With trembling hands, I pulled Noah’s business card from my pocket and dialed the number. A stern-sounding aide answered, and I pleaded for the chance to speak with him. Five agonizing minutes later, Noah’s voice came through the line.
“Emily. Are you and Lily safe?” His voice was tense, trembling with restrained anger. He had seen the news.
“No,” I choked out. “Noah, my ex-husband is using that photo. He’s fabricated bank records to claim I embezzled money to fund a secret affair with you. He got me fired. He’s evicting my cousin. He’s trying to take Lily and send me to jail.”
Silence filled the other end of the line. When Noah finally answered, his voice sounded like a steel door locking shut. “Send me everything you have. The court filings, everything. I will handle this.”
“How?”
“There were security cameras on that plane. There was a flight attendant who saw everything. And that photographer—he didn’t just take a picture. I saw a red light on his camera rig. He was recording video. If we get the raw video, it proves we were strangers. It proves the turbulence, Lily’s asthma, the whole context.”
A small spark of hope flared inside me.
For two days, I worked with a pro-bono family lawyer, a tough, cynical woman named Brenda, preparing for the emergency hearing. We waited for Noah’s miracle.
On Wednesday night, that miracle died.
Noah called me. The calm, authoritative General sounded hollow. “Emily. I found the photographer.”
“Did you get the video?”
“No,” Noah said, his voice falling into a harsh whisper. “He sold the exclusive rights to the raw footage to a tabloid conglomerate owned by Victoria Sterling’s family. They buried it under an ironclad Non-Disclosure Agreement. The photographer can’t speak, and the video legally belongs to them. They refuse to release it.”
My heart sank. “Can’t you subpoena it? Can’t you testify?”
