Heart of Stone

He let go as if she’d screamed, tucking his hands behind his back, then bringing them forward again to twist together. “I’m sorry. Look, I’m sorry, okay? I don’t have an excuse. I haven’t had enough sleep, but that’s not an excuse, and I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me.”

“Apparently what got into you was the idea that I’m a coconspirator in a murder case. A suspect, if that word was too big, Detective.” Margrit’s voice found its courtroom tones, polite and mocking to mask outrage.

Tony blanched. “I don’t think you’re a suspect. It’s just—”

“Just a remarkable series of coincidences,” she said with a pointed smile. “I’m so glad you don’t think I’m a suspect, Tony. There’s something we agree on. If you’ll excuse me,” she said again, and turned away.

Tony grabbed her arm once more and spun her around. He lifted both hands to her face and caught her cheeks, bringing his mouth down to hers for a desperate, intense kiss.

For a few seconds Margrit was too stunned to react. His mouth was warm, hands gentle against her face, despite the ardor of the kiss. Someone walking by wolfwhistled with approval.

Margrit shoved Tony away with all her strength, balled up a fist and threw a punch that cracked her knuckles when it hit.

He yowled in pain and surprise, clutching his nose as he staggered back, tears springing to his eyes and spilling down his cheeks. Pure astonishment mingled with hurt in his expression, half-hidden behind his hands.

Margrit shook her fingers, loosening the injured knuckles as she trembled with fury, staring up at him. “This isn’t the movies, Tony,” she spat. “That kind of bullshit doesn’t work in real life.”

Vibrating with angry energy, she turned on her heel and stalked down the street, leaving the detective behind.

A quick shower and change of clothes before a seven-minute subway ride calmed her temper enough that Margrit managed to not stomp as she came back into the office. Her boss met her a few steps inside the door, giving her a brief, approving once-over.

“I didn’t think you were going to make it.” Russell Lomax was thirty years Margrit’s elder and usually dressed in better-quality suits than most public employees could afford. “The governor’s aide just called. They’d like you to meet them at the City Club. You look good, Counselor.”

“Is Luka going to be there?” Margrit glanced at herself—burgundy skirt suit, cream-colored blouse—and scowled at her right hand, where the knuckles were swollen and the skin broken.

“She is. You’ll be meeting her in the back room and you’ll all three go out to talk to the press together.” Russell frowned at her hand. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” Margrit shook her head. “It’s fine. I hope the governor meeting with us is a good sign. He wouldn’t be such a bastard to pull this kind of big stunt for denying the case, would he?” She scowled at her hand again.

“I don’t know. We can hope not,” Russell said with an easy shrug, then lifted his eyebrows at something behind her. “Someone’s lucky day.”

“Luka’s, I hope.” Margrit looked over her shoulder. A delivery boy with a vase full of yellow roses peered at her.

“Margrit Knight? These are for you. Sign here, please.” The boy thrust the vase at her, and Margrit blinked, taking it and fumbling as she tried to comply without dropping it. Russell, looking amused, came to her rescue, scooping up the vase.

“Secret admirer, Margrit?”

“Not that I know about.” She signed and the delivery boy departed as she pushed aside a bundle of baby’s breath to find the card. A quiet laugh, still tinged with anger, escaped as she read it: “I’m a jerk. Forgive me and keep our dinner date? Call me.—Tony”

Margrit curled the card in her fist and shook her head as Russell looked on curiously. “Tony,” she said. “We had a fight.” Her boss’s expression invited further explanation, but she shook her head again. “We’ve got more important things to focus on. Let’s go see how this thing turns out.”

SIX

“IT’LL BE ALL right.” Margrit offered a reassuring smile, squeezing Luka Johnson’s hand and letting calm suffuse her voice. It was an act, a show of composure that hid the fact that her heart was lodged in her throat. Luka’s dark complexion was ashy, her brown eyes flat from worry; she needed Margrit’s confident manner even more than Margrit herself did. There was a discreet police escort outside the room, keeping the bustle of the hall away from the prisoner and her lawyer.

“But what if it ain’t—isn’t?”

Margrit exhaled shakily and lifted a foot to display her shoe. “These are very pointy heels. I’ll step on his toes if it isn’t.” The door whooshed open as she spoke, and Luka’s eyes widened. “He heard that, didn’t he?” Margrit mouthed, before turning to face the governor.

“I heard that, Ms. Knight.” Amusement colored the man’s voice, no concern for the state of his feet evident. He was tall, with features too heavy for handsomeness, but strong enough to give him presence. He offered a hand first to Margrit, then stepped past her to say, “Mrs. Johnson. I apologize. I should have called you both earlier today, but my planned luncheon was canceled and the City Club asked me to step in when their speaker canceled, as well. It’s been a hectic morning.”

“You could say that, sir.” The words came automatically, despite Margrit’s churning stomach and fluttering heart. Law school had taught her to schmooze through stress, if nothing else. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

He grinned down at her. “You, too. You’ve got a hell of an advocate here, Mrs. Johnson.” He turned back to Luka, the grin tempering into a compassionate smile. “I imagine I’ve got you both sick with worry, so let me go ahead and make myself clear before we go in to the lunch.”

Luka’s hand grasped Margrit’s in a white-knuckled grip.

“Even on my worst day, I wouldn’t pull off this kind of spectacle to break a family’s heart, Mrs. Johnson. Clemency is granted,” the governor said. “You’re free to go.”

He stepped forward to help Margrit catch Luka as her legs went out from under her.

The afternoon passed not in a blur, Margrit thought later, but a roar. Anything the governor said as he helped Luka back to her feet was lost in the pounding of blood in Margrit’s ears and the unprofessionally brilliant grin as she pumped his hand in gratitude. Her eyes stung with tears that overflowed without warning, turning into gasping laughs and hiccups of relief and pride and delight. The members of the City Club literally stood and cheered, their applause cutting through the ringing in Margrit’s ears in quick staccato bursts. She stood with her arm around Luka’s waist, the two of them supporting one another, and when the governor beckoned her forward to speak to the club, she tugged Luka with her.

“Today is the hard-won culmination of three years work,” she said into the microphone, to a hundred beaming faces. “Luka and I are both so very pleased and very relieved. So very grateful, Governor, thank you so very much. This is not the first case in which clemency has been granted to a woman acting in self-defense, but it is still a landmark. There are so many small steps we must take in order to assure the safety of everyone in this great city of ours. I hope that someday cases like Luka Johnson’s won’t be necessary anymore, but today’s decision reinforces our determination to take those steps, to continue moving in the right direction. There is so much I could say to all of you—even if I’m preaching to the choir!—but if you’ll excuse us, I think there are a couple of little girls waiting to see their mother.” Arm still wrapped around Luka’s waist, both of them beaming, Margrit withdrew from the luncheon to the sounds of cheers.

Outside the hall was chaos, the press bunched together like a murder of crows. Flash photography blinded them both as microphones were thrust under their noses, and Margrit shouted out the same words she’d spoken in the hall. Hands lifted, she brought the volume of shouts and questions down as they edged forward, nodding encouragement to Luka when she answered a handful of questions herself. It was difficult to pick any one voice out of the din, and Margrit kept losing her determined expression to a grin as she elbowed reporters aside. Russell waited at the bottom of the steps, vehicle idling. Even when the door closed and cut off the reporters’ voices, the pounding of the ocean stayed in Margrit’s ears.

“…which nobody can deny!”

The roar was still with her, this time in her colleagues’ voices as they lifted toasts to her for… Margrit had lost track of the rounds, which probably accounted for some of the roar, she admitted to herself. It wasn’t nearly late enough in the day to be… “Tipsy,” she said out loud, firmly. Russell, on the bar stool beside her, laughed.

“You passed tipsy an hour ago, Margrit. You passed tipsy when you climbed up on the bar to start giving speeches.”

She laughed with him. “At least I’m not standing on it anymore!”

“Just sitting,” Russell agreed with a nod. “You’re tanked.”

“I am not.” Margrit allowed herself a tiny grin and a shrug. “Okay, maybe a little.”

“Although I wouldn’t normally encourage someone to get drunk in front of her boss, I think this time you’ve earned it. Congratulations, Margrit.” Russell shook her hand for the third time, making her grin yet again.

“Thank you, sir. You should’ve seen the kids,” she added to anybody who would listen. “When Luka came in with me the older girl got so excited she burst into tears, so the little girl did, and then we all did.” Luka had embraced the girls’ foster mother fiercely, promising she’d remain a part of their lives. When Margrit had finally excused herself, the four of them, women and girls alike, had been sitting together in a tight bundle, catching up and holding on. Margrit left feeling as if she was walking on clouds.

“So you decided on no dinner date?” Russell asked.

Margrit squinted at him, eyebrows drawn down in furrows before they suddenly shot up. “Oh, shit. No! Crap!” She slid off the counter to the bar stool, then to the floor, dismayed at how it wobbled.

Russell laughed. “You okay? You’ve had a lot to drink.”

“We all have,” Margrit said with a quick grin. “But I haven’t drunk enough to drown my career in alcohol, sir. I’m all right. I’ll be back in a bit.”

The silence outside the bar was deafening. Margrit leaned against the building, still smiling broadly as she auto-dialed Tony. There was no answer, but voice mail picked up and she said, “I won my case. You’re forgiven. Sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier. Um, dinner tomorrow night, maybe? If we can both make it, anyway. Call me back, Tony. I miss you.”

Margrit heard the note of wryness in her own voice as she ended the call. She missed him when times were good more than when they were bad. Another reason, probably, that they rarely stayed together more than a few months before taking a break. It’d been going on for years now, with too much time invested to walk away, yet too many down moments to consider it a successful relationship.

Alban Korund’s pale gaze, colorless in the strange club lighting, flashed in her memory, a startling counterpart to thoughts of Tony Pulcella and his warm Italian coloring. Margrit shook the image off, muttering “Bah” under her breath as she pushed away from the building wall. Men wanted for murder had no business lingering in her imagination, even when the erratic bond with Tony seemed to be a little more strained than usual.

“Miss Knight?” A woman—a girl, really—appeared out of nowhere, as suddenly as Alban departed. Margrit straightened her shoulders, irritated at the stubborn focus of her thoughts.