Primary Justice (Ben Kincaid series Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

but genuine importance. He was confident that Family Law I and the Socratic method didn’t come close to providing enough real-life practical experience to enable him to advise other human beings. He polled Greg, Alvin, and Marianne, and learned that none of them knew anything about adoption, or if they did, they weren’t telling him. He grabbed a family law hornbook and a copy of the relevant Oklahoma statutes from the library and walked hurriedly toward his new office.
    A middle-aged woman with a frosted bouffant hairdo was sitting in the cubicle between Ben’s office and Derek’s, separated from the hallway by heavy wooden dividers. She was smoking, and her ashtray indicated she went at it as fervently as did Derek. She did not look up as Ben approached.
    “You must be Maggie,” Ben said amiably.
    The woman’s gaze shifted from the paperback romance novel she was reading. “Yes.” Her voice had a detectable nasal twang. Ben wondered if she had come from back East with Derek.
    He smiled. “I’m Ben Kincaid. I guess we’re going to be working together.”
    “I work for Mr. Derek,” she said crisply. She returned her attention to her novel.
    “Evidently you’re working for me, too. I’m the new associate on Mr. Derek’s team.”
    Maggie looked up slowly. “I haven’t worked with a new associate in seven years.” She removed the clear plastic reading glasses hanging on a chain around her neck and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “New associates are always … writing things, and always wanting them typed by yesterday. And always changing them once they are typed.”
    “Look, I’m sorry,” Ben said, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “It wasn’t my idea. I’ll try not to be a bother.”
    Maggie lifted the receiver to her ear and punched a button on the complex phone console on her desk. “We’ll see about this. This isn’t supposed to happen to me. We have an arrangement.”
    Ben decided that his need to hit the books was more pressing than this rewarding conversation. “I’ll be in my office,” he said.
    Maggie didn’t even nod.
    Ben surveyed his new office. Well, there will be few distractions, he thought.
    Raven, Tucker & Tubb provided him with a desk—a table, actually, and a matching chair, both made of a cheap pine Ben wouldn’t have used in his college dorm room. The walls were a barren, uninterrupted white. The table held a green banker’s lamp and a complicated telephone unit, smaller than but similar to the one at Maggie’s station. There was a short, empty bookshelf beside the table and two undeniably hideous orange corduroy visitors’ chairs. Apparently, furnishings were passed down from one associate to another—the good stuff going up the totem pole and the wretched stuff going down. Ben hoped his first client didn’t have a keenly developed sense of decor.
    On the table, he saw a small box. He opened it and found hundreds of preprinted business cards with his name on them, just beneath the firm logo. Ready for business. He cracked open the hornbook and began to read.
    A few minutes before eleven, he was startled by an electronic beeping noise. He pushed the illuminated button on his telephone console. It was Maggie.
    “Visitors for you in the main foyer,” she said brusquely.
    “Thank you, Maggie. Please show them in.”
    There was a pause, then a slow, inhaling noise. “You understand this is only temporary, Mr. Kincaid.”
    “Yes, I do, Maggie. But while it lasts, I plan to treasure every precious moment we spend together.”
    “I’ll get your visitors,” she said, and rang off.
    There was no reason for Ben to be surprised. Derek had not made any representations regarding his visitors’ appearances, although he had linked them with one of the most sophisticated and prosperous corporate entities in the state. Nonetheless, when Maggie ushered the visitors into his office, Ben was surprised and vaguely disappointed. The two adults, a man and a woman,