States of Grace, Mandy Miller [uplifting novels .txt] 📗

reach a hand under the blanket to stroke the tattoo on my left upper arm. I visualize the multi-colored clapboard houses on stilts surrounded by a shimmering sea, a gilded moon on the horizon, and the coordinates 25.6546 N, 80.1744 W. Stiltsville. My oasis of peace. I got the tattoo before I left for Iraq. Before I was blown up. Before I spent five months in Walter Reed trying to hold on to my leg and regain what was left of my sanity, the former a failure. The latter? The jury’s out on the latter.

“But better days ahead, baby girl. Better days ahead,” Vinnie says.

“How do you figure that? You got a crystal ball?”

He snaps his fingers. “Trust me, the great Vincenzo knows all. Just cos I’m old don’t mean I don’t got a plan.”

I drop my head on his shoulder. “What plan?”

“All in good time. But for now, anything I can do for you?”

I wonder how Manny’s faring. Did the Intracoastal come up over the seawall into the yard like it did during our last hurricane together? The one we spent huddled under the covers, like kids in a pretend fort, telling stupid jokes to keep my mind occupied until the most spectacular dawn broke pink above the horizon as if nothing had happened.

“Would you mind sitting with me for a bit? Until the storm passes.”

“Whatever you need, sweetheart. No one should be alone in a storm.”

Chapter 7

I get off the bus across the street from the headquarters of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, a concrete bunker west of downtown, conveniently located in the backyard of the most drug-infested area in the city. Satellite dishes like praying mantises loom down from the roof, antennae angled in every direction to capture radio communications from forty square miles. Across the street sits the Dixie Court Homes, the city’s largest public housing project. Next door, a fried chicken restaurant which shares space with a check cashing/payday loans store. Much like bank robbers rob banks because that’s where the money is, the city put police HQ here because this is where the criminals are.

Immediately, the soles of my shoes adhere to the blacktop, tacky thanks to the relentless summer heat.

“Shit.”

I high step toward the entrance like a majorette, a cumbersome task given Oscar’s lack of responsiveness. I named the damn thing after Oscar Pistorius, the blade runner turned murderer, in a fit of dark humor. I’d hoped we’d become fast friends. But so far, we’re only reluctant acquaintances, like college roommates with nothing in common, forced upon each other by circumstance. Still, it’s only been six months since the amputation, although it feels longer given the countless hours I’ve spent in physical therapy and endless days and nights with phantom limb pain.

I hesitate outside the entrance. My last visit here was the night Detective Frank Reilly took the wheels off my party wagon for good. I’ll never know for sure, but I’m convinced Reilly set me up as payback, given I was persona non grata for getting Vinnie exonerated. I don’t have any hard evidence that Reilly and his crew were staking me out, waiting for me to get in my car outside the Ragin’ Cajun on Mardi Gras last year. Hell, maybe my luck bucket just ran dry. Or maybe it was a coincidence that they were there. Then again, it’s not coincidence when they’re actually out to get you. Either way, at least I’m alive to carry a grudge.

I check my phone for messages. Maybe a potential new client or two? Would be nice. But no. The only message is from yesterday. The voicemail from Detective Sonny Sorenson that brings me here. I have to say, his message surprised the hell out of me. He said he wanted to talk to me about Zoe Slim’s case, fill me in, whatever that means. We may have once been more than friends, but he’s still a cop, not to mention Reilly’s partner. Maybe he wants to hustle me into a plea deal. Bait me enough to convince me Zoe’s case is a loser and that going to trial would be a career-ending mistake. As if I haven’t already committed one of those. That’s what ASA Locke would have done—“save us all the trouble of a trial.” Maybe not in so many words, but that’ll be Sonny’s message. As if trials are not to be wasted on the guilty. A ludicrous irony, but one grounded in the fact that the criminal justice system would collapse if every defendant insisted on their constitutional right to a jury of their peers.

And then there is the fact that Zoe’s looking mighty guilty given the gun with her prints plastered all over it. So, maybe a plea’s something I should think about.

Maybe the reason Sonny called me down here has nothing to do with the case. An excuse to see me again? That might not be so bad, would it? Shoot. Yes, it would. I can barely take care of myself. The last thing I need is romance.

“I’m here to see Detective Sorenson,” I say into a speaker mounted in the bulletproof glass wall separating the desk officer from the waiting area.

“Got an appointment?” asks the young blonde officer, a twenty-something who, without the stiff navy-blue polyester uniform, would turn a head or two at Mickey’s, the cop bar on Andrews Avenue.

“Yes, I do.”

“Name?” she asks, with the put-upon sigh of someone who believes they deserve better than taking names. I can’t blame her. If I were one of the few women who make it through the academy, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to sit in a window playing receptionist while the boys get to have all the fun out on the streets.

“Locke. Attorney Grace Locke,” I say, the “attorney” part awkward in my mouth.

“Take a seat.”

There are only two other people in the waiting room who, by the pissed-off looks on their faces, seem to have been here a long time. One is