My father slapped me so hard at my military academy graduation that my cap flew off my head and landed beside my diploma.

Courtroom 2402 of the Richard J. Daley Center did not look like the courtrooms in the movies.

There were no high, vaulted plaster ceilings, no carved mahogany lions, no heavy velvet drapes. It was a functional, bureaucratic box constructed in 1965: twelve-foot ceilings of perforated acoustic tile, wood-grained laminate paneling that had faded to the color of wet cardboard, and three rows of low oak benches separated from the well of the court by an aluminum swinging gate.

The clock on the wall above the bench was round, electric, with a red sweep-second hand that jumped forward with a sharp, metallic tink every sixty seconds.

It was three-forty-eight PM.

The room smelled of floor polish, old legal briefs, and the cold, metallic breath of three window air-conditioning units rattling in their steel frames.

In the second row of the spectator gallery sat Evelyn.

She had changed her clothes. She had abandoned the seafoam Chanel in the ladies' room at the Waukegan airfield, replacing it with a dark gray wool skirt and an oversized cashmere cardigan that made her look seventy years old. Her hair was pulled back into a hasty, uneven knot at the nape of her neck, secured with three plastic bobby pins. She was holding a small leather prayer book in her lap, her thumbs moving over the gold-leaf edges with a mechanical, frantic rhythm.

Beside her sat three attorneys from one of the massive firms on LaSalle Street—men in three-piece charcoal suits who looked like they were attending an autopsy where they were the ones scheduled to be opened.

At the defense table sat Richard.

He had not washed his face. A smear of gray grime from the airfield lounge ran across his forehead, and his white shirt was open at the collar, the knot of his silk tie shoved into his coat pocket like a dead snake. He was staring at the water carafe in the center of the table, his fingers tapping an erratic, arhythmic beat against the green felt blotter.

I walked through the swinging gate.

My boots made no sound on the heavy industrial carpeting. The silver bars on my collar caught the fluorescent glare, and as I took my seat at the plaintiff's table beside Marcus Sterling, I set the plastic specimen jar containing the red wax seal on the mahogany wood between us.

Marcus did not turn his head.

"The bank’s vice president is in the conference room down the hall, Audrey," he murmured, his fountain pen moving across a yellow legal pad in neat, spidery script. "He has already signed the stipulation. The signatures on the 2022 withdrawals were generated using a mechanical autopen belonging to the marketing department of your father’s firm."

I looked across the aisle at Richard.

My father did not look back. His eyes remained locked on the water carafe, his jaw clamped shut so hard that the masseter muscles beneath his ears were bulging like walnuts.

"All rise," the bailiff barked from the side door.

The heavy door behind the bench swung open, and Judge Alistair Vance walked into the room.

He did not wear his robes with the theatrical flourish of the criminal division judges. He wore them like an old mechanic wears his shop coat—loose, unbuttoned at the top, the black silk faded to a dark, greenish-gray along the shoulders.

He sat down in his high-backed leather chair, placed a stack of manila folders on the blotter, and looked over his silver-framed spectacles at the defense table.

He didn't look at me. He didn't look at Evelyn.

He looked directly at Richard for eight long seconds.

The room was dead silent save for the rattle of the air conditioners.

"Mr. Pendelton," Alistair spoke, his voice dry as cracked bone.

The junior attorney at the defense table stood up so fast his chair groaned against the carpet. "Yes, Your Honor?"

"Your client has filed three separate affidavits in this court over the past thirty-six months," Alistair said, drawing a white legal sheet from the top folder. "Each affidavit stated under penalty of perjury that the beneficiary Audrey Elizabeth Vance had abandoned her academic career, that her whereabouts were unknown, and that reasonable efforts to contact her had yielded no result."

Alistair looked down at me, then back at the attorney.

"Mr. Pendelton, the plaintiff is currently sitting six feet from your right elbow. She is wearing the uniform of a commissioned officer in the armed forces of this country. Her military personnel file indicates she has maintained a four-point-zero grade point average at Westbridge Military Academy while residing at forty-two Grant Barracks for one thousand four hundred and sixty consecutive days."

The young lawyer swallowed. The sound was audible in the third row. "Your Honor... our firm was retained under the impression that the documentation provided by the family was... was verified by external investigators."

"Your firm was retained," Alistair interrupted, "because your senior partner owes Richard Vance sixty thousand dollars from a real estate partnership that collapsed during the pandemic."

Alistair pushed the folder aside with two fingers.

"The motion for a continuance is denied," the judge said. "The motion to vacate the preliminary injunction is denied. And the motion to proceed with the testamentary distribution under the residuary clause is denied with prejudice."

Richard’s head jerked up.

"Uncle Alistair—" he began, his voice breaking into a hoarse shriek.

"You will address me as the Court, Richard," Alistair said, his voice dropping into a register that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "You are not in my drawing room in Lake Forest. You are in a court of equity. And you have five minutes to show cause why I should not remand you to the custody of the United States Marshal for immediate presentation to the grand jury on seventeen counts of aggravated federal forgery."

Evelyn let out a high, thin wail from the second row, her prayer book falling to the carpet with a dull, heavy thud.

The red sweep-second hand on the wall jumped forward.