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

I feel lightheaded.

“Ms. Locke? What do you think?”

Each time I open my mouth speak, the words stick in my throat, the vocabulary of conciliation not my strongest suit. “It’s…the terms are…more than acceptable.”

Bucknell pushes some papers across the table. “That’s wonderful, dear. I’ll ask Ms. Knight to prepare the final divorce decree based on Mr. Martinez’s offer. If you could please sign these copies of the offer already signed by Mr. Martinez, one for each of you, that would be good. The divorce will be final one week from today.”

Signed paperwork in hand, Bucknell sprints from the room, leaving me staring at Manny’s signature on my copy, a signature I’ve seen so many times alongside my own, on mortgages, loans, checks. It looks alien to me now, like a commonplace word that appears to be misspelled.

***

I find Manny staring out a window by the elevator bank.

“Grace,” he says, the sharp edges of his features softened by the fading light of day. He holds out a single key, strung on a red ribbon. “I hope you’ll find happiness.”

I stand mute, searching his face for any vestige of anger or regret, but all I see is peace, a peace of which I am envious.

He takes my hand and sets the key in my palm. “It needs some work, but it’s all yours.”

“I don’t get it,” I say, a quaver in my voice.

“Don’t get what?”

I turn away to look out the window, over the city, a steel-and-glass skyline of towers filled with dreamers and hustlers, all looking for their piece of the American dream. Just like we had been. “Why are you caving?”

“It’s not caving. Marital property rules are rules. No sense arguing for the sake of it. It’s time, time for both of us to forgive and move on.”

I curl my fingers around the key, the steel cold in my sweaty palm. My father loved to say, “Nostalgia is a seductive liar” as justification for leaving the past behind, for not gilding memories made fond only by the healing passage of time. I’m quick to heap scorn on people who indulge their regrets, wish for the roads not taken, loves not found, who think the good old days were always brighter, instead of getting on with the now. Is my sudden reticence to walk away simply that? Nostalgia?

Or maybe I am getting soft.

I pocket the key.

“You might not believe it, Gracie, but I want the best for you. We’re just not the best for each other, anymore.”

When the elevator arrives, he steps aside for me to get in.

“Thanks, I’ll take the next one.”

He leans his back against the doors. “For what it’s worth, you’re doing a great job on Zoe’s case.”

I feel my chin tremble. “I’m putting up a fight. It’s all I can do.”

“Take care of yourself, Ms. Locke.”

“You too, Mr. Martinez.”

He points outside. “And stay out of the storm. I know how you hate thunder and lightning.”

“And change,” I mumble, as the doors slide together, the words painful given the lump in my throat.

A hand on my shoulder. “Ms. Locke, how unusual to see you here, back in my neck of the woods.”

Hackles spike on the back of my neck and I wheel around, fists balled, hyper-aware of being unarmed.

“Whoa, there!” A man’s voice, one I know all too well.

I blink hard and find myself staring into the face of Robert Britt, my former boss and the State’s Attorney, the guy who had my possessions dropped on our doorstep with a letter of termination taped to the box mere minutes after my mug shot hit the news.

“Jesus, you scared the crap out of me!”

“I come in peace,” Britt says, hands up.

He may be skinny, bald, and as pale as a sheet, a seemingly benign force, but Britt’s a two-headed snake. He tolerated me when I was a winner, a foot soldier in his war against crime—his bread-and-butter platform come election time. He was the one who nicknamed me “Locked and Loaded,” but he never much appreciated what he called my “gunslinger” ways of prosecuting cases. He hired me because, like him, I went to Ivy League schools, but what he got was a law-and-order zealot with a bum leg and the use of dubious judgment in her personal life.

I pick up my briefcase and walk away, the potential for an altercation a risk I cannot afford.

“You’re one lucky lawyer, Grace.”

I freeze.

“Getting hired on the Slim case, I mean.”

I resist the urge to turn around.

“That’s the kind of case you would have been champing at the bit to handle back when you were working for me. A high-profile murder. Funny thing, isn’t it? You must have pulled a few strings to get on that gravy train.” He clucks his tongue. He’s closer now, right behind me. “Bet there’s one helluva good story there. The register of his voice drops, his tone conspiratorial. “One you surely don’t want getting out, would you?”

I hammer down on the emergency bar and step into the stairwell, acid rushing up my gullet from my churning gut. After the door slams, I grab onto the handrail to steady myself.

It was Reilly taught me you’re not paranoid if they actually are out to get you.

Chapter 17

The bus driver is straight out of central casting for a zombie apocalypse flick. A razor-edged beak for a nose. Black stringy hair. A reflection of the windshield wipers slapping back and forth in his glassy stare. He turns on the radio and the Bob Marley classic “I Shot the Sheriff” comes on. I chomp hard on my gum when it gets to the part about a capital offense.

The air conditioning’s on full blast which, given the ambient air temperature outside of ninety-five degrees and ninety percent humidity, has fogged up the windows. I clear a porthole with my sleeve and survey the aftermath of the deluge. A few diligent homeowners are sweeping detritus from the patios of their beach-front mansions. Palm fronds, coconuts, empty beer cans, mangled