Page 31 of Nobody's Fool

“You sound tense, Arthur.”

“When can you be here?”

“Look, if Courtney Booth is upset about me not sending the photos—”

“It’s not that—”

“—I can send her a bunch that don’t show what I don’t want to show.”

“It’s not about the Booth divorce, Kierce.”

“So what’s going on then?”

“Kelly Neumeier is here.”

The lawyer who sprung Tad Grayson.

“So?”

“So she asked me to make this call. She’s here with Tad Grayson.”

“Here as in…?”

“Our office. Tad Grayson wants to meet with you.”

Tad Grayson sits in the same chair that Peyton Booth had occupied just a few hours ago. Divorcées. Cop killers. This room handles it all, I guess. Tad’s hands—the hands that killed my fiancée—are folded on the long conference table. His eyes are down and on them. Kelly Neumeier smooths her gray pencil skirt and paces behind him.

I stand outside the windowed door with Arthur. They haven’t seen us yet.

“I’ll go in with you,” Arthur says.

“Why?”

“You should have counsel.”

“Why would I need counsel?” I ask.

“Out of an overabundance of caution.”

“You’re worried I’m going to do something stupid.”

“Definitely. But mostly”—Arthur gives a loose, young man’s shrug—“I don’t want you going in there alone. I want someone in there on your side, you know what I mean?”

I nod that I do and I’m grateful. We are both trying to make light of something that is anything but light. My heart is pounding hard in my chest. I want to slow it down. I reach for the door, trying to be all casual about it, but I haven’t been in the same room with this monster since I testified against him in court. I didn’t go to hear the verdict. I didn’t go for the sentencing. This man murdered my fiancée. I felt rage, of course. I wanted to tear him apart in so many ways. But back then I also felt something else when I was near Tad Grayson: Fear. Indistinct, blurry fear. I don’t know if that emanated from his obvious psychosis or the personal circumstance—or more, what I felt capable of doing to him. I haven’t felt that way since I left the courtroom, but now, as I open the door and Tad Grayson looks up at me, that fear is back.

It is Kelly Neumeier who speaks first. “Thank you for agreeing to see us, Mr. Kierce.”

I say nothing. Arthur towers over me like an overgrown weed. He stays right by my side. He even leans a little against me to show he is there for me. It comforts me, which is something of a surprise. Neumeier starts toward me, hand extended for me to shake.

“Let’s not,” I say.

She stops, looks at her extended hand, pulls it back. “Why don’t we sit?”

“No,” I say.

I look toward Tad Grayson. He finally raises his eyes. When oureyes meet, I feel the fear awaken in my chest and start slithering, making it hard to breathe. Tad’s eyes aren’t black—they are a prison-dull gray that had once been blue—but they feel black. The temperature in the room drops. I struggle not to blink, to maintain the eye contact, but I can feel something inside of me start to quake and give way.

There is snap in my tone. “What do you want, Tad?”

---