The Tenth Justice by Brad Meltzer

said, “Mr. Fagen, I’m glad you called. You never left a forwarding address.”
    “Are you sure?” Ben picked up a pen. “What address do you have?”
    “All we have is the old one,” the operator said. “Seventeen eighty Rhode Island Avenue, Northwest. Apartment three seventeen.”
    “That’s the old one, all right,” Ben said, writing down the address. “Well, as soon as I have a new address, I‘ll be sure to let you know.” Ben hung up, then slid back in his chair, trying to think of another way to track down Rick. After checking the index on the Supreme Court directory, he left the office and ran down the hallway. Ben raced down the suspended spiral staircase, an architectural marvel that was off limits to everyone but staff. Running through the Great Hall, he followed his mental road map of the Court’s layout, weaving his way through the corridors to the personnel office.
    “Can I help you?” a woman asked from behind the counter.
    “Hi, I’m Ben Addison, a clerk with Justice Hollis. We were trying to have a reunion for all of Hollis’s old clerks, and I remember filling out all that paperwork for this office when I first started. Do you happen to have a list of where some of the old clerks might live?”
    “Oh, we’ve got everyone here,” the woman said, proudly. “Since we do the security forms, we know every place you’ve lived in the past ten years.”
    “Well, all we need is the address of one past clerk. We have everyone else.”
    “Security card?” the woman requested.
    Ben reached into the front pocket of his dress shirt, pulled out his Court I.D., and gave it to the woman. After swiping it through a small, electronic machine on her desk, she stared at her computer, waiting for Ben’s security clearance to appear.
    “C’mon,” Ben thought, his thumbs tapping against the high counter.
    “What’s the clerk’s name, honey?” the woman finally asked as she handed Ben his I.D. card.
    “Rick Fagen,” Ben said, returning the card to his shirt pocket. “I guess it could be under Richard.”
    After typing the name into the computer, the woman said, “I don’t have anyone under that name as a clerk for Justice Hollis.”
    Surprised, Ben said, “Maybe our master list is wrong. Can you check the list of clerks for the other justices?”
    As the woman reconfigured her search, Ben continued tapping.
    “Sorry,” the woman said, “I have no one under that name listed as a clerk.”
    “That’s impossible,” Ben said, his voice rising in panic.
    “I’m telling you,” the woman said, “I checked our entire personnel database. No one named Rick Fagen ever worked at the Supreme Court.”

Chapter 4
    BEN DARTED UP THE STAIRS, THEN SPRINTED full speed back to his office. He ran toward the farthest file cabinet and pulled it away from the wall. Rick Fagen’s signature wasn’t there. “Damn!” he yelled, punching a huge dent into the cabinet. “How could I be so stupid?” Turning around, Ben noticed the giant bouquet of red, yellow, and purple flowers on his desk. He pulled the card from the oversized wicker basket and opened the miniature envelope. “Thanks for all your help,” he read. “Sincerely, Rick.” Ben’s stomach dropped. He felt like he was going to vomit. When the room started to spin, he put his head down on his desk. I’m in serious trouble, he thought. What the hell am I going to do?
    Eventually catching his breath, Ben pushed aside the basket of flowers, picked up his phone, and called Nathan. “It’s me,” he said.
    “Are you okay?” Nathan asked. “You sound like you’re out of breath.”
    “Can you meet me at home?”
    “It’s not even ten o’clock.”
    “Nathan, please, can you meet me at home? It’s important.”
    “Of course.” Nathan sounded confused. “I’ll leave right now, but what’s going on?”
    “I’ll tell you when I see you,” Ben said, and hung up.
    Ben wrote a quick note for Lisa, grabbed his briefcase, and headed for