Chapter 39

“Before you come in, I need to tell you something,” Elaine said as she opened her door.

Noah looked at her confused as he stood outside of her house. Elaine had always welcomed him into her home with open arms. Even when they didn’t agree about things at the firm, they remained fairly friendly outside of the office.

His stomach tightened at whatever news Elaine was going to tell him. He had seen her with the group of people that made the judge decisions. He had to assume it was something to do with them, but he was still very nervous to hear what it was that Elaine had to say.

“Okay,” he replied. “What?”

“I’m leaving the firm. I can’t give you details, but I can’t talk to you about anything that’s going on there.”

“What do you mean you’re leaving? Like you’re giving notice and going to work on a plan to leave?”

“No, I mean as of today I no longer work there. I will forfeit my voting privileges with the board for now, but you need to either buy out my half of the business, or I’ll find a buyer.”

Noah leaned against the house as the shock of the moment set in. Without Elaine, the law firm would crumble. He would be out a job and all the money and hard work he had put in over the years. There was no way for Noah to take over her half of the firm, it would be close to a half of a million dollars, and he wasn’t in any position to put that kind of money up. But even if he had the money, Noah couldn’t exactly run an entire law firm all by himself. Elaine was the backbone of the business; without her, it would certainly fail.

“Elaine, what am I supposed to do?”

“Noah, I’m sorry. But I have my own life plan, and running a law firm was just part of it. An opportunity has come up, and I have to take it.”

No matter what difficult times the two of them had had together, Noah knew that Elaine wouldn’t be leaving their firm in such a hurry unless she had a really good job offer. So whatever it was that Elaine had going on, Noah knew he had to be happy for her; there was no other option that would be safe for his brain to deal with.

“So I guess I can’t ask your advice on a case I’m struggling with?”

“No, I think it would be best that we didn’t discuss things.”

Noah stood in the doorway a little longer as he tried to figure out how everything was crumbling around him. Without his law firm, Noah wasn’t sure what he’d do with himself. He had to make it work. Somehow, he had to figure out how to get someone else into the firm to keep things going.

He would take on a new partner. Or maybe Noah would find investors. Perhaps he could even hire several new associates and spread out the work that had to be done. But no matter what, Noah knew that he would be alright. When all was said and over, Noah wasn’t going to give in to his concerns about not being able to manage the firms.

“Okay, well I better go then.”

“Take care of yourself, Noah. There’re no hard feelings here. I want you to know that. I think very highly of you. This was just an opportunity I couldn’t refuse.”

“We can catch up sometime down the road,” Noah said as he stood next to his car. “Let me know where you land.”

“I will. Take care of yourself.”

As Noah drove toward Rose’s house, he had no idea what he was going to do. But at least he had Rose to discuss things with. At least he could sit down with her and together they would make some decisions. Rose would likely be his new confidant in regards to office cases, and Noah was perfectly fine with that.

His phone rang just as he was pulling into the parking garage, and Noah couldn’t answer it. By the time he pulled his phone out, the screen showed one missed call from Rose. With only an elevator ride separating them, Noah quickly made his way up to the apartment.

The hallway seemed unusually noisy as Noah stepped off the elevator. There were about a dozen college-age kids at the opposite end of the hall laughing and joking with each other. Noah couldn’t help feeling envious of that time in their life. His life certainly didn’t have a lot to laugh and joke about.

Rose’s apartment was unlocked, but Noah decided to knock as a courtesy. They hadn’t exactly discussed if he would actually move in there, and Noah didn’t want to assume he could just walk in. They hadn’t spent that many nights together, and everything was relatively new between them. It would have to be a conversation they would have at some point in the near future though because Noah didn’t plan on spending any nights at his place if Rose would allow him to stay with her.

When she didn’t answer, Noah finally decided to go in.

“Rose,” he hollered from the doorway. “Rose, you won’t believe what is going on with Elaine.”

There was no answer. Only quiet filled the air as he made his way through the apartment to see where she was. Rose never left her front door unlocked, and an eerie feeling started to come over Noah. Throughout all the years of Noah’s life, he never liked to be afraid. That was probably why he had played life so safe, but he was done with all that for the time being. He wouldn’t let the negative thoughts fill his head and make him afraid of the president. There had to be a normal explanation for why Rose was gone and what she was out doing at that hour of the night.

He reached for his phone to call Rose, but then remembered he had missed a call. He quickly dialed his voicemail and tried not to panic. But the idea that Matthew Storm had wanted to talk to her, and he was in a very difficult position—that all didn’t sit well with him. But what could the president want with Rose? Certainly, she couldn’t have been in danger.

“I’m with Matthew; I’ll call later,” Rose whispered into the voicemail.

Her voice didn’t sound strained or fearful, but she certainly wasn’t talking in a normal voice either. It was somewhat reassuring, but Noah still had no idea what was going on or why she had been rushed out of the apartment so quickly that she had to whisper into the phone. But Noah trusted Rose and knew she could handle herself just fine. In fact, she could probably handle herself better than Noah could.

He changed his clothes, made some dinner for the two of them and then sat and waited for what seemed like forever. No sign of Rose. He sent her text messages and tried to call her a couple of times, but she didn’t answer. Any relief he felt from her initial phone call quickly dissipated as the evening wore on longer.

By the time the Late Show had finished, Noah was officially worried, again. It was midnight by then, and still no sign of Rose. What kind of business could really be going on that late in the evening?

It was hard for him to think about anything else except all the horror stories that crossed news headlines about missing women. This was how that sort of thing happened, he told himself. Women make bad decisions and get into vehicles with murderers and other low life. But Rose wasn’t like that. Rose wouldn’t get into a stranger’s car, but she certainly would get into the president’s limousine if it were requested of her.

Noah hoped that Rose wasn’t at the White House trying to cover up some crime of Matthew’s. That was all he could think of. The president couldn’t manipulate Noah into getting his information for him so he pounced on Rose to trick her into doing something illegal. He closed his eyes and hoped that Rose knew better than to get mixed up in all of that. She had to know better than to trust Matthew Storm; she just had to.

The night wore on later and later, and Noah contemplated calling the police. But what would he tell them? ‘My girlfriend was kidnapped by the president?’ That wasn’t likely to go over all that well with the local police station. Noah decided his only option was to wait it out, sooner or later Rose had to return home.

The jingling of the keys and turning of the doorknob woke Noah from his unintentional sleep. He glanced at his phone to see that it was a little after three in the morning. Instantly, he sat up and went to the door to let Rose in. It was late, but she was finally home and appeared unharmed, although Noah knew that not all harm to women could be physically visible by looking at them.

“What the hell were you doing?” he blurted out before he even had the door all the way open.

Rose didn’t look hurt or agitated or anything of the sort. There was a secret service member who had walked with her up to the door and was waiting nearby; he glanced at Rose and then toward Noah before nodding and heading back to the elevator.

“Sorry I was out so late,” Rose said with a huge grin.

She stumbled a little as she walked into the apartment. Rose clearly wasn’t herself at all. Maybe she was drugged or just tired, but Noah could tell that she wasn’t able to hold a normal adult conversation about what had happened during her meeting with the president. Not only was Rose not going to be able to talk for awhile, Noah wasn’t going to be able to get the information he needed to help the president.

It scared Noah to death that he would accidently do something that would disappoint. He desperately wanted to find the information that the president was looking for and rush in at the last minute and prove that he had done everything that was asked of him.

“Where were you? What happened?”

“I was helping Matthew. And I did a fantastic job if I might say so myself.” She giggled and then fell onto the couch.

What had originally started with an evening of worry that Rose had been hurt suddenly felt much different. Rose wasn’t hurt. She was drunk! Rose had been out all night long with Matthew Storm, and she was totally smashed.

“How exactly were you helping the president? Were you helping him drink all his Scotch?”

“Oh, Noah, don’t be mad. Wait until the morning. Matthew is going to come visit. He’s very happy.”

“He’s happy with you?” Matthew asked. “Happy with me? I don’t understand. How on earth is he happy? The police are coming to serve a search warrant at the White House in only a few hours, I’m not seeing what is good about any of this.”

“Oh, Noah, Noah, Noah, you worry too much,” Rose said as she grabbed him and pulled him toward her. “Let’s get naked.”

As much as Noah would have loved to get naked with Rose, he needed to know what the hell was going on. In only a few hours, his biggest client was going to have his reputation smeared all over the world. That didn’t sound like something Noah wanted to be celebrating.

“Let me make you some coffee, maybe then you can explain what the heck is going on,” Noah said as he started some coffee in the kitchen. “I don’t understand. How exactly did you help Matthew?”

Rose was silent, and Noah waited a moment for the coffee and then took it over to her on the couch. But Rose was sound asleep. She had curled up under a small blanket and was blissfully dreaming when Noah sat down beside her.

“Rose. Rose, do I need to go to the White House in the morning? What am I supposed to do? How did you help him? Come on Rose,” Noah tried desperately to wake her up. “I guess we will have to talk about this in the morning. Hopefully, it won’t be over the news that our president is being arrested.”

Reluctantly, Noah lifted Rose up and took her to the bedroom so she could sleep it off. She clearly wasn’t going to be able to tell him what was going on. But Matthew Storm knew how to get what he wanted, and Noah knew that if the president wanted him to be somewhere in the morning, the president would make sure it happened.