Table of Contents
PRAISE FOR STATES OF GRACE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
Acknowledgment
About the Author
STATES OF GRACE
Mandy Miller
Literary Wanderlust | Denver, Colorado
PRAISE FOR STATES OF GRACE
“States of Grace is engrossing, unpredictable, and fast-paced. So grab yourself a drink, settle into your easy chair, open the book, and begin. You’re home for the evening. You are about to be carried away to a world more vivid and, in this case, a hell of a lot scarier, than the one you’re living in.”
—John Dufresne, Author of New York Times Notable Books of the Year—Louisiana Power and Light and Love Warps the Mind A Little; Storyville; The Lie That Tells the Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction
"The dialog zings, the plot races, the Florida setting is richly detailed, the characters are 3-D, intriguing and fresh, and the prose is muscular and witty. Oh, yes, then there's Grace, the star, a full-bodied, complicated and fascinating woman. The pages flew by in a happy blur. What more can one ask for in a legal thriller? Even more amazing is that this well-crafted story is a debut novel. Mandy Miller is the real thing, a writer of consequence who I'm certain will have a long and distinguished career."
—James W. Hall, Edgar and Shamus Award Winning Author of the Thorn series
“Miller’s debut, States of Grace, about a weary war veteran and lawyer working her way back to redemption, is a twisting, dark and gritty mystery set in South Florida that takes you on a harrowing ride until its final, shocking ending. You'll love Grace Locke and you’ll love this book.”
—Jamie Freveletti, internationally bestselling and award winning author of the Emma Caldridge series and Robert Ludlum’s The Janus Reprisal and The Geneva Strategy.
"Miller’s States of Grace takes us on a tense and wholly entertaining romp across the Florida landscape of pain clinics, jail innards, and snooty posh schools populated with a mélange of edgy characters from Vinnie, her former mobster landlord to her aptly-named tripod dog Miranda. Watch out, Iraq vet lawyer Grace Locke, a woman beaten but not broken, will win your heart as fast as she wins her court cases."
—Christine Kling author of the Seychelle Sullivan series
A down on her luck former prosecutor, Grace Locke has been given a second chance—as a criminal defense attorney for a young woman who appears a slam dunk for a life sentence for murder. Mandy Miller’s legal thriller, States of Grace, grabs you from the first page and doesn’t let go until the last page. Full of twists and turns, this book sets a new bar for authors in the legal thriller genre. Well done!
—Chris Goff, award-winning author of Red Sky and Dark Waters
States of Grace
States of Grace is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2021 by Mandy Miller
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Published in the United States by Literary Wanderlust LLC, Denver, Colorado.
www.LiteraryWanderlust.com
ISBN Print: 978-1-942856-71-9
ISBN Digital: 978-1-942856-74-0
Cover design: Pozo Mitsuma
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
To the defenders everywhere who keep the faith, and to the prosecutors who thwart the guilty.
Chapter 1
August 2009
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Innocence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. A truly innocent client, one who didn’t do it, that’s the rare, unfortunate soul that will keep you up nights and hijack your brain like a catchy song. And if lady luck forsakes him, that’s the client who will haunt you forever. Innocence is funny that way. Seems like a good thing on the surface, but at its core, it’s a burden.
I don’t have to worry about innocence today, or almost any other day for that matter. Defendants are in the habit of being guilty of something, even if it’s not what they’re charged with—at least that’s what I used to say. Winning’s important but, thankfully, I’m going home a loser today for sure. And right now, that’s all I want—to go home, assuming you can call The Hurricane Hotel a home.
The jury will be back in soon to announce the inevitable— “We find the defendant guilty.” How do I know he’s guilty? Because my client, the accused, the one slumped down in the chair to my right, his bony frame swamped by the funeral-director suit I bought for him at Goodwill, he did it, no questions asked. Told me so himself. Said he beat the crap out of his girlfriend because she smoked his last crack rock. Said the only thing she had the sense not to do was call the cops, at least until some do-gooder counselor convinced her to file a report. But, lucky for him, by that time, the bruises were gone.
“She had it coming, and that bitch counselor at the shelter will get it too, if I ever see her again,” was what he told me in the holding cell this morning. Then, for good measure, as what I can only assume he saw as added incentive for me to do my job, he added, “Grace, you get me out of this hole, and I’ll show you what a real man can do for your bad attitude.”
Willing my face to be as devoid of emotion as his hollow eyes, I told him he wouldn’t have to trouble himself with my happiness or lack thereof, because the moment the jury heard his story, the well-worn yarn about girlfriend falling
