Final Appeal. Lisa Scottoline

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СКАЧАТЬ had to be. His lawyer was incompetent. Anybody else would have gotten him life in prison, instead he’s scheduled to die. They set him up.” He leans back in the chair. Fatigue has stripped something from him: his defenses, maybe, or the professional distance between us. He seems open to me in a way he hasn’t before.

      “I didn’t think of it as saving his life. I thought of it as a legal issue.”

      “I know that, Grace. That’s why I wanted you on this case. You narrowed your focus to the legalities, divorced yourself from the morality of the thing.”

      It stings. “Do you fault me? It’s a legal question, not a moral one.”

      “Really? Who said?”

      “Holmes.”

      “Fuck Holmes,” he says, stretching luxuriously in a blue oxford shirt. His shirtsleeves are bunched at his elbows; his tie is loose. He’s so close I can pick up a trace of his aftershave. “It’s both those things, Grace, law and morality. You can’t separate law from justice. You shouldn’t want to.”

      “But then it’s your view of justice, and that varies from judge to judge.”

      “I can live with that, it’s in my job description. Judges are supposed to judge. When I read the Eighth Amendment, I think the framers were telling us that government should not torture and kill. That’s the ultimate evil, isn’t it, and it’s impossible to check.” His face darkens.

      “I don’t understand,” I say, but I do in part. Armen’s culture is written all over his olive-skinned features, as well as his chambers: the framed documents in a squiggly alphabet on the walls, the picture of Mount Ararat over his desk chair, the oddly ornate lamp bases and brocaded pillows.

      “It started piecemeal with the Armenians,” he says, leaning forward. “Our right to speak our own language was taken away. Then our right to worship as Christians. By 1915, they had taken our lives. We were starved, hanged, tortured. Beaten to death, most of us, with that.” He points at a rough-hewn wooden cudgel mounted over the bookshelf.

      “I didn’t know.”

      “Not many do. Half my people were killed. Half a million of us, wiped out by the Turkish government. All my family, except for my mother.” A flicker of pain furrows his brow.

      “I’m sorry.”

      He shakes it off. “The point is, government cannot kill its own citizens, not with my help. I know Hightower did a terrible thing. He killed, but I won’t kill him to prove it’s wrong. He should be locked up forever so he never hurts another child. He will be, if I have any say in it.” He seems to catch himself in mid-lecture; then his expression softens. “So thank you, for getting involved.”

      “Did I have a choice?”

      “No.” He relaxes in the leather chair. “You are involved, you know,” he says quietly.

      I see the city lights glowing softly behind him and feel, more than I can understand, that we aren’t talking about the case anymore. “I don’t know—”

      “Yes, you do. I’m involved too, Grace. Very involved, as a matter of fact.”

      I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I feel my heart start to pound softly. “We can’t do anything about it.”

      “Yes, we can. Give me your hand.” He holds out his hand to me.

      I look at it, suspended between us, at once a question and an answer. This situation is supposed to be black and white, but it doesn’t feel that way inside.

      “Stop thinking. Take it.”

      So I do, and it feels strong and warm. He pulls me in to him, as naturally as if we’ve done this a million times before, and in a second I feel myself in his arms and his kiss, gentle on my mouth. Suddenly I hear a noise outside the office and push myself away from his chest. “Did you hear that?”

      “What?”

      “There was a noise. Maybe the door?”

      “Everything’s all right,” he says. He kisses me again and shifts his weight up underneath me but I press him away.

      “Wait. Stop. We can’t.”

      “Why not?”

      There are rules, aren’t there? “You’re married, for starters.”

      He smooths my hair back from my forehead and looks everywhere on my face. “Not anymore,” he says. “My marriage is over.”

      It’s a shock. “What? How?”

      “It was over a long time ago. Susan asked me to stay with her until the election was over, and I did. She’s coming in the morning to sign the papers. We file tomorrow.”

      “For divorce?”

      “Yes.”

      “I can’t believe it.”

      “It’s true.” He touches my face. “So you’re not in love? Have I been reading you wrong?”

      So much for hiding my emotions. “I don’t know. I mean, I think about you, but it’s been so long.”

      “How long?”

      “Too long to admit.”

      “That’s long enough, don’t you think,” he says, kissing me deeply. Before I can object I find myself responding, and then I don’t want to object anymore. I lose myself in his kiss, in his warmth. His hands find their way to my breasts, caressing them as we kiss, arousing me. He begins to unfasten the buttons of my blouse, and I feel a skittishness rise, a sort of shame.

      “You sure no one’s out there, in the office?” I say.

      “No one.” He undoes the button above my breasts, exposing the string of pearls inside my blouse. I stop his hand and his eyes meet mine, uncomprehending. “I won’t hurt you, Grace,” he says softly. “Let me. Let me love you a little.”

      “But I—”

      “Shhh. I dream about this, about doing this with you.”

      “Armen—”

      “Let me. You have to.” He smiles and moves my hands away, placing each one on the armrests of the heavy chair. “Keep your hands there. We’re going to take this slow.”

      I feel myself breathing hard, excited and scared. “We can’t do this, not here.”

      “Hush.” He unfastens the next button, then the next. “Look at yourself, you’re so beautiful.”

      I look down and see a flash of pearls tumbling between my breasts. The scalloped cup of a bra. My skirt hiked way up, past the opaque ivory at the top of my pantyhose. I can’t stand it, being undone like this. I look away, out the window. I expect to see the night sky, but the wall of plate glass reflects a dark-haired man and a lighter-haired woman astride him.

      Strangely, СКАЧАТЬ