Heart of Stone. C.E. Murphy

The idea brought a brief smile to her lips.

      Margrit leaned on the counter and pulled the refrigerator door open. The appliance was an orange behemoth from the fifties, too stubborn to break down, energy inefficient and with a silver handle that could double as a club in a pinch. Margrit was unconscionably fond of it. She grabbed a cup of yogurt and bumped the door closed, turning to lean against it instead of the counter. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I just really needed to go for a run.”

      “There’s this crazy new invention, Grit. It’s called a treadmill. They have them at gyms. Gyms that are open twenty-four hours a day, no less. Like the one Cam works at. She keeps offering you a membership.”

      “Bah.” Margrit stuck her spoon in her mouth and turned to open the fridge again, looking for more food. “I don’ like thredmillth. Y’don’ go anywhrr.”

      “No, but there aren’t random lunatics in the gym, either.”

      “Speaking of random lunatics, there was this guy in the park. Said hello to me.” The memory of the man wouldn’t leave her, lingering around the edges of her mind. His light eyes had been colorless in the park lamps, and he’d had a good mouth. Well shaped without being feminine, even pursed that way as he’d looked her over.

      God. She had friends she’d known for years whose features she couldn’t remember that clearly. Margrit shook her head, exiting the fridge with a plate of meatloaf in hand, using its mundanity to push away thoughts of the stranger. “You made dinner. I worship you.”

      Cole folded his arms over his chest, frowning. “Flattery will get you nowhere. What guy in the park? Dammit, Grit—”

      “He was just some guy in a business suit.” He hadn’t looked cold. Despite thirty-degree weather and no winter coat, he’d seemed comfortable. The silk shirt beneath his suit jacket couldn’t have afforded much warmth, but there’d been no shiver of cold flesh when he’d opened his jacket to show he was unarmed. Maybe the jacket had been so well cut as to hide padding, but Margrit doubted it. The breadth of shoulder and chest had looked to be all his own.

      “And that what, renders him harmless?”

      “I don’t know. He looked like a lawyer or something. Speaking of which.” Margrit cast a look of mock despair across the kitchen, at the same time feeling relief to have work that would take her mind off the blond man.

      The kitchen expanded into the dining room, a solidwood, double-door frame making the rooms nominally separate. Legal briefs and somber-colored binders were piled precariously on the dining-room table, over which hung an enameled black birdcage instead of a light fixture. Two desk lamps fought for space on the edges of the table, bordering a laptop-size clearing. “I should get to work. Two hundred grand in student loans won’t go away if I end up unemployed.”

      Cole snorted. “I know better, Margrit. You got through school on scholarships and help from your mom and dad.”

      Margrit pulled her lips back from her teeth in a false snarl. “You’ve known me too long. Let me tell myself little white lies, Cole. I like to pretend I’m not spoiled rotten. ‘Mom and Dad paid for school’ sounds so snotty. Anyway, I still won’t have a job if I don’t get my work done, and this place needs rent paid on it just like everywhere else.”

      “Did it ever occur to you working for somebody who paid better than Legal Aid might help with that?”

      “Only every time I talk to Mom, so don’t you start. That’s what they get for sending me to Townsend. Oaths to make the world a better place stick with you. Legal Aid needs all the help they can get. And I’m good at it.”

      “You have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, you know that?” Cole sighed, giving up the argument. “You should cook some kind of vegetable to go with the meatloaf. And go to bed so you can get to work early enough to leave at a decent hour so you’re not running around Central damned Park in the middle of the night.”

      “I will,” Margrit promised. “Swear to God. As soon as I’ve finished going over these papers.” She gestured at the dining-room table. “I’ll be in bed by midnight.”

      “Margrit, it is midnight.”

      Margrit cast a guilty look toward the clock. “It’s only a few minutes after eleven!”

      Cole eyed the clock, then Margrit. “You know that going over papers doesn’t mean going into the living room and turning on the TV?”

      “Yeah. I’ll be good. You can go to bed.”

      Cole drew his chin in and scrutinized her. “Promise?”

      “I promise. Scout’s honor.” Margrit held up three fingers.

      “Okay. Should I wake you up on my way out?”

      “At four-thirty?” Margrit couldn’t keep the horror out of her voice.

      Cole shook his head. “I don’t start until seven. Chef Vern’s got a catering event tomorrow night and wants me to do the pastries for it, so somebody else gets to make the doughnuts.”

      “No wonder you’re up so late.” Margrit frowned. “When was the last time you made a doughnut, Cole?”

      “Christmas,” he said placidly. “You remember. Cam asked me to make them for breakfast.” “I meant for work.”

      “Oh. Probably in culinary school. Don’t be difficult. Do you want me to get you up?”

      Margrit pulled her hair out of its ponytail and scrubbed her hand through it, fingers catching in springy curls. “Yeah.”

      “Okay. Get your work done and go to bed. Night, Grit.” Cole smiled at her and disappeared down the hall.

      “Night, Cole,” she called, and waited. When his door clicked shut, she grabbed the plate of meat loaf, a carton of double-swirl chocolate fudge chunk ice cream, a legal brief from the table and a pen from the birdcage, and sauntered into the living room to plunk down on the couch. Soft cushions grabbed her hips, sucking her in with the confidence of an old lover. Margrit spilled her armload onto the cushion next to her and switched on the TV, flipping to the news as she rescued the meat loaf before it stained her paperwork.

      She elbowed open her binder and twisted her neck to read it as she ate. The television droned on in the background: a dockworker had drowned and the union was striking; two murder victims had been found in Queens. A note of local interest news was wedged between sound bites of doom and gloom: a 1920s speakeasy, recently discovered hidden behind a collapsed subway tunnel, was being opened to the public on a limited basis. Lest the site opening be considered too cheery, the reporter continued on to solemnly report a Park Avenue suicide. Margrit smiled ruefully at the endless bad news, its dismaying litany unable to deflate the good cheer she felt from her run.

      “Irrational creature,” she mumbled, then frowned at the ice-cream carton. “Spoon.” She fought her way out of the couch and brought the meat loaf plate into the kitchen, the binder still in her free hand.

      She’d spent enough late nights on the case—a plea for clemency for a woman convicted of murdering a viciously abusive boyfriend—that she could see the annotated pages and carefully printed facts when she closed her eyes. Luka Johnson had served four years of a twenty-year sentence, only allowed to meet with her daughters once a week under highly supervised conditions. The case had been dropped in Margrit’s lap literally weeks out of law school. She’d been Luka’s advocate for the entire length of her incarceration.

      Four years. It didn’t seem so long, but Margrit had watched Luka’s youngest daughter grow from a squalling babe in arms to a thoughtful, talkative little girl in that time. The children lived with a foster mother who cared for them very much, but every week that they left Luka behind in prison was a little harder for everyone. The trial judge was sympathetic to their cause; the state coalition against domestic violence had given its support. The governor was expected to hear and make a decision on the clemency within the week. Margrit couldn’t stay away from the paperwork,