States of Grace

by Mandy Miller

  A collective gasp rises from the gallery, and the cameras that had been trained on Zoe pivot to her parents.

  Reilly grabs Anton by one shoulder and spins him around, cuffing him in a single well-practiced motion. Chang does the same to Gretchen, slapping the cuffs onto her delicate wrists as he would do to any common criminal.

  “Excuse me, Detective.” Anton says, his face turning purple. “Let me go!”

  “Anton Slim and Gretchen Slim, you both have the right to remain silent. You both have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one,” Reilly pauses, an inordinately wide grin on his face, “if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”

  Gretchen cranes her neck around Chang, eyes as big as dinner plates. “Do something, Grace. Do something!”

  I cross my arms across my chest and mouth. “Not a chance.”

  As Reilly walks Anton and Gretchen from the courtroom, the reporters eye each other, uncertain whether to follow what’s just happened, or stay and watch what’s about to.

  The moment the detectives and the Slims are out the door, Twietmeyer bangs his gavel twice to quiet the tsunami of chatter. “Silence, please. Now, Mr. Britt, I believe you have a motion?”

  Britt rises. “Yes, Your Honor. The State of Florida moves to dismiss the indictment of Zoya AKA “Zoe” Slim.”

  “Can I assume that would be a dismissal with prejudice?” he says, alluding to the fact that doing so meant the case can never be refiled.

  Britt gives an obsequious dip of his head. “Yes, sir. With extreme prejudice.”

  Hands on her shoulders, I turn her to face me. “It’s over, Zoe.”

  “For you, maybe.” She lowers her head to hide the tears cascading down her cheeks.

  I glance back at the door through which the Slims exited the courtroom, the one leading to the holding cells, not the one they entered through with the certainty that wealth and privilege would protect them from their sins. Now it would be their turn to ask for forgiveness.

  I tilt her chin up. “Make no mistake about it, the nightmare is over for you.”

  Chapter 37

  “Killer Cop, Not Killer Kid.” The headline on the front page of the Sun Sentinel says it all. Case closed.

  I toss the newspaper into the trash can under the desk. In addition to a trash can, I now have an ergonomic desk chair from which to dispense my pearls of legal wisdom without getting a backache, all thanks to Vinnie and Jake. They even hung a Welcome Home banner on the wall. Now it’s time for some paying clients.

  A knock on the window draws my attention and a flurry of barks from Miranda.

  “Over here,” I say, calling her to sit behind the desk, in case my visitor isn’t a dog lover.

  Another knock and a hand waving.

  “Coming,” I say, happy to be walking on two legs again, Oscar 2.0 having been engineered post haste from the original design by my prosthetist who saw my story on TV.

  When I unlock the door, I find Zoe, both hands clasped around a gigantic bouquet of pink roses.

  She thrusts the bouquet at me. “The man at the florist said pink roses mean ‘thank you.’ He also said they can mean ‘please believe me.’”

  I raise the flowers to my nose and breathe in the intense fragrance that transports me back to my mother’s rose garden, a reminder that I need to visit Faith soon, even if it means putting up with her fussing over me as she’s been doing since I was released from the hospital. She insisted on staying with me. At The Hurricane. On a camp bed. Eating frozen dinners and drinking tap water. All things I thought I’d never see. Perhaps I’ve underestimated her resilience too, much as I misjudged Zoe. And Vinnie. And Sonny. And Manny. Time will tell, given I promised to visit her in Palm Beach more often than before. It was the only way I could get her to leave. That and a promise to bring Miranda who, after a lifetime of fearing dogs, Faith has come to adore. Just more proof people can change, I suppose.

  “Thank you for believing in me, Ms. Locke. You saved my life. But it almost lost you yours. I’m so sorry.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you it’s Grace?” I pull her in for a hug. “And none of this was your fault. None of it.”

  Gretchen sails in, a purse on her arm that cost more than many people make in a year. Fresh out of jail. On bail yes, but fresh as a daisy, as always. I must have missed that lesson in how-to-be-a-good-criminal school. Me, when I got out of jail, I looked like shit and felt worse, unable to look anyone, even Vinnie, in the eye for weeks.

  “I can’t thank you enough for saving my daughter,” she says in a tone so breezy it’s as if she’s telling me the weather forecast is for sun, no chance for rain. I’ve resolved to be less judgmental, but she’s not making it easy.

  I point them to the newly-upholstered client chairs Jake picked up at a second-hand store for my homecoming, along with a similarly upholstered dog bed for Miranda, who is currently cloistered in the back room for fear she might pee on Gretchen’s leg—she seems to have a sixth sense for people I dislike and growled as soon as her limo pulled up.

  As Gretchen sits, her yellow silk dress settles around her like a wave of liquid gold. Her outward appearance is, indeed, perfect, but a charade intended to further cloak the truth in respectability? I suspect I’ll never know. And maybe a charade is all it will take to skate on the charges and back into the high life. Juries have a habit of excusing the well-heeled.

  I stand behind Zoe and rest my hands on her shoulders. “My Warrior Princess, Zoya. It’s great to see you out of that hideous jail jumpsuit.”

  Zoe giggles. “Orange never has been my color.”

  Gretchen runs her hands over her skirt several times. Surely, she can still feel the prickly polyester of the jumpsuit she’s just taken off. It’s a sensation that doesn’t leave you quickly.

  “Tell me, how does it feel?”

  “How does what feel?” Gretchen says as if she’s read my mind.

  “How does it feel to be free was the question, but I was talking to your daughter,” I say with a dismissive wave. “Zoe, how does it feel to be free?”

  Gretchen crosses and uncrosses her legs. “My daughter is adjusting well.”

  Zoe looks from me to her mother and back again. “Mom, would you mind? I’d like to have a minute alone with Grace.”

  Gretchen’s mouth puckers into an O. “Are you sure, honey?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  I sit down beside Zoe, in the chair Gretchen vacated, the memory of her musky perfume hanging in the air. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “He came to see me before my trial. In the jail. After trial call on Friday.”

  “Who came to see you?”

  “The cop.”

  My heart stops. “Which cop? Detective Reilly—the one who arrested you and came to court for your bail hearing? Big man, furry mustache?”

  Zoe shakes her head hard from side to side. “No. Detective Sorenson—the cop who was arrested the day they let me go. I recognized his face on TV that night—he was the one who went to the shooting range with Dad and me. I only ever saw the one with the mustache in court.” She struggles to catch her breath, swallowing her words. “I’m…so sorry! I couldn’t…remember…what he looked like…when I said I handled Dad’s guns. I was all…all doped up.”

  I grab her hands. “It’s okay. Take a deep breath and tell me what Detective Sorenson said when he came to see you in the jail.”

  “He said if I testified I was with Joe when Mr. Sinclair was murdered, he would kill my mom and dad and feed them to the sharks.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I should have told you the truth right away about being with Joe. Maybe none of this—”

  “We’ve been over this already. None of what happened is your fault.”

  “I’m so stupid! I didn’t want Dad to get in trouble. Can you believe that? They’re the only family I’ve ever had. Mom’s always lecturing me about drugs. And then it turns out she owns pill mills!” She starts to
sob. “I just thought…that you’d be able to prove I didn’t do it at my trial. But it almost got you killed. I’m very, very sorry.”

  Her naive trust in me, in the truth, in the system, takes my breath away.

  “There’s something I have to tell you, Zoe.”

  “What?”

  “Detective Sorenson threatened Joe, like he threatened you.”

  “What? Is he okay?”

  She reads my silence for what it is—affirmation that Joe is not okay.

  She doubles over, clutching her stomach. “What happened to him?”

  “He was found out in the Everglades. He’d been beaten to death.”

  “Nooooo!” she screams, pounding her fists on her thighs. “He died because of me. They all died because of me!”

  I sit on the desk facing her. “He died because of Detective Sorensen. Things seem black now, I understand. But trust me, in time, they’ll get better.”

  “How? How will they get better?”

  “Look at me Zoe,” I say, and add the only thing I can think of to comfort her, something that should be true, but I can’t be sure. “You have your mom, Zoe. Your mom loves you.”

  She gets up and walks to the window. “Maybe,” she says, staring at the idling limo.

  “Can I ask you one more thing?”

  Her shoulders sag. “What?”

  “Did you really want to kill yourself?”

  She answers without hesitation, her voice firm. “No. I would never do that.”

  I bite back my own tears and join her at the window. “So, what now?”

  Zoe shrugs. “Move on, I guess. Or, at least, try to.”

  “It’s all any of us can do.”

  A noncommittal nod. “I’m going into residential treatment, to get things straightened out in my head.”

  “Good plan.”

  “I’m going to finish high school there as a correspondence student from St. Paul’s.”

  “Very good plan.”

  “Then, I’m going to go to college.” A smile nudges its way onto her tear-stained face. “And, who knows? Maybe, one day, to law school.”

  I raised a clench fist. “Now, that’s a stellar plan. You are Zoya, remember, and—”

  “And I am stronger than I think!”

  Gretchen rushes through the door and Zoe pulls back her hand, cutting short our fist bump. She shoves a thick envelope into my hand. “I almost forgot. This is for you, Grace. We owe you more than money can repay.”

  For a second, we’re eye to eye, both holding on to the envelope, before I take it and face Zoe. “Anything you need, you know where to find me. Anything at all.”

  Zoe hugs me and dashes outside.

  Heart pounding like a tom-tom, I rip open the envelope.

  Inside is the start of my new life—in cash.

  Watching the limo recede into the ghetto twilight, I find myself making a plea to whatever higher power might be willing to intercede, a plea for second chances and happier times—for Zoe, for Joe’s and Serena’s families, and for all the untold others touched by the greed of evil men. And women. And for me.

  Epilogue

  “Gracie! Get down here!” Vinnie yells from downstairs.

  “What is it? I’m busy,” I yell back, stroking fuchsia nail polish onto my five toes. One thing that almost getting killed taught me is not to be ashamed or embarrassed by my leg, but to value it as a sign of my resilience. I’ve taken to wearing skirts instead of pants, sandals instead of closed-toed shoes, and I’ve entered myself into a 5K race, my first with Oscar 2.0.

  “Get down here! You’ve got a delivery.”

  “Coming!”

  At the bottom of the stairs, Vinnie grabs me by the shoulders and spins me around.

  “I looked out the office window, and there she was,” he says, jumping up and down like a kid on Christmas morning.

  I blink twice to make sure I’m not hallucinating. But no, it’s real. My car. My father’s Jaguar, sitting in my parking space, coiled like the feline after which it was named, its green paint resplendent under the noonday sun, its scooped headlights watching me.

  “Where? How?”

  “I was out for a bit. When I came back to the office, I found her. These were on the desk.” Vinnie holds up a set of keys hanging from a Tiffany key chain monogrammed with GL, Esq.

  I approach the car, tentative, as if it might disappear any minute, and brush my fingers over the elongated hood. The chrome spokes on the rims have been polished to a brilliant shine. The convertible top is down, the perforated tan leather of the two bucket seats is creased from use, but still soft to the touch. I envision my father in the driver’s seat, sporting a tweed flat cap, hands on the polished teak steering wheel, as we glide along narrow country lanes, gold and red leaves swirling in our wake.

  “And this was under the keys,” Vinnie says, holding out an envelope addressed to me in Manny’s handwriting.

  I slit the envelope open with one of the keys. Inside, the title to the car in my name and a single sheet of paper embossed with AAM:

  Dear Grace:

  Congratulations on your one year anniversary! I knew you could do it. You just needed to believe in yourself, and now you do.

  I’m sorry things didn’t work out as we had dreamed, but the brightest of futures is ahead for you, and that is what you deserve.

  Your Friend (I hope),

  Manny

  P.S. As promised, the keys and title for your car. Maybe you’ll take me for a ride sometime.

  Lightheaded, I grab the driver’s side door.

  “You okay? What does it say?”

  “In all the ruckus, I forgot. It’s today.”

  “What? What’s today?”

  “The one year anniversary of my sobriety. I forgot. But he remembered.”

  Vinnie gives me a high five. “You did it, kid!”

  I stare at the note. “And he kept his end of our bargain.”

  “You know what? Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all.”

  “Maybe not,” I say and poke Vinnie in the ribs. “And neither are you.”

  “Maybe you should try comedy as your next career,” he says, poking me back. “And these are some wheels, sweetheart!” He circles the car but stops when he gets to the rear. “Now, look at that.”

  I rush to his side to see what he’s pointing at.

  My new license plate.

  It reads: IM BACK.

  Acknowledgment

  As a long distance runner, I can say with certainty that writing a book is the literary equivalent of running an ultramarathon. Nonetheless, unlike a race, crossing the finish line is not a solitary achievement, but one accomplished only with the support of others.

  To the long-suffering members of the Steamboat Springs Writers Group—I am forever in your debt for your patience and expertise in reviewing and commenting on oh so many drafts of States of Grace.

  To my editor, Susan Brooks, for seeing potential in Grace and for helping me round out a few of her rough edges without dampening her warrior heart.

  To Stacy, your courage and tenacity in the face of adversity inspire me in these pages and every day.

  And, while you may be last on this list, you are first in my heart—thank you to my husband and Reader Numero Uno, Andy, both for your attention to the minutiae that always seem to escape me, and for never counting the costs of my chasing rainbows. This book would not have been possible without your love and relentless encouragement.

  About the Author

  Mandy Miller is an attorney currently living in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, with her husband and Talisker, a rescue mutt. Before moving to Steamboat, she practiced law in Chicago, New York, Latin America, and South Florida.

  Mandy is originally from Scotland, but lived in more than a dozen countries with her family before moving to the United States for college. With an undergraduate degree in Spanish and French Literature, she needed to do something to pay the bills, so she did what any good liberal art
s student who can write would do, she went to law school. After eighteen years as a corporate lawyer, she planned her escape to another professional life teaching psychology. More school ensued and a Ph.D. in Psychology was granted, but the great escape was not to be. She was dragged back to the law to use her legal and psychological powers for good as a criminal lawyer, specializing in the representation of individuals with mental health and addiction issues in the criminal justice system.

  Thankfully, no “good” crime occurs in Steamboat, so she spends her spare time making up murder and mayhem. In her spare time, she competes in ultramarathons. States of Grace is her first novel.

  You can visit her website www.mandymillerbooks.com and read more of her writing on her blog Flash4Words.blogspot.com. Be assured that if you leave your email on either site, it will not be shared with anyone and you can unsubscribe whenever you wish. Subscribers will receive information regarding new books, short fiction and nonfiction, contests, giveaways, and reading recommendations.

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  Author's Royalties from this book will be donated to not for profit organizations devoted to serving veterans.

  Table of Contents

  PRAISE FOR STATES OF GRACE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35