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

in for a hug. “And none of this was your fault. None of it.”

Gretchen sails in, a purse on her arm that cost more than many people make in a year. Fresh out of jail. On bail yes, but fresh as a daisy, as always. I must have missed that lesson in how-to-be-a-good-criminal school. Me, when I got out of jail, I looked like shit and felt worse, unable to look anyone, even Vinnie, in the eye for weeks.

“I can’t thank you enough for saving my daughter,” she says in a tone so breezy it’s as if she’s telling me the weather forecast is for sun, no chance for rain. I’ve resolved to be less judgmental, but she’s not making it easy.

I point them to the newly-upholstered client chairs Jake picked up at a second-hand store for my homecoming, along with a similarly upholstered dog bed for Miranda, who is currently cloistered in the back room for fear she might pee on Gretchen’s leg—she seems to have a sixth sense for people I dislike and growled as soon as her limo pulled up.

As Gretchen sits, her yellow silk dress settles around her like a wave of liquid gold. Her outward appearance is, indeed, perfect, but a charade intended to further cloak the truth in respectability? I suspect I’ll never know. And maybe a charade is all it will take to skate on the charges and back into the high life. Juries have a habit of excusing the well-heeled.

I stand behind Zoe and rest my hands on her shoulders. “My Warrior Princess, Zoya. It’s great to see you out of that hideous jail jumpsuit.”

Zoe giggles. “Orange never has been my color.”

Gretchen runs her hands over her skirt several times. Surely, she can still feel the prickly polyester of the jumpsuit she’s just taken off. It’s a sensation that doesn’t leave you quickly.

“Tell me, how does it feel?”

“How does what feel?” Gretchen says as if she’s read my mind.

“How does it feel to be free was the question, but I was talking to your daughter,” I say with a dismissive wave. “Zoe, how does it feel to be free?”

Gretchen crosses and uncrosses her legs. “My daughter is adjusting well.”

Zoe looks from me to her mother and back again. “Mom, would you mind? I’d like to have a minute alone with Grace.”

Gretchen’s mouth puckers into an O. “Are you sure, honey?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

I sit down beside Zoe, in the chair Gretchen vacated, the memory of her musky perfume hanging in the air. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

“He came to see me before my trial. In the jail. After trial call on Friday.”

“Who came to see you?”

“The cop.”

My heart stops. “Which cop? Detective Reilly—the one who arrested you and came to court for your bail hearing? Big man, furry mustache?”

Zoe shakes her head hard from side to side. “No. Detective Sorenson—the cop who was arrested the day they let me go. I recognized his face on TV that night—he was the one who went to the shooting range with Dad and me. I only ever saw the one with the mustache in court.” She struggles to catch her breath, swallowing her words. “I’m…so sorry! I couldn’t…remember…what he looked like…when I said I handled Dad’s guns. I was all…all doped up.”

I grab her hands. “It’s okay. Take a deep breath and tell me what Detective Sorenson said when he came to see you in the jail.”

“He said if I testified I was with Joe when Mr. Sinclair was murdered, he would kill my mom and dad and feed them to the sharks.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I should have told you the truth right away about being with Joe. Maybe none of this—”

“We’ve been over this already. None of what happened is your fault.”

“I’m so stupid! I didn’t want Dad to get in trouble. Can you believe that? They’re the only family I’ve ever had. Mom’s always lecturing me about drugs. And then it turns out she owns pill mills!” She starts to sob. “I just thought…that you’d be able to prove I didn’t do it at my trial. But it almost got you killed. I’m very, very sorry.”

Her naive trust in me, in the truth, in the system, takes my breath away.

“There’s something I have to tell you, Zoe.”

“What?”

“Detective Sorenson threatened Joe, like he threatened you.”

“What? Is he okay?”

She reads my silence for what it is—affirmation that Joe is not okay.

She doubles over, clutching her stomach. “What happened to him?”

“He was found out in the Everglades. He’d been beaten to death.”

“Nooooo!” she screams, pounding her fists on her thighs. “He died because of me. They all died because of me!”

I sit on the desk facing her. “He died because of Detective Sorensen. Things seem black now, I understand. But trust me, in time, they’ll get better.”

“How? How will they get better?”

“Look at me Zoe,” I say, and add the only thing I can think of to comfort her, something that should be true, but I can’t be sure. “You have your mom, Zoe. Your mom loves you.”

She gets up and walks to the window. “Maybe,” she says, staring at the idling limo.

“Can I ask you one more thing?”

Her shoulders sag. “What?”

“Did you really want to kill yourself?”

She answers without hesitation, her voice firm. “No. I would never do that.”

I bite back my own tears and join her at the window. “So, what now?”

Zoe shrugs. “Move on, I guess. Or, at least, try to.”

“It’s all any of us can do.”

A noncommittal nod. “I’m going into residential treatment, to get things straightened out in my head.”

“Good plan.”

“I’m going to finish high school there as a correspondence student from St. Paul’s.”

“Very good plan.”

“Then, I’m going to go to college.” A smile nudges its way onto her tear-stained face. “And, who knows? Maybe, one day, to law school.”

I raised a clench fist. “Now, that’s a stellar plan. You are Zoya, remember, and—”

“And I am stronger than I think!”

Gretchen rushes through the door and Zoe