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had a hard time explaining my conviction, my absolute certainty. I couldn’t remember much about that time, and I’d gotten used to ignoring it, yet now it had come back, a force to be reckoned with. The more I thought about it, a family shouldn’t scatter the way mine did after someone died. One day I had a mother, a father, a sister and a brother. After my mom passed away, it was only my dad and me.
    I’ve read stories of estranged families coming closer after someone dies. I don’t know why that didn’t happen to my family. We didn’t stay long in Woodland Dunes, but during the few weeks that I’d returned to school, I saw the pointed stares of my classmates, a curious fear behind their eyes. So, I’d been glad when my dad said we were leaving. Caroline and Dan went their own ways—Caroline to boarding school, Dan to col ege and then both of them off into the world. I grew up without siblings, without knowing what I was missing. It wasn’t until col ege, when I was away from my father for the first time, that I realized how strange that was.
    Staring at the McKnight headline now, thinking of the publicity it would generate, my heart rate picked up again. I hurried to my apartment, and instead of waiting for the elevator, I took the stairs two at a time to my place on the sixth floor. During law school, I’d lived on the ground floor of the same building, in a smal studio with a single window that had a lovely view of the Dumpster. Once I had a steady paycheck, I moved to the top floor and into a large one-bedroom. Instead of the Dumpster, my windows now overlooked an old church on the corner, which would have been quaint if it weren’t for the couple of homeless guys who set up camp there every night and screamed obscenities at passersby.
    Inside the apartment, I skimmed the article. The beginning gave information I already knew: McKnight Corporation owned department stores nationwide and had recently gotten into online retail, but they’d been sued by a competitor who claimed that McKnight copied its Web design and certain slogans. Their stock had gone down because of the suit, and if they lost the arbitration or a later trial, the article speculated, it could sound the death knel for the company. I knew the arbitration was important to McKnight’s business, of course. What I hadn’t known was that the company could go under if I didn’t win.
    “Christ,” I said, slamming a hand on the table.
    I stood up straight, embarrassed by my own temper, despite the fact that I was alone. It wasn’t just the professional pressure that was getting to me, I knew. It was the thought that this development might steal away the time I’d planned to spend during my visit to Woodland Dunes.
    Thesecondhalfofthearticlegaveahistoryofthe company, something I was only vaguely familiar with.IskimmedmostofituntilIsawateaserheadline in the middle that read, Corporate Foul Play? The juice I’d drank felt like acid in my stomach.
    According to the piece, Sean McKnight, the current CEO, had engineered a deal twenty years ago that al owed McKnight Corporation to buy another department-storecompanycal edFieldings.Initial y, thedealhadal themakingsofahostiletakeover,but suddenly Fieldings’s board, made up of mostly Fieldingsfamilymembers,haddecidedtosel .There was a rumor that McKnight had used personal informationtoblackmailhiswayintothesale.Charges wereneverbrought,though,andMcKnightCorporation had flourished until now.
    I read the section again. I’d been told by McKnight’s in-house counsel that there was no dirty laundry. I might be able to bar the plaintiff’s attorney from questioning McKnight about this Fieldings takeover, but the rules of evidence were looser at arbitrations than at trials, so I would have to be prepared. The media surrounding the story would only make my job harder.
    Hopeful y, Il inois didn’t al ow filming at arbitrations.
    I picked up the phone and dialed Maddy’s number. When I got her machine, I