Diane and Alicia spent an inordinate amount of time together in those first days after Will's death, mourning together. They talked of merging their firms, first as a joke after too many drinks, then seriously. But a merger became unthinkable as the atmosphere at LG deteriorated. Diane didn't have the heart or the fortitude any more to referee the power struggle.
She and Kalinda can see it all coming apart at the seams. They need a new home.
Diane approaches Alicia and Cary about joining their firm; herself, her $38 million in client business, and Kalinda.
Alicia's immediate reaction to including Kalinda is resistance, with a touch too much vehemence. Diane and Cary make it clear with looks of disapproval, that Will would never forgive them if they left Kalinda behind. Alicia quickly checks herself. "We can't afford her." Her argument falls on deaf ears.
Diane had made decisions; which clients to take with her; which clients to leave behind. Alicia and Cary review her lists. Fisher & Li happens to be on the list of clients to leave behind with Canning and Lee.
Alicia is adjusting to the thought of having Kalinda in her everyday life again. She decides to step up and make the first gesture. She sends a text to Kalinda. 'I'd like for us to try again. Getting ready for you to join the firm. Meet at our old favorite place. Tomorrow night, 8pm.'
Kalinda hears the beep when the text arrives on her phone. She is over the moon. She never expected another chance with Alicia. She returns the text. 'Yes.' She is pretty sure that in person, unlike in text, she will find great difficulty in subduing her glee.
She hardly knows what to do with the burst of energy that has come over her.
She sends a text. 'She wants 2b friends again!'
Dr. Alicia is in a meeting when her phone vibrates. Kalinda's message puts a smile on her face. She knows exactly who Kalinda is talking about. 'So happy 4u. Best news I've had in an otherwise lousy day.'
Kalinda's day is focused on only one thing, the evening's meeting with Alicia.
Finally it's time. She drives to their favorite place and parks her car across the street. She can see Alicia at a table in the window waiting for her. Her heart is pounding. She can feel herself grinning ear to ear. Cool it a little. You don't want to freak her out. Kalinda has waited such a long time for forgiveness.
She is completely in her own head. She barely notices a limo close to her until it has blocked her path. Two doors open. Two men emerge. "Mr. Bishop would like to talk to you." Her thoughts bounce all over the place. Not now! Alicia's waiting for me! Lamond Bishop always scares the crap out of her, and she doesn't fluster easily. She finds herself in the car by no effort of her own.
Lamond Bishop begins to speak, his tone as frightening as ever. "An FBI agent, Lana Delany, is contacting me… again… and again, the topic is you. I thought we agreed I don't like the FBI coming to me and you were going to take care of it."
Kalinda is quiet, on high alert, adrenalin rushing. The last time Lana was of concern to Mr. Bishop, Kalinda seriously feared for her life.
Kalinda could see Alicia, through the car window, through the restaurant window.
"It seems the FBI found a dead Canadian drug dealer in a construction site in my ummm … business radius, buried for over a year. They seem to think I'm attached to the murder."
Kalinda's constitution tightens at the thought of Nick and what she'd had a hand in doing to him.
"Agent Delany," Bishop continues, "appeared yesterday, out of the blue, in my face, at my kid's ball game, pretending to be a parent, warning me about a warrant for you and me, she says, because she wants you, specifically, extracted from the country immediately. She thinks I can do that in return for the warning.
Look, I don't know what kind of relationship you have with this FBI agent, and with this dead guy, and I don't care." He signals to the limo driver, who speeds off. "I'm just interested in keeping my ass out of prison."
Kalinda is putting all the pieces together. Kalinda Sharma is no more.
They take her keys. They destroy her phone and the contents of her wallet. They'll dispose of her car, they say, and will empty her apartment.
Her mother's diaries. The last tangible things that are her, gone.
They give her a phone, a lot of cash, a Canadian driver's license, a Canadian bank account and credit card. They give her a Canadian passport with a picture of an Indian woman on it. She'll have to let her hair down to disguise the lack of resemblance.
Alicia is getting angry. I can't believe I've been pulled into Kalinda's crazy life again. What a fool to let Diane and Cary overrule my better judgment. She stood me up. Over my dead body will I agree to let her join the firm. She's flaked on me for the last time.
"Where are we going?" Kalinda demands of Bishop, with all the courage she can muster.
"We're flying private charter from O'Hare to Vancouver. Then we part ways. You're going commercial to Seoul. From there, you go wherever you want. I don't care, but stay out of the U.S."
By morning, Kalinda has left the hemisphere.
"I can't find Kalinda anywhere this morning," Diane says to Alicia. "You met with her last night didn't you? She's not answering my calls."
"She didn't show."
"What do you mean she didn't show?"
"No calls, no messages. I was left there alone."
"She wouldn't just do that. That makes me worry."
"Maybe she would. Maybe we know different Kalindas." Alicia gives Diane a knowing look. "I used to know things about her. She came from a very rough world. It was unnatural for her to be constrained in our world, in one place as long as she was. It was bound to happen anytime."
Diane knew there was the mysterious and the dangerous about Kalinda. "Should we call the police? Report her missing?"
"No," says Alicia. "Let her go."
Three weeks later.
It seems a routine day at Florrick, Agos & Lockhart. Alicia and Cary are discussing the strategy of an important case.
Diane is the first to notice the commotion in the reception area. The receptionist seems to be unsuccessfully challenging the entrance of a group of FBI agents into to the offices.
Diane makes her way over to reception to lend an authoritative presence to the situation.
The agents know her. "Ms. Lockhart, we are here to see Mrs. Florrick, please."
"Do you have an appointment with her?" Diane is having some fun. She knows the FBI doesn't make appointments.
Alicia and Cary have noticed the scene and are making their way over to reception to defend their offices.
"Mrs. Florrick, we need to speak to you. May we use your office?"
"As you can see, we don't have offices. So speak. I don't know what I can possibly help you with, but I'll listen."
"Mrs. Florrick, we are looking for Kalinda Sharma. Do you know where she can be found?"
"Why?" asks Alicia. The lawyer in her doesn't answer any questions without knowing the impact of her potential answers.
"She's wanted for questioning in a murder investigation. I have a warrant for her arrest."
"Who was murdered?" asks Alicia.
"A former client of Lockhart Gardner. In fact, a former client of yours, Mrs. Florrick, when you were with Lockhart Gardner. Nick Severese. Looks like he's been dead for over a year."
Alicia's face went white.
"Why don't you ask at Lockhart Gardner?"
"Come on, Mrs. Florrick. There isn't a Lockhart Gardner anymore. Canning and Lee say they don't know anything. You're here. Ms. Lockhart is here. Mr. Agos is here. You especially, Mrs. Florrick, are a long time known close associate of Ms. Sharma."
Alicia's head is swirling, putting the pieces together. "We haven't seen her in almost a month. She just disappeared one day. No goodbye."
"Do you know where she might have gone?"
"No clue," answers Alicia. That is certainly true.
"Her apartment has been emptied. Not the way people do when they are deliberately moving out. Were you aware of that?"
"No. I've never been to her apartment."
"You've been her legal counsel in the past. Are you still representing her?"
"No."
"Another of your clients, Lamond Bishop, has disappeared. Any information on his whereabouts today?"
"No."
"Mrs. Florrick, are you aware of any association of Ms. Sharma and Mr. Bishop?"
"None outside of our representation of him as a client at Lockhart Gardner." Alicia is getting very worried now. She remembers the meeting with Kalinda and Bishop when she feared for Kalinda's life.
"Mrs. Florrick, are you aware of any association of Ms. Sharma and Mr. Severese?"
Alicia pauses, weighing the impact of her admission on Kalinda, on herself, on the firm. "He was her husband."
Diane works very hard to cover how stunned she is at the news, and that Alicia knows this kind of secret of Kalinda's. Carey has a more visceral reaction.
"I'm sorry," Alicia says to the agents. "I don't have any other knowledge that could help you. Please find your way out now."
"We'll be in touch. I'm sure we'll have further questions for you Mrs. Florrick." The agents leave the offices of Florrick, Agos & Lockhart.
Alicia is not feeling at all good about that exchange. She makes her way to her desk. Diane and Cary are not far behind. "What in the world?" Diane remarks. "Do you know where she is?'
"No."
"Are you in contact with her?"
"No," says Alicia. "I told you. She stood me up for our dinner date and I haven't heard from her since." Alicia is feeling guilty now that she has flippantly cast Kalinda off as a disappointment… again… instead of being concerned something might have happened to her. "I haven't even tried to contact her. I was angry."
"Try now," says Diane.
"I don't think I should. If she still has her same phone, which I doubt, the FBI could potentially pinpoint her location. If I even try to call her and the FBI is watching me, they'll think I know a lot more about her."
"Do you? Know a lot more about her?" asks Diane. She feels the answer is now obvious.
"A lot, yes. It seemed never enough. She was always holding back."
"Do you know anything about this murder?" asks Cary.
-Alicia remembers the night she told Nick she I couldn't represent him anymore.
-'And I'm not in danger?'
-'You won't be.'
-'You look relieved.'
-'I am.'
-'He's gone. And you're safe?'
-'Ya. You are too.'
-'Good. What if he comes back?'
-'He's not coming back.'
-'You sure?'
-'Ya.'
Oh, my God. What did she do? What did she do to protect me?
"I might be able to take a pretty good guess."
"Alicia!" exclaims Cary. His mind goes into motion, strategizing what Alicia's defense should be.
Too many things clicking into place for Alicia. Her head was in the sand so much when Kalinda was working her magic for her. Five years of memories; the things Kalinda did for her; the things she was aware of; and the things she wasn't.