russian Tea Room was still around, did you, Charlotte?”

  I was no socialite, but I wasn’t sure the Russian Tea Room was what it used to be. It seemed like it attracted old money and really snooty rich people, and that it wasn’t at all hip or modern. But my mother probably thought it was so sophisticated.

  I didn’t answer her question, opting to stay silent rather than risk losing it and causing a scene in the middle of Union Square.

  “Anyway, we had the best dinner, and then we went dancing and then he took me back to his apartment.” She swallowed a bite of pretzel and thrust her chin in the air, daring me to judge her for sleeping with someone on a first date. When I still didn’t say anything, she said, “He was very gentle.”

  “Gross,” I said under my breath.

  Noah’s took his hand from mine and slipped it around my waist, pulling me toward him. The feel of his touch on my hip was steadying, and I felt my heart rate instantly slow, my anxiety instantly dissipating.

  “Pamela, where are your shoes?” Noah asked, his voice gentle but firm. “And your phone?”

  “Well, that’s the thing.” She was finished with her pretzel now, and she crumpled up the clear wrapper and twisted it nervously in her hands. “This morning, my date, his…his whole demeanor just changed. He asked me to go downstairs to get the newspaper and when I tried to come back to his apartment, the door was locked.”

  I closed my eyes and sighed. “And your shoes and purse were inside?”

  “Yes.” She twisted the wrapper tighter. “What I can’t understand is just… why would he do that?” Her head snapped up and her eyes got wide. “You don’t think something happened to him, do you?”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like a heart attack,” she said, her face starting to go pale.

  “No,” Noah said. “He did not have a heart attack, Pamela.”

  “Of course he didn’t have a heart attack!” I said, my blood pressure beginning to skyrocket again. “He got what he wanted out of you, Mom, and then he tossed you away.”

  “What he wanted out of me?” she asked, and now her face was draining white. “Yes! Sex, ever heard of it?”

  “Charlotte!” Noah said sharply.

  “Oh. Right.” My mother was shredding the pretzel wrapper in her hands now, ripping it into long ribbons which fell to the sidewalk, catching the wind and flying away. She bit her lip. “The thing is, Don might have wanted something more from me than sex.”

  “Like money?” I asked. I found it hard to believe some man would go out of his way to sleep with mother, to wine and dine her just to steal whatever money she had in her purse. It seemed a bit over the top and convoluted. Unless he was a certain kind of man, the kind who was young and hot and preyed on older women and took the couple hundred dollars they kept in their purses because it seemed like a lot of money to them. “How old was this man?” I demanded. “Was he younger than you?”

  “No, Charlotte, he wasn’t younger than me. I’m not some kind of cougar.” She looked offended that I would imply such a thing, like the fact that she’d had a clandestine affair that had left her shoeless on the streets of New York City wasn’t bad enough.

  “What did he want from you, Pamela?” Noah asked. I caught the very faintest into of irritation in his voice, as if my mother’s act was finally starting to wear thin.

  Welcome to my world, I thought.

  “You have to promise not to get mad.” She was looking at Noah, not at me.

  “I won’t get mad,” Noah said, sighing.

  I stayed quiet, just waiting for her to drop whatever bomb she was about to drop.

  “I think…” She took in a deep breath. “I think Don wanted a story from me.”

  “What kind of story?” I asked, frowning. I glanced up at Noah and I saw a flash of anger in his eyes as a vein in his neck began to throb.

  “What was the man’s name, Pamela?” Noah asked.

  “Don.”

  “Don what?” Noah demanded.

  “Don Pearlman.” My mother’s eyes were wide with fear now. “Please don’t be upset,” she whispered, still looking at Noah. But why would Noah have been upset with her?

  Don Pearlman.

  The name sounded familiar.

  “Don Pearlman…” I started. “Why do I know that name?”

  “Don Pearlman is a columnist for the New York Standard,” Noah said, his voice hard and raw.

  My heart caught in my chest. The New York Standard. The trashiest paper in the city. There was no way that Don Pearlman could have wanted anything from my mother except for a story. A story about me.

  “What did you tell him?” I asked. I was surprised at how calm I sounded, how completely in control, while the anger inside of me was so white hot I was afraid it would burn me from the inside out.

  “Nothing!” she said. “Just… he was concerned about you, Charlotte.”

  “He wasn’t concerned about me!” I yelled. “He doesn’t even know me. What the hell did you tell him?” The rage inside of me began to boil over as I started to lose control of my emotions. I was afraid I might slap her again.

  A woman walked by holding a bag filled with oranges, glancing at us curiously. But someone raising their voice at the farmer’s market was nothing compared to the scandalous things that took place on a daily basis in New York City, and my little outburst earned me nothing more than a tiny frown as the woman hurried by.

  “I told you, nothing really!” my mother said, smoothing down her ruined dressed. “I just mentioned about the fight you had with Noah, and about the fight you had with me.”

  “Did you tell him I hit you?” I asked.

  She looked away, staring down at the sidewalk, her eyes running over the last shredded ribbon of pretzel wrapper that remained on the sidewalk, the rest having been carried away by the slight breeze that had kicked up while we’d been standing there.

  “I told him it was just a fight,” she said quietly. “The kind of
thing mothers and daughters get into all the time.”

  Noah gripped me tightly, trying to steady me as I struggled to keep it together. The implications of what she’d just done hit me like a brick. She’d told a reporter from what was, essentially, a tabloid, that I’d hit her. My own mother.

  It would fit perfectly into the narrative the police would try to spin about how I’d killed Dr. Cartwright. They’d point to it as evidence of my anger issues, of my inability to hold my emotions inside of me. A girl who would physically assault her own mother would be capable of anything.

  My anger was hotter than ever, but Noah gave me a warning look.

  Don’t give her anything else. No more of your thoughts, your energy, and no more ammunition. Nothing else she can use against you.

  So as much as it pained me to do it, I summoned all of my self-control and said nothing.

  “Pamela,” Noah said. “We will get you some new shoes. And then it will be time for you to go home.”

  * * *

  We drove her to Grand Central, bought her a ticket home from one of the automatic kiosks, then waited with her downstairs in the food court until her train came.

  She claimed to be starving, even though she’d just eaten pretzel, and so Noah got her some teriyaki chicken and rice, which she washed down with an extra large Diet Coke.

  “And my purse and my phone?” she asked as we walked up the wide stairs that led to the main concourse. “You’ll get them back for me?”

  “Yes,” Noah said. “They will be sent to your house.”

  While my mother was eating, Noah had stepped a few feet away from us and made a call. The train station was busy, and I hadn’t been able to hear his side of the conversation, but when he returned to the table, he told my mother that her phone and purse would be mailed to her, with all her money and credit cards intact.

  “What should I tell your stepfather?” my mom asked me now. “About where my things are? And my shoes?” She looked down at her feet, which were now encased with a pair of bright purple sneakers Noah had found at a Payless across the street. I appreciated Noah’s tiny gesture of defiance– he could have chosen any kind of shoes in the world, and yet he’d gotten my mom something she would never wear again, something that looked almost more ridiculous than if she’d stayed in her slippers.