Extreme Justice: A Ben Kincaid Novel of Suspense

Chapter 52

THREE WEEKS AFTER he was discharged from the hospital, Ben made his way back to Jones and Loving’s offices. He still didn’t move with quite the bounce he once had; a broken rib was knitting and his head hurt whenever he moved too much or too fast. But all things considered, he was recovering quite well. Of course, all things considered, it was a miracle he was alive.

He rode the elevator to the seventh floor. He had left many of his belongings there while he was working on Earl’s case, and he didn’t want to abuse his friends’ generosity by trashing up their office space.

He crossed the corridor and headed for their office. He pushed himself through the double doors and …

“Surprise!”

The place was decorated in a cross between Mardi Gras and a nine-year-old’s birthday party. The lobby was festooned with crepe paper and brightly colored balloons. Streamers trailed down from the ceiling and across the walls. Christina and Jones and Loving and Paula all stood in a row blowing noisemakers and those party favors that stick out their tongue when you blow into them.

“Welcome home!” they shouted.

Ben stared at them, stunned. “Well … thank you, but you know, I just came to—”

“Let me show you your office.” Christina wrapped her arm around his and escorted him down the hallway. The others trailed behind.

“We gave you the largest office in the suite,” Christina explained. They swerved into the dark room and she flipped on the light. A fully furnished, fully equipped office sprang to life.

“See? It’s just like your old office. Well, except that the furniture is nicer. And the carpet is nicer. And the phone is nicer. Actually, everything is nicer. But other than that, it’s just the same.”

Ben’s eyes floated across the room, drinking it all in. It did have a pleasant look to it. A good feel. He could be comfortable here. Of course, Christina would know that. She would know how to decorate to his taste, just as she somehow knew he was coming to the office this morning.

“There’s more,” she said, shoving him back into the corridor.

“Right,” Jones said. He dropped Paula’s hand and skittered back to his desk, returning seconds later. “This is for you.”

What he held out to Ben was a snazzy brown leather briefcase with a bright red ribbon tied around the handles.

Ben took the gift from him, lightly brushing his hands over the smooth brown surface. “You shouldn’t have,” he said quietly.

“ ’Course we should, Skipper,” Loving said, piping in. “You can’t be a lawyer without a briefcase. I think that’s in the code of ethics or somethin’, ain’t it?”

Ben held the briefcase close to him and smiled.

Paula cut in. “Have you people forgotten this man was injured? Get him a chair.” Jones and Loving raced to be the one to do it. “How do you feel, anyway?”

As he took the proffered chair, Ben let his eyes wander all around, to the spanking new office, the new briefcase, and best of all, the beaming faces of his coworkers. His friends.

“I feel …” He paused, drawing in his breath. “I feel like I’ve come home.”

That evening, when Ben returned to his apartment, he found Christina sitting on the sofa and writing on a scrap of newspaper.

“There you are,” she said. “What took you?”

“I’ve been downstairs. What are you doing here?”

“I’m taking over your apartment by adverse possession ab initio.”

Ben sighed. More legal Latin. “Christina—”

“I thought now that I know all this Latin, you’d think I was more sophisticated.”

“Christina, you don’t have to switch from French to Latin for me. You don’t have to change anything for me. I like you just fine the way you are.”

Christina sat bolt upright. “You do?”

Ben turned away from the penetrating gaze. “Uh … what are you doing?”

“Well, I saw that you were stuck on your crossword, so I finished it for you.”

“I was not stuck,” he said, bristling. “I was pacing myself.”

“Ben, this puzzle is a week old.”

“Is there a rush?”

Christina set down the paper. “So … did you see Mrs. Marmelstein?”

Ben nodded.

“I suppose you told her about the nursing home.”

“I’ve worked out a schedule,” he said. He plopped a sheet of paper down on the coffee table. “Joni and Jami and their mother all said they would help. With four of us, and you pitching in for emergencies, we can manage to have someone looking after Mrs. Marmelstein all the time.”

“You mean—”

“That way, she can stay right here, where she wants to be.”

“But your tour—”

“There’ll be other tours. Besides, I need to focus on my law practice. Now that I have a spiffy office, it’d be nice to have a few clients to go with it.”

Christina raised a hand to her mouth. “Mrs. Marmelstein must’ve been … very happy when you told her.”

“Well … yeah. I think she was, actually.” He grinned. “Surprised?”

“That you did the right thing? No. I knew you would.”

“And how, may I ask, did you know?”

She pressed forward on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “Because that’s who you are.”

About a week later, after Ben finished up at work, he hopped into his van and drove toward St. John’s. It had been a great day at the office—new clients, new cases, new challenges. Somehow it all seemed fresh again; he was recapturing the pleasure of practicing law.

Why had he ever quit? he wondered. What was it about life that made people want to be something other than what they were? Sure, some changes were improvements: Tyrone leaving the gang, Christina going to law school. But some changes weren’t; some were just people hiding from themselves. Professor Hoodoo, trying to bury himself in his brother’s life. Jones trying to create a false cyber-persona that almost chased Paula away. And Ben—running away from the thing he did best.

He was just lucky he’d managed to get himself straightened out. Lucky he had people who cared.

Which was why he was making this little trip. He passed through the electric doors outside St. John’s with a jumbo box of chocolates and a bouquet of roses tucked under his arm.

The nurse on duty recognized him as he approached the receiving station. “Mr. Kincaid. Good to see you again. How are you feeling?”

“Fit as a fiddle, thank you.”

“I can’t tell you how nice that is to hear. When they first brought you in here, well, I didn’t hold out much hope. But look at you now!”

“Well, I’ve been very lucky.”

The nurse nodded. Her eyes diverted to his goodies. “Got a girlfriend here?”

Ben laughed. “No, no. Actually, these are for a nurse. When I was here before—when I was in the coma—well—” He swallowed, started again. “There was one nurse who was very special to me. Some of the things she said—really helped. Meant a lot to me. So I just wanted to give her a little something.”

“That’s very kind of you. Who was it?”

“Well, I was hoping you could help me find out. Her name was Nurse Tucker. She told me to call her Angela.”

The nurse blinked. “Angela?”

“Right. She had a soft voice, very soothing.”

“Angela Tucker? There’s no one by that name on this floor.”

Ben’s lips parted. “Perhaps—perhaps she came from another floor.”

The nurse shook her head. “Not without my knowing about it. What did she look like?”

“Well, I never actually saw her.” He frowned. “Perhaps she used a different name—”

“What, a nurse with a pseudonym?”

“Perhaps it was a nickname. Perhaps—”

“Mr. Kincaid, I’ve been working here for eighteen years. I’ve seen the personnel records on every nurse in this hospital. Believe me—there’s no Angela and no Nurse Tucker, much less an Angela Tucker.”

“But—” Without even thinking about it, Ben’s hand went to Christina’s Saint Christopher’s medal, still dangling from his neck. The beacon.

“Then—I—” He stumbled, not knowing what to say. “Th-thank you,” he said finally. He dropped the candy and flowers on the counter. “Here. Give these to … I don’t know. Someone who needs them.”

He turned and shuffled back down the corridor, a million questions racing through his mind. How? and who? and most of all why? He continued his contemplation on the drive home, for the shank of the evening, and into the dark of the night until finally, by the time he lay his head on his pillow and surrendered to sleep, he thought that, at last, perhaps, he understood the meaning of jazz.