States of Grace by Mandy Miller (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

thigh as a table, Gretchen scrawls her name on the signature line. “You have to get Zoe out of this place, Grace.”

“I’ll try, but understand this. The doctors think she’s a danger to herself, she’ll be here for at least seventy-two hours. After that, they can ask a judge to keep her for longer, if they think she’s still a danger to herself or others.”

“Zoe is not a danger, Ms. Locke!” Anton says, so emphatically that his protruding belly bounces in time with his words. “And I think you would be well-advised to remember you were hired for only one reason.”

“Is that so?” I ask.

Anton shoots me a cautionary glare. “Let’s just say we all have a lot on the line here,”

His face turns puce, the black enamel studs on his white shirt straining against his heaving chest. Placating the entitled few has never been my strong suit, although I have learned that practiced passivity in the face of power is often the best way to get what you want. For a man like Anton, however, being told what to do, even in polite tones, is not an experience to which he takes kindly.

Gretchen flashes me a wide-eyed look as if to say, Back off, why don’t you? then turns to Anton and says, “Honey, let’s let Grace do her job.”

Anton lowers his bulk into a chair and lights up a cigar.

“Have you been in to visit with Zoe?” I ask.

“No, they wouldn’t let us talk to her,” Gretchen says. “Dr. Kesey says it might upset her even more. When she woke up in here, she wouldn’t stop punching and kicking the staff, so they sedated her.”

“One thing, though. I don’t want any of this to get out to the media or the state attorney before we figure out what it means for her case. Please, don’t breathe a word of any of this to anyone.”

“You don’t have to worry about that, Ms. Locke,” Anton says.

Roger that, fat man. As if I didn’t get the message the first time.

“Of course, sir,” I say, nodding in agreement, until it hits me—I haven’t said “sir” since the Army.

But it seems to have done the trick. Anton extends his hand. “Please save our little girl, Ms. Locke.”

“Let’s go home,” Gretchen says, helping Anton to his feet. “We’ll come back tomorrow.”

As the elevator door closes, I hear Anton’s voice. “I told you this would happen again.”

“What a lovely couple. Nothing like it. Boobs and a bully, a love match for the ages,” Vinnie says, tossing the toothpick in the trash.

“More like one of mutual convenience.”

“One man’s convenience is another man’s trophy wife.”

I spot a phone on the wall beside a door with a safety glass window embedded with chicken wire. A sign, Locked Facility. No Unauthorized Visitors, is duct taped to the door. Behind which are people who are not free to leave. No matter what you call them—crazies, criminals, traumatized, evil, or plain scared out of their wits—they’re all prisoners in here. But exactly which type Zoe is I need to figure out before they lock her up and throw away the key, or worse.

I grab the phone from its cradle, scroll down the list of extensions taped beside it, and dial Dr. Kesey’s number.

“Doctor, this is Grace Locke.”

Silence.

“Zoe Slim’s attorney. I’d like to see Zoe.”

“Not possible.”

“Why not? I’m her attorney. I have the right as well as a release signed by her parents.”

“Actually, you don’t have any such right. Not here. This is a psychiatric hospital, not a jail. I get to say who sees a patient. And for now, Zoe is in no condition to see anyone, release or no release.”

“Also, I’d like a copy of her chart.”

“All medical records requests have to be made through the Administrative Office on the first floor between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Have a good night,” she says in a monotone and hangs up.

Anger rises up in my chest at the thought of Zoe’s chart sitting on Dr. Kesey’s desk. The girl must be under constant monitoring on a suicide watch. There’s no way the chart has been filed away already. But fighting bureaucracy is futile.

“Maybe if I had listened to her, she wouldn’t have—” I say, pacing around, Miranda Velcroed to my side.

“Let’s go, kid. None of this is your fault,” Vinnie says, shepherding Miranda and me to the elevator. “Don’t go taking the blame for something you didn’t do. It’s enough that we have to take the blame for what we did do.”

Chapter 13

I can’t sleep. Again. And on the rare night when sleep does come, the nightmares return.

I dangle my arm over the side of the futon and stroke Miranda’s fur until the first rays of sunrise worm their way between the missing slats in the blinds, another thing Vinnie keeps forgetting to fix. Unlike me, Miranda’s snoring with the innocent contentment reserved for babies and rescued mutts. Me? I’m resigned to the fact that it’s hopeless to even attempt to sleep at this point.

One minute, I’m a pathetic, bleeding-hearted fool for being taken in by Zoe’s histrionics, the next, it’s my fault for not hearing her out.

Out of habit, I dig my phone out from under the pillow. A new email. At this hour? It’s from someone at sao.gov, the State Attorney’s Office, with an attachment labeled Motion to Revoke Bail.

“What the hell?”

Under Miranda’s Zen-like gaze, I grab a suit off the handlebars of the stationary bike/clothes rack, splashing my face with cold water before attempting to brush my teeth with a hairbrush.

“That jackass Steiner or Steinman or whatever his name is,” I mutter, trying to make out the Assistant State Attorney’s scrawl at the bottom of the motion. “Freakin’ cheap shot, filing a motion to revoke Zoe’s bond exactly four hours before the time of a hearing he must have set up online in the middle of the goddamned night.”

I strap on Oscar. “Technically she’s in violation of Garrison’s house arrest order, but