Lockhart/Gardner hasn't changed in Kalinda's absence, though it seems to her that people are giving a wide berth to the half-empty office. Then again, she may just notice it because she's doing so herself.
"Missed you," Will says quietly, seriously. Sometimes Kalinda thinks he looked more natural during his suspension, without a tie, neck of his shirt open. As it is, he looks like he wants to ask her something and can't get the question to emerge. She gives him a quick smile, as gentle as she can, and darts down the hall.
Kalinda talks to Diane; she talks to Julius and David Lee and avoids Eli. She sorts the cases that piled up in the preceding week, making sure to prioritize Kathleen Harmond's finances so that Evelyn Harmond will get off Cary's back. She spends as many hours as she can in front of her laptop. The streets between home and the office were treacherous; she doesn't feel fully confident in her ability to walk around, let alone drive.
Kalinda listens. The few at the firm who encountered Nick—Cary and Alicia's respective assistants, three paralegals, the girl at the front desk—have suddenly acquired a new level of cachet during coffee breaks. The consensus is that all got a "weird feeling" from "that guy," though they claim no responsibility for ignoring their instincts.
The gossip tends to quiet when Kalinda comes close, but the same thing happens in the presence of Will or Eli; it's about their connection to Alicia, nothing more. No one has linked Kalinda to Nick Savarese, except perhaps for Cary, who corners her in the hallway.
"Are you all right?" he says.
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
"Thanks."
"Is Alicia all right?"
"As well as she can be."
Nick followed Kalinda through her dreams all weekend, wounds bubbling in his throat, his gut, and his groin, blood smeared across one cheekbone. "Who next, Kalinda?" he said quietly, giving a half-cocked grin with blood on his lips, her name still an epithet. Desperate to contain him, she hadn't left the apartment until this morning when she had to, Saturday and Sunday stretching around her like deserted highways, like ferries on a lake in the middle of the night.
"I saw you talking to him," Cary says.
"Who?"
"Mr. Tow Truck. You knew him before?"
"Do you really want to know?"
That always used to work on Alicia, at least back in the day, but Cary just says "yes" and looks at Kalinda steadily. His eyes are much more demanding than they used to be, and Kalinda doesn't like it. She shoves the notes on Kathleen Harmond into his hand and ducks away.
The day moves quickly, too quickly. Kalinda had almost forgotten working, forgot how much marvelous room it takes up inside her, leaving little space for ghosts to rattle around. She thinks she'd stay here all night if she could.
It's almost funny, Kalinda thinks. If she'd somehow heard three or four years ago that Nick had been killed, she's not even sure she would have blinked. The relief would have flooded her like heroin, the simple feeling that Leela was gone, that the one door into that life had closed, locked, without her having to touch it. She has to live now with the recognition of things that won't ever be gone, from his touch on her skin to the fact that she wanted it.
I have difficulty being away from him.
Kalinda slides her jacket on, slides her hands into her pockets. Through several layers of glass, Will catches her eye and nods to her. She returns the nod, brisk, out the door.
/
There are two chairs set by the right side of Alicia's bed, containing Zach Florrick and a pretty, petite black girl Kalinda doesn't recognize. All three look up as Kalinda enters.
"Hi, Kalinda," says Zach. "This is Nisa, my girlfriend. Nisa, this is Kalinda, she works with my mom."
"Hi," the girl says. Both teenagers sound oddly cheerful. Their hands are interlaced and rest on Zach's knee.
"Hi," Kalinda says, pressing her lips into something that she hopes can pass for a smile. She leans up against the wall.
After two days, Alicia looks noticeably better, which Kalinda supposes could account for the adolescents' chipper mood. Her bed is set a little higher than it could have been on Friday, there's real color in her cheeks, and Kalinda thinks at least a couple of machines have been retired—there seems to be more space around Alicia somehow, more air. It would be better if Alicia were looking at her, but even watching her like this floods Kalinda with a pleasure that seems to surge up from deep in the past, belong to another woman.
"Are you going to stay for a while, Kalinda?" Zach says. "I was going to drive Nisa home."
"Yeah—yeah," Kalinda says.
"It's good to see you," says Zach.
"Good to meet you," Nisa agrees, though Kalinda thinks she gives Zach a little sidelong glance as she says it. She shoulders a hefty backpack. "I'm really glad you're feeling better, Mrs. Florrick."
"Thanks for coming, Nisa." Alicia's voice is a little hoarse. "I'm glad to see you. Zach, honey, are you coming back later?"
"I was going to."
"Good." Alicia's smile is tired. "Call the room number if you change your mind. I'm still not getting much of a signal." Alicia's smartphone is charging on her bedside table. Kalinda's pretty sure it wasn't there on Friday, but she guesses that now, with Alicia's statement and the confirmation of Nick's death, the investigation is closed, evidence bags unsealed.
"Bye, Mom." Zach leans over carefully to kiss Alicia's forehead. "Bye, Kalinda." He follows Nisa out the door, shutting Alicia and Kalinda into silence.
"I thought you went anyway," Alicia finally says.
Kalinda shakes her head mutely.
"And then I thought—You could have said something."
"Alicia—"
"Don't, Kalinda."
No, Kalinda. No.
Kalinda doesn't.
"I know nothing about your life, do you understand that? He's dead and you're gone suddenly and for all I know … This is already too much, Kalinda. I can't … do that too."
Kalinda doesn't know what to say. "I would have answered. If you'd called me."
"Yes. Why is that my job?"
Kalinda presses her lips together.
"Please, Kalinda." She sounds near tears suddenly, and Kalinda dares to look at her, startled. Alicia's whole face is trembling. "I think about it enough already."
Kalinda's about to answer—she doesn't understand what Alicia means, not really—but there's a knock at the door and both women automatically answer, "Come in." Kalinda, at least, is expecting Zach, expecting he's left behind some small item or another, but the person who enters is a man she's never seen before.
"Excuse me," says the man, hovering in the doorway. He has bristly dark hair and broad shoulders, a trace of an accent. "I'm sorry if I'm interrupting."
"And you are?" Kalinda says coolly, rising to her feet. She will disembowel a reporter if he worked his way in. She doesn't even want to think about the other possibilities.
"Hector Ramirez."
Both Kalinda and Alicia recognize the name. "Come in," Alicia says quickly. Kalinda pulls out the chair next to her and shifts her own seat to Alicia's left side, giving him the place of honor on the right.
"You look better than the last time I saw you," Mr. Ramirez says to Alicia, smiling. "Not sure I would have recognized you."
"That's good, I think," Alicia says.
"Definitely. Do you feel well?"
"I wouldn't say well," Alicia says. "But better—I am feeling better." She breathes as deeply as she can manage. "Thank you. I can't thank you enough."
"You'd do the same," Mr. Ramirez says. "Most people would."
"Maybe," says Alicia. "I used to think so. I'm less sure now."
Mr. Ramirez nods, absorbing that. He turns to Kalinda. "I didn't catch your name." He raises his eyebrows, indicating that he caught her hostility when he came in.
"Kalinda." He seems to expect her to go on. She gestures to Alicia. "We … work together." She can no longer give words to the role Alicia plays in her life—"friend" has long since ceased to express it—and she wouldn't dare assume anything about how Alicia would refer to her.
"Ah, yes, at that law firm, right? I think I spoke to—was it your boss?"
Kalinda nods.
"Nice that you're here," he says, a little absently. He adds to Alicia, "Your husband came to thank me, too. He's a very nice man."
Alicia nods.
"I didn't know who you were. If you think that. It wasn't for anything like that. I just—"
"I understand, Mr. Ramirez," Alicia says, and her voice sounds like it's drifted out of the past, her old handholding voice. She adds wryly, "Even if that was why, you still would have saved my life."
Abruptly, Kalinda remembers her drive back from Detroit, which seems more like a world ago than the week it actually is. She remembers cracking the window, even going sixty on a highway in the Midwestern winter, the cold air invigorating and firming her resolve, sharpening her focus. There was nothing that could have stopped her. She had rammed Bill with her car already, she was putting all the pieces into place. She would be free of Nick.
"Have they found the person who did it? I was sorry I couldn't help—"
"You did more than enough," Kalinda says quietly. She's looking at her own hands, then Mr. Ramirez's, but she can feel Alicia looking at her.
She'd thought she was protecting Alicia. Saving her. And she wasn't. And here is the man who was.
"Actually," says Alicia, "he's dead."
"Oh," says Mr. Ramirez. Alicia nods but doesn't say anything. "Everything all right?" he adds. "Do they know who killed him?"
Alicia says, "It doesn't matter much to me."
"Well, I just wanted to see you were well," says Mr. Ramirez. "I would have come sooner, but for a while they were telling me you needed the rest. I just—it was hard, seeing you like that. I wanted to see you well."
"Thank you," says Alicia, the handholding voice again. "I hope that when I'm out of here, you'll let us have you over for dinner. My family."
"Oh, if—if you'd be all right with that. If your kids would be comfortable. You have kids, right?"
"Yes. And they'd be as glad to meet you as I am. You should at least," says Alicia, grinning a little, "let me buy you a new shirt."
He laughs then, a full laugh that bounces up to the ceiling. "If you've still got your sense of humor, you'll be fine."
Kalinda's reached for his hand before she knows she did it. "Thanks." She squeezes the word out and meets his eyes before dropping her gaze, letting go.