Free Second Chances by Lincoln Cole Page A

almost delirious with the pain and anger inside of her and it
would just be too much having to try and work right now.  She tried calling her
brother, but he didn’t answer. Probably busy.
    “Thanks bro,” she mumbled.  “Never there when I need you.”
    She knew definitively that her statement wasn’t true: Rico
had been there every single time she had needed him. But saying the words
satisfied an angry piece of her that was wallowing in self-pity.
    She kept walking, still aimless. She thought to head home,
maybe read a book or something to distract her, but right now she couldn’t even
find the motivation to do that.
    Finally, she called her house phone number. She had always
teased her Mom about having a home phone in the twenty-first century. It rang
through to the answering machine. She heard a click, and then her mother’s
voice:
    “You have reached the Blake residence. We are not in right
now, but you can leave us a message and we’ll call you back.”
    A tear slipped down her cheek. She heard a beep from the
machine and then clicked the phone off. She hoped to see her mother again, but
she didn’t think it was very likely.  Part of her—a much larger part than she
wanted to admit—already knew that her mother was gone and would never come
home.
    “What am I supposed to do, Mom?” she asked.
    As if in validation of how she was feeling, there was no
answer. Nichole brushed the tear away and started walking home.  The wind bit
and nipped at her and it felt as though the moisture would freeze on her
cheeks.

Chapter 11
Richard
     
     “What are you thinking about?”
    Richard blinked, falling out of his reverie. His wife,
Deborah, was standing beside him, holding out his Armani suit coat and smiling
at him. From her expression it was clear she had been standing there for a
while, waiting politely for him to notice her.
    He’d been distracted, thinking about his brother and when
they were kids. It felt like a lifetime ago, like they were someone else’s
memories, detached and foreign. He rarely thought about what things were like
back when he was a kid. 
    They were absent thoughts, really, not worth the time. He
just hadn't realized he’d gotten so distracted.
    Of course, that wasn’t the main thing on his mind.  He was
also thinking about Nichole. He had thought of her as his protégé, someone who
would rise through the ranks and be a partner by thirty. Someone he could
trust.
    He hated how everything had gone to hell.
    “Nothing,” he replied, rubbing his chin. “You know I hate when
you ask me that.” 
    There was a little stubble growing there but he hadn't
bothered to shave. He was a meticulous groomer and didn't like to go out of the
house with a five o’clock shadow, even if it was after five o’clock.
    But shaving tonight would be wasted on the people he was
supposed to be meeting. He wanted desperately to cancel on his brother. After
the day he was having, he couldn’t imagine anything worse than going to hang
out with a bunch of alcoholics.
    But he couldn’t. He’d made a promise, and he would stick to
it.
    “Sorry. You just looked like you were off in your own little
world.”
    “Just thinking.”
    “What about?”
    He let out a deep sigh.  “I had to fire someone today.”
    “Oh, who?”
    “Nichole.”
    “Nichole? Your intern? I thought you liked her?”
    “Yeah,” he said.  “I did.”
    “What happened?”
    “It’s complicated,” he said.  “But, basically, she tried to
get me to do something unethical.”
    “Really? That doesn’t sound like her.”
    “It isn’t,” Richard said.  “It’s not like her at all. But
she didn’t have any options. Her Mom is missing and she wants to get her little
sister and brother into a better school.”
    “Okay.”
    “And, so she needed me to file an injunction against the
school, but she forged her mother’s signature.”
    “Oh,” Deborah said.  “Nichole isn’t allowed to sign?”
    “She isn’t the