White Lies (Book 1)

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Angelica's conference room was still just as opulent as I remembered.

There were three people around the conference table, looking serious and stoic despite their casual attire. Peter Stephanotis, Angelica Blight, James Ericson had all taken a day off from their busy schedules to call us in for a meeting.

This seemed very strange – most of our communication up until that point had been through security-encrypted chat rooms. My nerves were tattered before the meeting had even begun.

Nathan sat quietly and impatiently beside me. It had been two days since we discovered that Noah had fled Alistair, leaving his number plates behind. Three days since he had harmed a fellow classmate for revealing sensitive information to us.

His leg pressed up against my own, taking comfort in my presence. He seemed to be doing that more frequently – so much so that I too had started drawing comfort from the simplest of touches. Our forearms pressed together. An absentminded finger drawing circles on the back of his hand.

Something was very quickly shifting in our relationship. It was getting harder and harder for the both of us to pretend the 'pretending' aspect of it. Being around him made me feel warm and gooey and stupid.

He'd told me how much he cared about me, how much he trusted me. I cared about him too – and I wanted to trust him. I wanted it so much.

But to fully trust him would mean the breaking down of my defenses, the complete shattering of every layered armor that had protected me for so long, almost too long. To trust him would be to show him everything – all of it.

Nevertheless, I put up a front and pretended that everything was perfectly normal, and that there wasn't strong a part of me that cried out for him.

Whatever. I could do this.

"We apologize for calling you in today, especially on a Sunday. Although I'm assuming we haven't interrupted your Sunday mass plans for this afternoon," Peter quipped, though clearly just as impatient to get this over with as Nathan was.

"Why are we doing this here, in person?" Nate asked. "You said that the importance of this case was too great for us to meet. That people would start having questions."

"We felt the need to discuss our latest revelations face to face with you and Jesabel."

"Revelations? Have you found anything new?" I asked.

Angelica continued for him. "Yes. Considering what you've both uncovered about Noah Lincoln, we've made the executive decision to omit some members from this circle, keeping our knowledge to ourselves."

"And?"

"We've also watched the tape you've given us," Angelica mentioned, a shadowy gloom setting over her mood at the reminder. She held the aforementioned film – in its USB casing – in her hand. She carefully slid it across the table, across the other side where Nathan caught it. "This was a great find for us, Nathan. Thank you."

He nodded. "Your welcome, Aunt Angie."

Aunt Angie? Such a tone of familiarity. My eyebrows knotted together. "Do you think there's any credibility to Noah being involved in all of this? I mean, his actions alone have kind of criminalized him."

"He's certainly the best lead we have at the minute," Peter sighed. "My investigators did manage to uncover his police report – and it was an extensive one at that. Several accounts of drug possession, underage drinking, breaking and entering, assault and battery. Starting at around age fourteen. And more recently, harassment and stalking charges – an unfinished restraining order had been filed against him but never completed."