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

had Sinclair been able to escape charges twice? If he was dealing dope, maybe something he said or did got him killed—like flipping? But for two agencies? Nobody gets that lucky. Sonny’s a by-the-book cop, and Marcus Jackson is a true believer in making people pay for their mistakes and pay even more for their bad decisions. They wouldn’t let Sinclair walk for no reason.

And then there’s Reilly. He’s one who would trample the truth for a conviction in a high-profile case like Zoe’s, but he wasn’t Sonny’s partner back when Sinclair was arrested. He was fighting his own battles, trying to stay out of prison for lying about Vinnie.

And the damn gun. Could someone have planted it? But how? And why?

After endless arranging and rearranging of the chess pieces, I’m still stumped. No way Twietmeyer will give me more time to investigate. Not unless I have a damn good excuse. But where can I find one of those?

Marcus made it clear—he’s said all he’s going to say.

Fortunately, however, I still remember Sonny’s number by heart.

Chapter 26

I leave Miranda with her godfather, Vinnie, and walk the mile to Primanti’s Pizzeria.

I choose a sidewalk table and watch as a woman in a spangly mini dress lets herself be pulled into the embrace of a twenty-something man wearing a half-tucked shirt and the kind of spark for a smile that says he’s sure he’ll get lucky later. No doubt he looks better to her now than he will in the vicious light of day, but she doesn’t care. Now is now and tomorrow, well, tomorrow is not now.

A jolt of jealousy courses through me. Was I ever so carefree? So sure that no matter what dubious choices I made, no matter how many times I tempted fate, everything would be fine? Truth is, I was, and it nearly killed me.

At the thought junction of “I am sure I never was so carefree,” and “I wish I were now,” a “Hey, pretty lady,” brings me back to why I’m here.

Sonny.

He rests both palms on the table and leans in. “Sorry I couldn’t get off earlier. Total nightmare shift. One dead guy and two home invasions.”

“That’s what I call job security.”

“And since when do you look on the bright side?”

I grab a grease-stained trifold menu from under the shaker of hot peppers and hand it to him along with a twenty. “I’m buying.”

“You know I can’t be taking gifts.” He hands back the cash. “But there’s no rule against me buying you a slice.”

“Veggie, please.”

He wrinkles his nose.

“Can I assume the usual sausage for you?” I say. “You’re nothing if not a creature of habit, Sonny.”

“Much like you’re nothing if not a smart ass.”

“Ha ha. You do know how they make sausage, don’t you?”

“Jesus, all that clean living’s turning you into the food police.”

Pizza in hand, we cross to the beach and sit on the sea wall, the ocean furling out before us, a black silk sheet embroidered with dancing white lace.

“Nice night,” I say to stall, while I figure out how to ask for his help. He doesn’t owe me anything, except maybe a tongue lashing for how I treated him. But he’s too nice for that.

“You didn’t ask me here to talk about the weather, Grace,” he says between bites.

I wipe my mouth with a crinkly paper napkin. “Am I that transparent? I must have lost my touch.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

After inhaling a few more bites, he stops chewing. “I heard what happened at the bail hearing. You got ambushed. The ASA didn’t need to pile on about the gun.”

“Forget it. And come on. It’s a freakin’ smoking gun! I’d have done the same thing in Hightower’s shoes. But…” I bat my eyelids.

“But, what? I should have known there was a catch to meeting you.”

“But maybe you could do me a teeny-weeny favor.”

He gives me an I-told-you-so grin.

“I get it. You guys believe you got the right person, but if you would clear one thing up for me?”

“Believe? We know we got the right person, and I gave you everything we have, early even, before you had a right to it.”

“But not everything.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning Sinclair. You arrested him some time back.”

Sonny stops chewing. “What does that have to do with anything? The guy’s six feet under, his record’s irrelevant. He’s the victim here.”

“Thing is, Sinclair didn’t have a record, so I was hoping you could tell me why. Cops like you don’t ditch a solid case unless your fingernails are being pulled out one by one.”

“Cops like me? What does that mean?”

“By-the-book cops. Cops who want more than anything to put bad guys away, but not if it means breaking the rules.”

“You think my job is to do yours now, too? I want that client of yours behind bars where she belongs, no matter how much you flatter me. You’re killing me here, Grace.”

I raise my hands in surrender. “Look, I don’t want to miss anything. That’s all.”

Sonny nods as he chews. “We all have jobs to do. That’s what makes the system work.”

“Yeah, as if it does.”

“Shoe on the other foot now, is it?”

I slap myself on the side of the head. “If I hear that one more time I’m going to scream.”

“Settle down. You chose to do what you’re doing.”

I look away, his eyes following mine to a couple, hand in hand, strolling along the breakwater, the tide licking at their bare feet. “I need this case, Sonny. If I do a good job and lose in the end, I’m good with that. But I need to turn over every stone, which is how I ended up getting the arrest report for Sinclair. Your report.”

“Where’d you get— Never mind.”

“Sinclair tried to sell you Oxy at FCP.”

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Police business is just that, police business. Not Counselor Locke’s business.”

“Come on, what I found is public record. Or was. Until it somehow disappeared.”

He glances over his shoulder.

“Are you that afraid of Reilly?