Chapter 9
The custody hearing wrapped up faster than Miller expected.
Judge Amelia Truitt had granted the temporary modification in under twenty minutes, which meant Miller’s client—a mother who’d driven three hours for this appearance—could take her daughter to her grandmother’s ninetieth birthday party next weekend without violating the existing order.
Small victory, the kind that reminded Miller why she did this work.
She picked up her files and slid them into her bag. It was barely eleven-fifteen. She could grab lunch, head back to the office, and maybe leave at a reasonable hour for once.
The hallway was quieter than she’d expected for a Thursday. A few attorneys clustered near the water fountain, their voices low, and someone’s heels clicked a retreating rhythm toward the stairwell.
Miller turned the corner toward the elevator bank and stopped short. Astoria Shepry stood alone, facing the brushed metal doors. It had been a week since the preliminary hearing, since Miller had watched Astoria's mask slip for just a moment.
Astoria glanced over as Miller approached, and her expression shifted. Her suit today was a tailored charcoal, and she held a leather folder against her chest, the kind with a gold clasp that looked like it had never seen the inside of a Target.
“Ms. Scott.” The words were neutral but not cold.
“Ms. Shepry.” Miller stopped a few feet away, settling into the universal posture of elevator waiting: forward-facing, hands clasped, eyes on the number display above the doors. Third floor. The light stayed stubbornly still. “Busy morning?”
“Status conference on some discovery disputes.” Astoria’s voice carried that same rigid control Miller remembered from mediation, but something had loosened around the edges. “You?”
“Custody modification. A quick one.”
“Those are rare.”
“They are.” Miller found herself almost smiling. “Both parties actually agreed on something. I nearly checked outside for flying pigs.”
The corner of Astoria’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile but close. “That must’ve been disorienting.”
“Deeply. I didn’t know what to do with my prepared arguments.”
The elevator display flickered to four, still nowhere near their twelfth floor. Silence settled between them, but it was almost comfortable, if Miller ignored the low hum of alertness that seemed to activate whenever Astoria was nearby.
She’d attributed that to professional vigilance. Astoria was formidable, and underestimating her would be a mistake.
Astoria broke the silence. “The elevators in this building seem to operate on their own timeline.”
“I’ve started budgeting an extra ten minutes whenever I have a hearing above the fifth floor.”
“Wise.” Astoria shifted her weight slightly, and Miller caught a trace of something—perfume, maybe, or just expensive soap. Something clean and faintly like crushed herbs. “I’ve considered bribing the maintenance staff.”
“Would that work?”
“I have no idea. But at this point, I’m willing to try.”
Miller glanced at her, surprised by the dry wit.
Astoria’s face remained composed, but there was a glint in her eyes that softened the ice queen persona the press loved to project.
She looked less exhausted than she had at the preliminary hearing, or maybe she was just better at hiding it.
The shadows under her eyes had faded, and her shoulders weren’t quite so rigid.
Miller looked away, unsure why she’d catalogued those details so precisely.
The elevator finally chimed. The doors slid open to reveal an empty car, and they both stepped inside. Miller pressed the button for the lobby. The doors closed, and the car began its slow descent.
“The deposition next week…” Miller started but wasn’t sure why she was bringing it up. “Rachel’s tough but she’s fair. She won’t go for theatrics.”
“That’s…good to know.”
The words hung there, and Miller realized she’d just offered something that could be read as reassurance to the opposing party in an active case.
Astoria was studying her with an expression Miller couldn’t quite parse. Not quite suspicion, but more like she was trying to solve a puzzle she hadn’t expected to encounter.
The elevator stopped at eight. The doors opened to an empty hallway, held for a moment, then closed again. Miller watched the numbers descend: seven, six, five…
Astoria shifted beside her, adjusting her grip on the leather folder. The small movement was ordinary, but Miller found herself tracking the way Astoria’s fingers curled around the edge, the glint of a simple gold watch at her wrist.
Four. Three.
The elevator jerked slightly as it slowed, and the leather folder slipped from Astoria’s grip.
Papers scattered across the floor of the car—white sheets fanning out, some sliding toward Miller's feet.
They both bent at the same time, reaching for the closest documents, and Miller's hand closed over a page just as Astoria's fingers brushed against hers.
The contact lasted less than a second. Miller felt it start where Astoria's skin touched hers, a warmth that spread up her arm and across her shoulders, settling somewhere behind her ribs.
Her whole body went alert in a way she didn't recognize, every nerve suddenly paying attention to the pressure of Astoria's fingertips, the heat of her palm, the exact space where they connected.
She looked up. Astoria was frozen, her gray-blue eyes locked on Miller’s face, and something in her expression suggested she’d felt it too.
The moment stretched, and the elevator hummed around them. Miller was acutely conscious of her own breathing, of the papers crumpled slightly in her grip, of Astoria’s hand still hovering inches from hers.
The doors opened with a cheerful chime.
People were visible beyond the threshold to the lobby. Miller jerked back. She gathered the remaining papers with clumsy hands and thrust them toward Astoria, not quite meeting her eyes.
“Here.” Her voice came out strange and too high. “I think that’s all of them.”
Astoria took the pages, her fingers carefully avoiding any contact this time. “Thank you.”
Miller stepped backward out of the elevator, nearly colliding with a man in a gray suit who swerved around her with an annoyed look. She needed to leave. She needed air, space, and distance from whatever had just happened.
“Actually.” She was already moving toward the stairwell door. “I’m going to— I need—”
Astoria’s expression flickered, but Miller didn’t want to interpret it.
She scanned the space and saw the stairwell.
She pushed through the heavy door and let it close behind her.
The concrete steps stretched upward into silence.
Miller leaned against the wall and pressed her palm flat against her chest, feeling her heart pound against it like a tiny bird trying to escape.
What the hell was that?
Miller took the stairs all the way down to the basement.
She didn’t decide to do it consciously. Her legs just kept moving down from the lobby level, past the parking garage entrance, past the custodian level until she hit the bottom and had nowhere else to go.
The concrete stairwell smelled like dust and old cleaning supplies, and the fluorescent light above her flickered with an annoying, irregular rhythm.
She stood there for a long moment, just breathing.
It was nothing. Their hands touched while picking up papers. Professional people touched accidentally all the time and moved on without their entire nervous system staging a revolt.
Miller pressed her palms against her face and exhaled slowly.
She could still feel it, the exact spot on her hand where Astoria’s fingers had brushed hers, like the sensation had been seared into her skin.
When she closed her eyes, she saw Astoria’s expression—that frozen moment of surprise, the way her lips had slightly parted, the unspoken question in her gray-blue eyes.
She felt it too.
Miller pushed off from the wall and climbed back up to the parking garage level. Her car was exactly where she’d left it three hours ago, tucked into a corner spot near the elevator. She got in, put her hands on the steering wheel, but didn’t press the button to start the engine.
What was that?
The question kept circling, but she couldn’t land on an answer that made sense. She’d been startled, caught off guard by the dropped papers and sudden proximity inside the enclosed space of the elevator. Her body had reacted to the surprise, not to Astoria specifically.
Except she knew that wasn’t true.
Miller had been surprised plenty of times. She’d had people bump into her, grab her arm, and brush against her in crowded spaces. None of it had ever felt like that. None of it had made her want to lean closer instead of pulling away.
She started the car and drove back to the office on autopilot.
The afternoon was a wash. Miller sat at her desk and stared at the discovery documents that refused to resolve into meaning.
She drafted an email three times before realizing she’d addressed it to the wrong client.
She picked up her phone to return a call and forgot who she was calling before the first ring was over.
Rachel stopped by around three, leaning against Miller’s doorframe with a file in her hand. “You okay? You seem distracted.”
“Headache.” The lie came out smoothly enough. “I think I’m going to head out early if that’s all right.”
Rachel studied her for a moment then nodded. “Get some rest. We’ve got the Duncan deposition tomorrow. I need you sharp.”
“I will be.”
Miller packed and left before anyone else could ask her questions she didn’t know how to answer.
Her apartment was quiet when she got home.