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

to report defeat to his supervisor who will make him feel like a turd for losing with a stacked deck.

On my way out, Anton grabs my arm. “What the hell happened?”

I spy a pack of reporters gathered by the elevators like a kettle of vultures. “What happened is I saved your little darling a trip back to jail, at least for now. Now you have to do something for me.” I motion for the Slims to follow. “Come on. Not here.”

We crowd into the stairwell, my back against the heavy steel door to keep the jackals at bay. “I bought us a little time to figure out who might have wanted Sinclair dead, someone that’s not named Zoe. I need all her medical and psychiatric records now, and by now, I mean yesterday.”

“Ms. Locke, I—” Anton starts.

“Stop,” I say, waving him off. “Copies of everything, and I mean now.”

“This is hard for my wife,” he says, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiping Gretchen’s tears away as if she were a child. “We’ll get her doctors to email you everything right away. Sadly, it’s not a happy tale, but she’s our only child, and—”

“I’m doing everything I can for your daughter. That’s why you hired me, correct?”

“Of course, it is.”

Chapter 16

I stare out the window and groan. “A monsoon. Perfect.”

Miranda hops up beside me by balancing on her one back leg and placing her catcher’s-mitt-sized paws beside my hands on the window sill, her huge head cocked to the side as if to say, “Speak dog, why don’t you?”

Side by side, we stare into the rain blowing on shore in hypnotic waves, the wind whipping the ocean over the sea wall like a relentless taskmaster.

Miranda trails me to my munchkin-sized closet and settles herself on the dog bed Vinnie bought for her, a pseudo couch upholstered in red velvet.

I hold up a black Prada suit.

A low growl.

“You’re right. Too fancy. It’ll look like I don’t need a cent at the mediation.”

Then jeans. “Too casual?”

She looks away, one eye narrowed. “Bad idea. Too scorned, angry wife with no respect for the legal process, only one of which is true.”

Trying to strike a balance, I hang up the suit along with the I-don’t-give-a-damn jeans and opt instead for black pants and a blue button-down. I hold the outfit up in front of me. “What do you think? Faith would say it looks too manly, wouldn’t she?”

She barks once.

“I agree. The perfect choice.”

I slip into the clothes and check myself in the mirror. “Apart from you, Oscar,” I say, patting him, “suburban housewife all the way. Not a trace of Racy Gracie.”

“Give me that!” I grab a high-heeled shoe from Miranda’s slobbery jaws. “Gotta be tall, even if I have to limp a little.”

Experience has taught me that tall, good-looking people get more respect and get more of what they want than short, ugly ones. Fat ones are doomed no matter their height. True? Yes. Unfair? Also, yes. And I do love my heels, one-legged or not. It took some work, but I’ve trained myself to walk on them again since acquiring Oscar.

Miranda settles her head on her paws. “Easy for you to look so calm. You’re not the one who has to air her dirty laundry in front of a complete stranger.” I sit on the futon to put on my shoes. “Not that it matters any more. I’m tired of fighting.”

I stroke her coat. “No more fighting for either of us, okay? Even warriors have to give up the fight some time. The key is knowing when to call it. Manny kept his end of the bargain and I intend to keep mine.”

The Timex I won in a poker game in Iraq says tells me it’s two minutes until the bus arrives. “Gotta run. Well, hobble,” I say. “You stay here. I can’t risk sicking you on Manny if he acts like a douche.” She nuzzles my leg. “See, I knew you didn’t know what I was saying. If you did, you’d be game to ride shotgun.”

I grab a rain jacket and umbrella from the hook behind the door and step outside. The parking lot’s swamped, cars in water halfway up their wheel wells, but Vinnie’s parked at the bottom of the stairs, hand flapping out the driver’s side window.

I fling myself onto the passenger seat. “There’s a special place in heaven for you, Vin. I can’t believe this rain. It’s worse than Ophelia. There’s no way the buses will be running on time.”

“If you believe the weather girl, it’s time to bust out the ark.”

“Thank God we have this old boat then.”

“Hey, lay off my trusty chariot. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

I pat the cracked vinyl dashboard. “Your ride is my knight in shining Detroit armor. I thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”

As Vinnie steers into the flooded street, I sink into the seat and smile. Even in the worst of times, he’s here for me. He may insist he owes me, but in my book, we’re all even or, more likely, I owe him now.

“Thanks, Vin. The drowned rat look isn’t in fashion for divorce mediations these days.”

“How you feeling, kid?”

“Trying not to feel much at all.”

“Probably a good idea.”

“Would you mind looking in on the mutt while I’m out?”

“Would I mind?” The look on his face flips from serious to joyful in one beat. “What do you think?”

“I suspect there was more to getting Miranda than making a beat-up war dog feel better.”

“You calling yourself an old war dog?”

I rub his shoulder. “Thanks.”

Driving in a tropical storm is more akin to navigation. Reservoir-sized puddles. Jagged pieces of sea wall broken off and deposited in the road. Blinding rain and the occasional gust of wind so fierce it rocks your vehicle, even a four-thousand-pound hunk of steel like Carmela.

We sail on, Vinnie laser-focused on the road, me under the metronomic spell of the windshield wipers, escaping into a final dreamy montage of what