Sometimes Kalinda thinks she can smell Diane Lockhart. She doesn't know how else to explain it. Minutes or hours could have passed—this hospital tunnels and distorts time in inexplicable ways—but Kalinda knows that Diane has entered the building a full five minutes before she comes into Alicia's room, a sleek camel-hair coat falling smoothly over her hips. She stops in the doorway, taking in the scene. Kalinda shakes Alicia's good arm gently, and Alicia starts.
"I'm sorry I couldn't make it earlier," Diane says, her voice like brandy in the air.
"I understand," Alicia says.
"You're looking … well, I won't say well," says Diane. "But—how are you feeling?"
Alicia purses her lips, and Diane nods. She sits briskly in the chair beside Alicia's left foot.
"Kalinda," she says, "could you give us a moment?"
Kalinda nods and has already half-risen from her chair when Alicia says, "Kalinda can stay."
Both Diane and Kalinda stare at her. Alicia continues, "There are things we might … need her for."
"All right," says Diane. Kalinda doesn't think she wants to be here for this, but as usual, she's out of choices. She sits back down and crosses her legs, slides an orange notebook from the pocket of her jacket. It's a case. It's just a case.
"I understand, Alicia," Diane says, "why you've waited. But it is important for the police to have a statement. At this point, your memory is really the only possible lead."
"I know," says Alicia. "But the situation is … complicated. For myself and for the firm. I was shot by one of our clients."
Diane seems to falter for a moment. "You're sure?"
"Yes."
"And may I ask?"
"Nick Savarese. The tow-truck bid."
Diane opens her mouth, but Alicia continues, as if she's been practicing this speech in her head for hours. Which, when Kalinda considers it, seems likely. The words rattle out of her, more words than Kalinda has heard from her since before the bullets. "A few days before all this happened, I had made the decision to drop Mr. Savarese as a client, as he no longer seemed likely to bring profit to the firm. At that point he made a veiled threat—veiled enough," she says, off Diane's look, "that I was unsure of whether to take it seriously. But it was in that—that vein that when he called on Monday and said he had a bomb in the parking garage across State Street, I felt compelled to take him seriously."
A bomb doesn't even make any sense, Kalinda thinks, reeling with confusion. Alicia would have warned someone about a threat of that scale, would have figured out how to handle it with courage and discretion; surely Diane knows this about her. But Alicia's continuing the story, and Kalinda turns her attention back to her.
"So I left the office," she says, speaking a little more slowly now. "My assistant was made aware that I was leaving, but I didn't speak to anyone else. I left our building and went across State. When I arrived in the parking garage …" Alicia wets her lips. Kalinda doesn't think she should take Alicia's hand, not in front of Diane, but then she's not sure why she's here at all, why Alicia is making her listen to this. She settles for running her fingers along the mattress near Alicia's arm. "Mr. Savarese had instructed me to come … down to the third level. I followed his instructions and I expected to see … The—the only person there was Mr. Savarese himself, holding a handgun. He said—" Alicia's voice is faltering. "He said—"
"It's all right, Alicia."
Diane's voice, as always, stills the room. Through the glass in the door, Kalinda sees an orderly pass with a cart of dinner trays. As always, he skips Alicia's room.
"You're certain it was Nick Savarese—in the garage as well as on the phone? You got a good look at his face?"
"I—yes. I did."
"Alicia, we—well, I should say, Cary—received a call from the police in Michigan several hours ago. Nick Savarese was found stabbed to death in Detroit this morning. They found our cards—yours, Cary's, the firm's—in one of his pockets."
Even the humming and beeping seem to still in Kalinda's ears.
Alicia finds her voice. "Well, that's …" She doesn't seem to know how to end the sentence. "Oddly," she says, "I don't think Peter will be happy."
Diane nods. "Do you think Mr. Savarese acted alone, Alicia?"
"I do."
Kalinda's dizzy, and she thinks she sways a little on her chair. Both women notice. Alicia speaks first.
"Kalinda," she says. "I think I'm going to need a little … more of the pain medication. Would you mind getting one of the nurses for me?"
"Yeah," murmurs Kalinda, "yeah, of course." She slides by Diane and out the door, grateful beyond words. She's a little unsteady on her feet, but right now the last thing she wants is to stop walking. Her boots echo on the linoleum.
She circles the sixth floor, passing nurses, her hands in her pockets and her elbows swiveled out.
So he did leave. He went to Detroit, maybe went to the locker (she'd been careful about prints, she was pretty sure), was ready to take the ferry. And someone—maybe Bill, maybe one of a thousand other enemies or rivals—found him or figured it out.
She's not sorry, but when she blinks all she can see is his body curled in on itself, his blood pooling on the tiles in a public restroom, soaking the seams of his leather jacket, his mouth crooked and open, blood on his teeth.
She must circumnavigate the floor a dozen times, feeling trapped and unsteady. When the nurses at the front desk start to look at her with concern, she finds herself back at Alicia's door just as Diane is slipping out of it. Kalinda nods at her and tries to smile.
"Kalinda," Diane says.
"Yeah?"
"We need you back."
Kalinda nods.
"Good. I'll see you on Monday." Diane smiles—a little tightly, Kalinda thinks—and continues briskly down the hall.
A nurse Kalinda doesn't recognize gives her a warning look as she opens the door to Alicia's room. Visiting hours are probably ending. Usually no one bothers Kalinda about this, they've gotten used to her and she has the State's Attorney's tacit approval, but probably this woman has been on vacation or something.
Kalinda ignores her, shuts the door, and sits down beside a glassy-eyed Alicia. Again the room is silent, still. There's something frightening about looking at Alicia's face, so Kalinda doesn't do it.
"Tell me you didn't," Alicia says.
"I didn't."
"Promise me."
"I only lied to you once, Alicia."
Both of them wince and look down.
"You only went home?" Alicia says after a moment.
"Yeah."
"Can anyone confirm you were there?"
"At my building? Probably. I don't know. I don't remember. Not at my apartment. I think the parking level has a security camera. I'll find out." Too many words, Kalinda chides herself. "It'll be all right, Alicia. No one knows about him—I mean, about him and me—except for you."
"And people in your building." Kalinda has never told Alicia the ways that Nick was in her home, but she doesn't question how Alicia knows it. That was always what scared Kalinda about their friendship, how little she had to say for Alicia to understand.
"Nobody notices. It's fine. I'm fine."
"You're not," Alicia says.
"I have to go back to work on Monday."
"Diane?"
"Yeah."
"They need you."
"They need you, too. Cary's picking up your whole caseload."
"Even Evelyn Harmond? Poor Cary." Evelyn Harmond, Kalinda recalls, is an extraordinarily wealthy woman in her mid-sixties who's suing her late brother's widow over a disputed portion of the inheritance. "Make sure you help him out."
"I will."
"It's all right," says Alicia.
"What?"
"If you're mourning him."
Kalinda stands up and walks to the window.
"He was your husband, Kalinda," Alicia says softly behind her. "I do understand."
"Do you feel better?" Kalinda says, staring at the dull concrete buildings and her own and Alicia's spectral reflections.
"What?"
"Knowing he's dead. Do you feel better?"
Alicia's reflection opens and closes its mouth, thinking for a minute. "I think I do. Is that all right?"
"Of course it's all right, Alicia!"
Even Kalinda can hear the pain in her own voice. She closes her eyes. Behind her, there's some kind of scuffling, as if Alicia is moving, which Kalinda knows she can't really do.
"Come here," Alicia says.
Kalinda shakes her head.
"Please, Kalinda."
When Kalinda finally turns, she sees Alicia has shifted over to the left just slightly. She pats the space that she has made, indicating that Kalinda should sit.
Kalinda stares at the rumpled sheet for a minute, all hospital corners forgotten in the effort that it took Alicia to move. She sees blood on them for a second, then blinks it away. "I think—I think I need to go home."
Alicia's eyes look tired. "All right," she says.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Kalinda says, trying to keep her tone as brisk and as Diane-like as possible. She hasn't left Alicia alone before, certainly not alone and awake, and she's not sure whether she's supposed to touch her as a farewell. Alicia's not giving her any indications. "Tomorrow," she repeats, and the door is heavy underneath her hand. Behind her, the monitors beep steadily.