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

speak ill of the dead, but the pair of them got what they deserved.”

“Not like that’s not enough, but is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“That’s everything I know. And now you know it too.”

“That’s more than enough. You’re very brave,” I say, handing him his bag. “And I’m sorry about what I said about your being a coward. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

He holds out his hand to shake mine. “No worries. It’s your job to do whatever it takes to save Zoe.” He strides away, seemingly without a care in the world.

***

Vinnie’s fully reclined in the driver’s seat, window open, humming some show tune I can’t quite put a name to. I bang on the windshield.

“Mother of God, sweetheart! You about gave me a heart attack.”

I get in and pinch his cheek. “You’re too young to die.”

He cranks the engine. “Everything go okay with the kid?”

“Roger that. Good news is Zoe didn’t murder Sinclair.”

“And the bad?”

“Sonny’s involved.”

“The pretty cop who used to come sniffing around The Hurricane looking for you?”

“One and the same.”

Joe’s Land Rover pulls out of the parking lot followed by a black Corvette.

My phone rings.

“Grace, I need to see you.”

“Why?”

“Better we talk in person.”

“I’ll come by your office tomorrow after court, maybe around—”

“No! It has to be tonight.”

I mouth “Manny” to Vinnie who motions for me to hang up.

“Okay. I’m on the way home and going for a run. If you want to come over after that, it’s up to you, but it’ll be late. Around ten.”

“See you then.”

Chapter 32

I gulp some water from the fountain outside the public restrooms at the South Beach parking lot, the halfway point on my run. This is the South Beach in Fort Lauderdale, not the one in Miami where movie stars and hangers-on go to stand in line outside the hottest clubs for the honor of paying a thousand bucks for a bottle of booze that costs twenty-five at Royal Liquors.

For the first time in weeks, I’m not carrying around a refrigerator on my back, nor is my stomach in knots. And to celebrate, I’m taking my longest run since the amputation—six miles. Zoe will go free and, as for the rest of it—how Sonny’s involved, how everything connects to drug dealing and the pill mills—I have no idea. My job is done. And well, if I say so myself.

I lean against the wall to stretch out my hamstrings.

Without warning, he’s on me, forcing my back against the fountain, the steel basin frigid against the backs of my thighs.

It’s as if he’s just stepped straight out of my mind onto the sidewalk.

“Jesus, Sonny! What the—”

“Don’t think for one minute I’m gonna let you ruin me and everything I’ve worked for,” he says, leaning his bulk against me, the piercing blue of his eyes tinged with yellow from the light above the fountain.

He rips off the armband holding my phone and crushes it under his shoe. “You’re not gonna need this, because you are never going to need to talk to anyone again. Especially not Joe Harper.”

I scan the parking lot for help. Empty. Not one car, not even the homeless guy on a beach cruiser who usually hangs around after the evening AA meeting on the beach to knock back a few in peace. The lot closes at 8 p.m. and it has to be at least 9:30, maybe later.

“See, like you, Grace, I’m meticulous about every last detail. After I warned Harper that it would be in his best interest not to blab to anyone, especially you, we sent Alexi to follow him, as an insurance policy, to make sure he kept his mouth shut until the trial was over. Turns out that was a good idea. You remember Alexi, don’t you? The rather large man with Serena at FCP?”

And the Sinclair home. And his black Corvette. But who is “we”?

“Alexi saw him talking to you. Had to shut his mouth forever.”

A sour taste invades my mouth. “He was just a boy, for God’s sake.” I manage to scratch his cheek, hard enough to draw blood.

He grabs both my wrists and forces them above my head with one of his hands and jams a gun against my temple with the other. “A boy who could have taken me down. Just like you.”

I open my mouth, but he smashes me in the face with the barrel of the gun. “Scream and I’ll kill you right here and feed you to the sharks. Move!”

He shoves me into his ancient Jeep Cherokee, face down on the back seat which smells like a used jockstrap, and cuffs my wrists and ankles with plastic zip ties. “Don’t move an inch, and don’t say a goddamned word.”

“Let go of me!”

“I told you to shut up!” He punches me in the kidneys. I bite my tongue to keep from crying out from the savage pain.

He jumps in and cranks the ignition. As he turns the car south on A1A, he opens the window, slaps an emergency light on the roof, and guns the engine.

I can’t see a thing beyond the interior bathed in the strobing blue light. But I don’t need to see to know where we are. We’re passing the Bahia Mar Marina, the fire station, and the Yankee Clipper, the iconic beach hotel where my father and I watched mermaids swimming in a huge tank behind the bar as patrons sipped slushy piña coladas.

I’m able to raise my face off the floor. “Tampering with a witness, not to mention threatening to kill him, that could really sink a cop’s career.”

“Hah! No one’s ever going to know.”

When he takes the curve onto 17th Street too fast, I roll off the seat onto the floor. “You’re scum, Sonny,” I say, but my words are swamped by the tires screeching as he pulls a fast right at the Pier Sixty-Six Hotel and brakes hard to a stop.

I bite back the searing pain long enough to arch my back