“Yeah, but I made it come out. He gave up everything for me and I’m—”
“Oh, bullshit!” Griff exclaimed. “There’s no talking to you sometimes, you idiot. You have to take the blame for every fucking bad thing that happens in the world? People make their own choices. Whatever it was Miller did, he did it because he thought you were worth it. He chose you, Danny. That’s what you should be thinking about, not about what he gave up. Jesus.” Griff threw up his hands in exasperation.
Danny could hear the wisdom of Griff’s words, but it was so hard to believe they applied to him. They seemed such small comfort in the wake of all Miller had sacrificed. Danny had left Miller on the park bench, walked away and then kept on going, because he wanted to give Miller a chance at a life where he could forget what he’d done. And that would never happen with Danny there to remind him.
But Danny’s leaving wasn’t just about Miller and what Danny believed he deserved. It was about Danny, too, and finding a way to start over. He hadn’t expected to live beyond that day in the kitchen with Madrigal, had already released his hold on life and made his peace with death. But now he had to come back from the dead and find a way to live again, to stand tall as his own man, to uncover the true Danny Butler and face whoever he turned out to be.
RACHEL WAS chewing each bite at least fifty times. Miller wondered if she was counting in her head, forcing the food down after the prescribed number of chews, a trick borrowed from the obsessive-compulsive handbook to get her through this meal. It was the first time they’d seen each other since that night at his apartment almost six weeks ago. They’d talked on the phone a few times—short, awkward conversations with neither of them sure where they stood, Miller always making excuses about why he couldn’t see her quite yet. Every time he expected her to curse and shout or slam the receiver down into his ear, but she never did.
Miller had known that when they finally saw each other, he’d have to look within himself and answer her questions honestly in a way he’d never done before. And it was only now that he was ready. With Danny gone from his life, the way before him was no longer clear, but he had to keep walking, take the steps and hope that by doing so the right path would reveal itself.
“How has work been?” Rachel asked, using a gulp of wine to swallow her latest bite of salmon. They’d been making stilted small talk all evening, avoiding the real reason they were sitting across from each other.
The restaurant had been a bad choice on his part—too fancy, too formal, both of them feeling on display in the hushed, rich atmosphere. On the upside, Rachel was hardly going to throw her drink in his face in front of this crowd, but Rachel wasn’t the type for public displays anyway.
“Fine,” Miller answered, eyes on his plate. Time to be honest with her about everything, jackass. “Actually, I’m on administrative leave.” It was almost a relief to finally be getting down to it.
“What?” Rachel’s fork clattered against her china plate and she glanced around guiltily. She wasn’t wearing her ring, and every time she moved her hand, the lack of sparkle hurt Miller’s eyes. “When did that happen?” she whispered, her fingers twisting nervous loops in her pearl necklace.
“A few weeks ago.”
“You said they cleared you in that shooting.”
“They did.”
Rachel’s brows drew together like magnets, confusion clear in her eyes. “Then why?”
Miller set down his glass, took a deep breath, drawing courage up through his core. He could do this; he had to do this, because if he didn’t, all the sacrifice had been for nothing. “There are some unanswered questions about me and an informant.” He looked at Rachel. “The man you saw me with at my apartment.”
Rachel stared at him. She took her napkin off her lap and placed it across her plate.
“Rachel….”
“I’m not talking about this here. I’m not,” she said brokenly, pushing back from the table. Even on the verge of tears she walked with care; no one watching would have suspected anything more than a trip to the ladies’ room.
Miller fished a wad of bills out of his wallet and tossed them onto the table. He shoved against the tide in the crowded lobby, shouldering his way past couples who looked happy for a night out together. Rachel didn’t wait for him at the door to the restaurant, the heavy cut-glass and mahogany closing in his face. He caught up with her where she stood shivering against his car, the branches of an ice-burdened tree curling downward to nearly touch her head.
“Rachel, come back inside where it’s warm,” he coaxed.
“No, I want to go home.” She jerked against the door handle. “Open the door.”
Miller unlocked her door then moved around to the driver’s side, starting the engine and cranking the heater once he was settled behind the wheel. He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, listening to Rachel weep beside him.
“I thought you knew after you saw us,” he said softly. “I thought that was why you weren’t wearing your ring.”
“I suspected, but I didn’t know for sure,” she whispered. “I wanted to believe you were being honest with me. But you lied to me that day at your apartment. You told me it wasn’t what it looked like. You said you would explain it all later.”
Miller knew that wanting to believe and truly believing were not the same thing at all. Rachel had known the truth from the moment she’d seen him with Danny. She just needed to hear him say the words. “I’m sorry, Rachel.” He glanced at her tear-stained face. “I’m so sorry.”
“Were you… did you have sex with him?”
The lie was right there against his lips, ready to slingshot out and tell Rachel what she wanted to hear, what it would be so easy for Miller to say: No, of course not, it never went that far. But that would be denying Danny, denying what Danny meant to him, and he couldn’t do it. He was suddenly hit with a powerful superstition that warned him not to push Danny any further away. He’d vowed to clean up his mess, not just shove it into a corner and pretend not to see. “Yes, we slept together.”
Rachel inhaled a shuddering, high-pitched breath. “So you’re— You’re gay?” she asked, her eyes shifting to her clasped hands.
Was he gay? That’s the question he’d spent all his life avoiding, not wanting to hear the answer. Because he knew the answer. He’d known it in high school when he looked a little too long at the lean thigh muscles of the boys who ran track. Had known it at the academy when the sight of sweaty forearms holding a gun made all the spit dry up in his mouth. There had always been such shame and disgust, hating himself for something he could not control, wanting to wipe away a part of himself that was fundamental and refused to be dislodged.
“Yes,” he said finally, “I’m gay.” He forced the words out through a reluctant throat. He wondered if it got easier to say over time, if he’d ever be able to say it without choking on the admission. He wished Danny were waiting at home for him, thought maybe this would all be easier if he had Danny to share it with—Danny who was never ashamed of being gay and didn’t want Miller to be ashamed, either.
Rachel heaved out a sob, pinching the back of her hand with sugar-pink fingernails. “Why didn’t you tell me? Were you ever going to tell me?”
He thought about saying he hadn’t known, but that would put too much of the blame at Danny’s feet, as though Danny’s presence had made him gay. And Miller knew that was not the truth. He’d always been gay; Danny had only forced him to face it. “I didn’t want to admit it, Rachel. I wanted it to go away.”
“How does something like that ‘go away’?” Rachel demanded. “I’ve wasted five years of my life waiting for you, Miller Sutton! Making excuses for why it was taking us so long to get married. And you just let me keep thinking it would happen someday. You didn’t even have the guts to be honest!” She snatched her purse off her lap and rooted around inside, thrusting a small velvet box into his hand. “Here, take the ring. It’s not mine anymore.”
“I want you to hav
e it.”
“I don’t want it.” She crossed her arms over her chest, cradling her elbows, her tears still flowing hard and fast. “Are you with him? That man?”
“His name is Danny,” Miller said quietly. “And no, we’re not together.”
“I don’t want to know his name!” Rachel cried. “You said he was an informant. That means he’s a criminal, right?” She swiped at her cheeks with a wadded-up Kleenex.
“He has a record, yes.” Miller hated handing over Danny’s life for her to judge.
“And that’s what you really want? Some man, some criminal?” She hissed out the words, trying to transform Danny into something ugly with her voice.
Miller didn’t answer, turned his face and looked at the dirty snow covering the sidewalk in misshapen lumps. There was no way to explain to Rachel that Danny was more than he appeared on paper. That somehow that man, with a felony record and no hope for the future, with a body marked with scars, with a brave, strong heart, was the person Miller had been searching for his whole life without even knowing it.
“What happened to the Miller I knew?” Rachel asked, her voice broken. “Where did he go? It’s like I’m sitting next to a stranger.”
But it was the Miller Rachel had known who was really the stranger—the man who hid behind his badge and his fiancée and his goddamn all-knowing certainty about everything. He remembered the weight he’d carried for so many years, trying to keep himself stiff and rigid, so careful all the time that no one see beyond his cool exterior. But then he’d met Danny, and even burdened with fear about Madrigal, Miller had felt a lightness in his soul, a lifting of the heaviness he’d been shackled with for so long. And as terrified as he was to go forward, he was even more scared to go back.
“This is the real me, Rachel,” Miller said, his voice steady. “And I’m not going to hide anymore.” It felt good to say the words, for himself… and for Danny, who had recognized the true Miller from the very beginning, had seen through all his flaws and defenses, and loved him anyway.
DANNY WAS nervous. It had been a long time since he’d started a new job and had to work his way up from the bottom of the ladder with no idea of what he was doing.
Well, at least these people won’t kill you if they decide you’re not right for the job.
Danny raked through his hair with one hand, still not used to having both arms at his disposal. He’d spent ten minutes just scratching when they’d finally cut the damn cast off. He pulled open the glass door of the Legal Aid building, a nondescript brick one-story house between a sandwich shop and a bank, a ten-minute L ride from his apartment.
“Um… yeah, hi, I’m Danny Butler,” he said to a bored-looking girl barely out of her teens who was flipping through a gossip magazine at the front desk. She raised her eyebrow at him, saying So? without even opening her mouth.
“He’s mine! He’s mine!” a voice yelled from down the hall. “Don’t you dare give him to anyone else.” A tall, thin woman with long waves of chestnut-colored hair flying around her face came barreling in his direction, her hand extended for his before she got close enough to touch. “Hi, I’m Jill,” she said, giving him a quick handshake, her whole body crackling with energy.
“I’m Danny.”
Jill flashed a big, stretch-your-face smile. She was younger than he’d expected—Danny guessed he had at least a few years on her—and pretty in a sharp, no-nonsense way, the only concession to cosmetics a wide swath of scarlet lipstick.
“Come with me.” She motioned him forward. “I’m so swamped right now. You have no idea how much I need your help.”
Danny followed her back down the hall from where she’d appeared, stepping around banker’s boxes stacked against the walls. “Did you all just move here?”
“What? No.” Jill glanced over her shoulder, following his gaze. “Those are just case files we don’t have room for anywhere else.”
Jill ducked into the last office on the left. “Okay, here,” she said, thrusting a huge mountain of papers into Danny’s hands. “I need you to put these pleadings in order, most recent on top. Here’s a two-hole punch and here’s a file folder to put them in.”
“Where….” Danny looked around the cramped office, every inch covered with stacks of papers, books, files split at the bindings and spilling their contents onto the floor. He felt momentarily overwhelmed; he’d had no idea he’d be tossed into the meat of the job less than five minutes after walking through the door.
“Oh, shit, yeah. Come across the hall with me.” Jill pointed him into a small room crowded with three desks. “This one’s yours. Feel free to bring stuff in if you want, pictures and crap like that.”
There was an older black man sitting at one of the desks, his silver hair close-cropped, a pair of glasses that seemed too small for his wide face perched on the end of his nose.
“Danny Butler, meet Ellis Campbell.”
“Hi,” Danny said, setting down his load of papers.
“Nice to meet you,” Ellis said in an easy baritone.
“Ellis is retiring in… what? A month?” Jill asked, her brow furrowed.
“Six weeks.”
“Right, I knew that. Six weeks. He’ll help show you the ropes before he goes. He’s been here a long time.”
“Eighteen years,” Ellis supplied.
“You all set?” Jill asked, her eyes back on Danny.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Sorry things are so crazy around here. I’d like to tell you it will settle down later, but that would be a lie.”
“It’s okay,” Danny smiled. “Crazy I think I can handle.”
“Marie, our HR person, will track you down sometime today and give you a ton of forms to fill out and explain your nonexistent salary and all that good stuff.”
Danny laughed. “So everyone knows how much I won’t be making?”
“Don’t feel bad, it’s only slightly less than my paycheck.” Jill glanced at her watch as she brought her hands up, twisting her hair into a knot on top of her head. “Shit. Client’s going to be here in twenty minutes. Holler if you need anything.”
“That girl needs to watch her language,” Ellis said as Jill retreated to her office. From the good-natured tone of his voice Danny guessed it wasn’t the first time he’d expressed that particular lament. “Her momma should have taken some soap to her mouth a long time ago.”
“She seems like she’d be pretty hard to catch,” Danny observed.
Ellis laughed, long and low. “Good point, good point,” he mused, tipping back slightly in his chair. “So you’re the new ex-con.” It wasn’t a question.
Danny’s back stiffened as he pulled out his chair. But what was the point of getting bent out of shape? He was an ex-con and always would be. “Yep. That’s me.”
Ellis was watching him with thoughtful eyes. “Don’t get offended. I’m one myself.”
“You?” Danny asked, surprised. The glasses and cardigan sweater and the face like a favorite grandfather didn’t bring “felon” instantly to mind.
“Before I came to work here. Served twenty-one years for murder.”
“Shit,” Danny muttered, not sure if it was the admission of murder or the length of the sentence that hit him hardest.
“When I started here, it was a big risk for them. But I worked out okay, so now the office applies for a grant every year to hire someone who’s trying to go straight. Sometimes we get the grant, sometimes we don’t. But this year we did. This is a good place to be, if you don’t mind working hard for no pay.”
Ellis smiled, but Danny knew what he was really saying. Don’t fuck this up, kid, because it might be your last, best chance to be something more than what you’ve been so far.
“DANNY, YOU can go home if you want. You’ve worked late every night for the past three weeks.”
Danny looked up from the trial transcript he was reading, marking his place with a green highlighter. “Don’t you have a client coming in?”
Jill
nodded, yawning behind her hand. “Yeah, but you don’t have to stay for that.”
“It’s okay.” Danny stretched his arms above his head, working out the kinks in his neck. “I don’t like the idea of you being here alone.”
Jill rolled her eyes. “I’ve got mace in my desk drawer and I know some killer kung-fu moves.” She demonstrated a sharp, off-balance kick that sent her careening into the wall.
“Yeah,” Danny said dryly. “That’s some pretty scary heat you’re packing there.”
“I was just warming up.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, if you’re going to stick around, can you make sure the Lawrence file is organized? I’ve got a suppression hearing in the morning.”
“Sure. Trying to keep the gun out?”
“Yeah. And don’t tell me ‘good luck’ in that sarcastic tone of yours, please.”
Danny smiled, keeping his lips pressed firmly together.
Jill eyed him with raised eyebrows. “If you have to say something, say, ‘Jill, I know you’ll work a legal miracle’. Show a little faith.”
“Jill, I know you’ll work a legal miracle,” Danny intoned.
“Thank you,” she said, turning back toward her office.
“You’re welcome. But you’re still not keeping that gun out of evidence.”
“Jerk,” Jill’s voice floated in from the hallway.
Danny laughed, turning his attention back to the transcript in front of him. But he couldn’t concentrate; it felt like tiny grains of sand were stuck under his eyelids. Jill was right: he should go home, relax, get a change of scenery. But being alone these days was the worst sort of torture, and even late nights at work for no extra pay were better than sitting in his empty apartment.
Dreamspinner Press Year Three Greatest Hits Page 69