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

“That makes two of us, Counselor.” He flaps his hand at me again. “And get yourself back behind the damn post, why don’t ya? He’s gonna be here any second.”

“Roger that.”

“Piece of shit,” he mumbles, lighting a cigarette to wait for Sonny. Just like he does before every trial day. Except today isn’t any other day. Today they won’t be comparing notes, getting their stories straight. Today he’ll slap the cuffs on his own partner, the one who betrayed his trust. And mine.

My nerves are on high alert, not only because of what’s about to happen, but because I’ve had no sleep. It was a long day yesterday at the hospital, telling and retelling my story. And Reilly persuading the brass to let him be the one to take Sonny into custody, even pissing off a judge in the wee hours to sign arrest warrants for him and the Slims. We decided to take everyone down at the one place they’d be for sure today—the courthouse. They have to act as if everything were normal.

Reilly crosses himself at the sickly rumble of the engine of Sonny’s Jeep.

Sonny pulls into the space beside Reilly’s car. The moment his feet touch the ground, a SWAT team swarms in from all directions, weapons drawn. The only words Sonny gets out of his mouth are a strangled “What the fuck,” right before they force him onto his belly.

“Soren Sorenson, a.k.a. Sonny Sorenson, I have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of Brandon Sinclair, the attempted murder of Grace Locke, accessory after the fact in the murder of Serena Price, and witness tampering,” Reilly says, standing astride Sonny and cuffing his hands behind his back.

A sense of redemption floods my body as Sonny strains against the cuffs, rolling side to side like a roped calf. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Frank,” he hisses, head ratcheted to the side, eyes wide, looking around as if he expects someone to say there’s been a terrible mistake.

After two SWAT officers the size of mountains manhandle the flailing Sonny to his feet, Reilly gets in his face. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law.”

“Fuck you, Frank.”

“You have the right to an attorney. And guess what? As luck would have it, we have one right here for you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?

“You can come out now, Counselor.”

The moment I step from the shadows, Sonny’s face turns whiter than the purest cocaine.

“Bet you didn’t expect to see me here, Detective,” I say, crutching toward him, my stump purposefully in full view under the hem of my skirt. “That’s right, Detective, you have the right to remain silent, but that won’t help you. We’ve got you…What is it you said about Zoe? ‘Dead to rights,’ wasn’t that it?”

As Reilly continues to read the Miranda warnings, Sonny’s nostrils flare in and out like the fire-breathing dragons in comic books.

I stand back, content to watch, the sweet sense that justice is being done, an absolution of sorts. “I think we’re all even now, Frank.”

“Seems as if we are,” Reilly says, shoving Sonny into the back of a waiting police cruiser, using the same motion he had used on me.

***

Inside Twietmeyer’s courtroom, cameras click and clack like demented chickens. Reporters from every major local, national, and cable news outlet are here, expecting to witness the trial of Zoe Slim, a twice-accused murderer with a prep-school pedigree.

Reilly’s in the last row of the gallery, head held high. I guarantee he’s licking his chops. I know I am. He’s seated shoulder to shoulder with Detective Chang, Reilly’s partner for the day, given his current one is indisposed. Reilly pats his jacket pocket, inside which is the warrant for the arrest of Anton Slim for murder, conspiracy to commit murder, money laundering, and a host of other charges related to the pill mills, some of which will stick, some might not. Regardless, like Sonny, the last thing Slim will see is a needle going into his vein, much like the one Sonny stuck in my arm, the injection a cocktail of the type of drugs Slim peddled.

There had been a few moments, or, more accurately, more than a few, after my abduction when the gauzy euphoria wore off that I thought, No one would be any the wiser, would they? I could take the pain meds the docs in the hospital offered to prescribe for my injuries as readily as the quacks at FCP, They look so innocuous, those little pills, like candy the color of the waters swirling around Stiltsville.

But then Manny saw that gleam in my eye, the one he’d learned to detect over time, but not soon enough to save us. The one, he says, that turns my face from an open book into a stone fortress.

And when I saw that look in his eyes, the soul-crushing disappointment that what should have been for us would never be because of me, I asked for a double dose of Tylenol instead.

***

The second arrest warrant is in Chang’s pocket. For Gretchen. It charges her with accessory after the fact in the murders of Sinclair and Serena, and money laundering. A stretch? Perhaps. It comes down to what she knew and when. She can bat her eyelashes all she wants, but the evidence will get her in the end, too. It always does. Unless of course, she gets a persuasive defense lawyer with a talent for conjuring up reasonable doubt, a thought which raises goosebumps on my forearms.

Two deputies lead Zoe in, hands cuffed in front and attached to a waist chain connected to leg irons. She’s wearing street clothes instead of a prison jumpsuit, but the baggy blue cotton skirt and wrinkled white blouse make her look more like an escapee from Goodwill than the daughter of a multimillionaire. Like a shriveled weed, she wilts onto the chair beside me. She