Chance of a Lifetime by Jodi Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

Mouse as the robber. To make matters worse for Mouse, his car, parked out front of the crime scene, wouldn’t start. The sheriff picked him up and found him bleeding from the cut and with his pockets full of evidence.
    Rick got assigned to the case. To his shock, Mouse insisted on pleading not guilty. The jury took forty-five minutes to make up their minds. Rick figured it would have been less, but the bailiff made a fresh pot of coffee and set out leftover cookies from an office party down the hall.
    Of course, Mouse blamed Rick and demanded that the court appoint another lawyer. On his way out in cuffs, Mouse whispered the same good-bye most of Rick’s clients used. Mouse warned him to watch out for accidents, becauseit he ever got out, Mouse planned to make sure Rick found a few.
    Rick lifted the file and tossed it in the drawer with the other losers. He’d worked two jobs to pay his own way through law school, and for what? To listen to threats. To feel like he needed a shower every time he talked to a client. To make half the money his brother, who’d skipped college, made mowing lawns.
    At twenty-eight, Rick should be having the time of his life. He knew he wasn’t bad-looking, was educated, came from a good family, but with the overhead of the office and the cost of keeping up the appearance of being a successful lawyer, he didn’t have enough money for a drink at Buffalo’s, much less to spend on a date.
    Flipping off the light, he grabbed his empty briefcase and headed home. Once he was in the hallway, he locked his office, checked to make sure his cousin’s office next door was locked, and walked toward the back exit where he’d parked his car. The place had been silent since the bookstore downstairs closed an hour ago. During the day he could almost believe he was in the center of things—after all, his wall of windows faced the courthouse, but Rick had always thought the building, with its rattling windows and clanging pipes, was creepy at night.
    When he stepped out the exit to a small landing, he turned his collar up against the cold and wished he had his coat. But his winter coat was at the cleaners and money would have to be coming in before he could get it out. The sports jacket would have to do for now.
    As the door closed, what light there had been in the back of the building disappeared. The one bulb on a pole at the bottom of the steps was out again. No surprise. The building was falling apart. It took him a minute for his eyes to adjust to the night, but then he began down the old back stairs toward his car. Metal steps and been replaced along the way with wooden ones slightly thicker, giving the stairs an uneven stride. He’d walked it in the dark a hundred times before. He knew the way.
    Only tonight the third step was made of air. Rick braced himself realizing a board must have broken. His free hand reached for the railing as his foot readied for the fourth step. It was missing also. Just as he began to fall through the hole in the stairs, his hand clamped around the railing and the wood gave.
    His long frame tumbled, bumping into poles a few times before he landed with a thud on a broken slab of concrete below that had once been the steps to the bookstore’s back door.
    Thoughts tumbled with him. He could be hurt, or die here in the dark. Someone had cut the steps away. He still held his briefcase. A moment later, reality hit along with the pain. He couldn’t breathe! He couldn’t move!
    Rick heard the clock tower begin to chime the hour as if ticking away the seconds he had left of consciousness. He tried to shift away from something stabbing in his back. Concentrating, he fought to stand. Opening his mouth, he struggled to yell. Nothing worked. All he could feel or think about was the pain.
    Finally, he managed to pull his phone from his belt with one bloody hand. He held down the number one praying that he’d be able to hold it long enough before he passed out. In the low glow of the