Oak Greythorne held up the heavy tumbler and swirled the liquid inside, admiring the bourbon’s fine amber color. Bringing the glass up to his nose, he inhaled deeply and felt a slight burning sensation in his nostrils. Then he greedily swallowed a large mouthful of the liquor and ran his tongue around his lips. God, that tasted good. It had been a while since he had taken a drink. He now realized how much he had missed it.

Greythorne had loved alcohol from the first time he had tasted it as a child. Even though fifty years had passed, he remembered the occasion distinctly. When he was in the third grade at the Latin School of Chicago, his grandfather had allowed him to finish the last few sips of a glass of sherry. The old man had been certain the child would be repulsed by the taste, but he had drunk the deep red liquid as if it had been cherry soda and had gravely asked if he might have some more. His grandfather had laughed, pronounced the lad a man of the world and obliged. And so began a lifelong love affair with spirits.

Greythorne leaned back against the heavy brocade sofa cushion, his mind wandering. The Latin School. That had been so long ago. Where had the time gone? Where had his life gone? At fifty-seven, he was no longer young. He could almost be called elderly, and he didn’t like it a bit. His hourglass was running out. He swallowed some more bourbon.

There had been many good times and more bad ones for Oak Greythorne. Disparate images from the past floated through his mind. He saw himself as a student at the University of Chicago. That’s when his alcoholic binges had begun in earnest, along with terrible mood swings. Now there were polite names for his numerous maladies – bipolar disorder; manic-depressive; panic attacks. But at that time his behavior had prompted only snickers and whispered comments, “crazy, psycho, loony bin.” People either thought Greythorne did not hear the remarks or did not care what was being said about him. But they had been wrong. The more people made fun of him, the more he sank into depression and the more he tried to lose himself in the bottle.

After graduating from business school, Greythorne had finally gotten medical help. A good therapist and prescription drugs had done wonders – for a while. But then he had thought he was cured and stopped taking the drugs and the downward spiral began again. He would eventually hit bottom and return to a medical regimen, but each time he would relapse and each time he regressed he would seem to sink a bit lower.

In spite of his afflictions, Greythorne had managed to build a successful business. But eight years ago he had suffered a complete mental breakdown and had been hospitalized for three months. He had never fully recovered. He sold his beloved business and retreated into himself. His plush lakeside condo had turned into a virtual prison.

What a waste, Greythorne thought as he took another large swallow of bourbon. Everyone had always said he was a genius. Who could say what might have been if only he hadn’t had to devote so much of his energy to fighting his personal demons?

He might have had a family. He’d been a handsome young man, tall, well built. Women had found him attractive – until they’d discovered his darker side. Then they’d all dumped him and moved on to more stable prospects. All except Janice.

Greythorne’s eyes filled with tears as he recalled the great love of his life. Janice had wanted to stick by him, to help him, but he pushed her away, afraid that instead of her being able to lift him up he would pull her down with him into the abyss. What might his life have been like with Janice by his side? He would never know. He began to cry.

After a few moments the tears subsided but then Greythorne’s heart suddenly begin to race wildly and he broke out in a cold sweat. Recognizing the familiar symptoms of a panic attack, he reached for the prescription bottle on the table next to the booze. Xanax. The best invention since bourbon. Greythorne opened the bottle and shook out two tablets. He popped them in his mouth and washed them down with the last of the alcohol in his glass. Then he picked up the prescription bottle again and peered inside. His mind was hazy now. The bottle looked almost empty. Hadn’t he just gotten a refill last week? What happened to the rest of the pills? Had he really taken so many?

Greythorne sat quietly for a time, waiting for the drug’s calming effects to kick in. He did not know how much time had passed but his heart was still pounding madly and the feelings of doom were overwhelming. He remembered the doctor’s warning about the possibility of an accidental overdose. He also vaguely remembered the admonition to never take Xanax with alcohol. Yet he was in desperate need of relief. He felt as if he were going to jump out of his skin. One more pill couldn’t hurt, could it? His hand reached out for the bottle, then he stopped.

No, better not take more Xanax. Maybe a bit more alcohol would do the trick. He reached for the bourbon bottle, then hesitated.

He knew he shouldn’t be drinking. He had been sober for months. He could just hear his AA sponsor chastising him. “Why didn’t you call me? We could have gone to a meeting, talked things through.”

“Bullshit!” Greythorne snorted. His sponsor was young enough to still be an idealist. What good was talking when you felt like your world was collapsing around you? At times like that, only liquor could ease the pain. So what if this was a major lapse? The hell with it. He would deal with his sponsor’s wrath later. Tonight his own needs came first.

“I need a drink. Just one more drink, then I’ll stop,” Greythorne mumbled. He closed his eyes. His heart was still pounding. It felt like the walls were closing in. “Goddammit, I need a drink!” he howled.

“Here you are, Oak,” a deep voice said. Was the voice real or imagined? Greythorne wondered. He couldn’t tell. “You look a little stressed,” the voice went on. “This will help you mellow out.”

Greythorne opened one eye and through a thick haze he saw a full tumbler of bourbon being thrust into his right hand. He closed his hand around it and carefully guided the glass to his lips. He took a big gulp. Ahhh. That was heavenly. That was just what he needed.

“Take these, too,” the voice said. Suddenly three more white tablets appeared in Greythorne’s hand. He hesitated just for a second, then swallowed the pills and drained the rest of the liquor. Then he closed his eyes.

This was much better. He felt so much calmer now. His mind was going blank. All the bad thoughts were fading. Several minutes passed and his breathing slowed measurably. Then it slowed some more. Then it stopped completely.

“Nighty night, Oak,” the voice said. “Rest in peace, you dumb bastard.”

“Emma, Louis Brisbane here.” The authority in the caller’s voice resonated over the phone. “Would you mind coming up to my office? There is a matter I would like to discuss with you.”

“Of course,” Emma Davis replied at once. “I’ll be right there.” As the thirty-year-old attorney hung up the phone, her heart began pounding. Thoughts of doom rushed through her head.

“I must have screwed something up,” Emma murmured, pushing her long curly blond hair behind her ears. She quickly ran through the projects she had worked on in the ten weeks she had been at Franklin & Holland, one of Chicago’s largest law firms. She had not handled any unusually complex matters, and she didn’t think she had made any glaring errors. In fact, she had received nothing but praise from Tom Cane, her supervising attorney. So why was she being summoned to the office of one of the firm’s senior partners? And not just any senior partner. A big swinging briefcase type partner. A management committee member.

The management committee was comprised of six men who governed the entire firm, which included the four hundred lawyers in the main office in Chicago as well as a dozen satellite offices around the country. Even decades after women began enrolling in law schools, Franklin & Holland remained an old boys club. There were, as yet, no old girls in the firm’s top tanks.

A recent Chicago Tribune article estimated that Franklin & Holland partners had earned an average of $1.2 million the previous year. Management committee members were said to take home twice that amount. So why would one of these exalted leaders want to talk to lowly associate Emma Davis, who had just arrived after the Chicago giant merged with the Kansas City firm where Emma had worked since graduating from law school five years earlier? She didn’t have a clue.

In any case, she couldn’t sit there forever speculating on the possible reason for Brisbane’s call. If she didn’t hightail it up to his office pronto he was likely to have her fired for insubordination. She had heard management committee types were prima donnas who expected everyone beneath them in the firm’s pecking order to jump when they called. And Emma definitely ranked pretty damn low. She tried to pick up a legal pad and found her hands were shaking. Dammit! She’d better get a grip, or Brisbane would think she had a drinking problem on top of being a lousy attorney.

Have to calm down, Emma thought. She got up from her desk and stood behind her chair. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. She could feel her tension ease just a bit. She took several more breaths. She was ready to face whatever Brisbane wanted to throw at her. With a slight smile, Emma opened her eyes, caught a glimpse out her thirty-fourth-floor window and immediately found herself fighting back a massive wave of nausea.

Damn! Since moving to Chicago, Emma had thought she had made some progress in trying to overcome her lifelong fear of heights, but obviously she still had a ways to go. Riding in elevators did not bother her (unless they were those glass capsules that crawled up the outside of buildings), nor did she mind flying. But get her anywhere near a window that was higher than ten stories and she would immediately feel the start of a panic attack.

So what the hell was she doing working in a Chicago Loop building that was roughly the height of Mt. Everest? Emma chastised herself. She had thought it would be so cool to work in the big city. At least her little fifth-floor office in Kansas City had never caused an attack of vertigo. So much for the deep breathing routine, she thought as she stumbled back to her desk. Now she was more of a basket case than ever.

Emma grabbed the legal pad and a pen and hurried out the door. She paused at her secretary’s desk. “I’m going up to see Louis Brisbane,” she said, hoping that her voice was not shaking too badly. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

Lorraine Gelly looked up from her computer screen. “Why are you seeing Brisbane?” the red haired, forty-something woman demanded. “Is there a problem?”

“Of course not,” Emma replied, smoothing down the skirt of her powder blue wool suit. “Why would you think there might be a problem?”

“Because the last associate I worked for who was summoned to Brisbane’s office was fired on the spot. By the time he came back down here, a security guard had packed up his personal belongings and changed the password on his computer. Not that I’m implying that’s what’s going to happen to you,” Lorraine said sweetly. “I just thought you’d want to know.”

“Thank you, Lorraine,” Emma said with a twinge of sarcasm. “You’ve made me feel so much better.”

As she rode the elevator to the fortieth floor, Emma tried to psyche herself up for her meeting. She had only talked to Brisbane twice before, once during her exhausting ten hours of interviews with countless firm members soon after she had asked to transfer to Chicago and again during her first week on the job.

Emma hated to admit it but there was something about Louis Brisbane that unnerved her. Although he was tall, dark, distinguished, and looked every inch the patrician lawyer, there was something almost sinister about him. Emma paused a moment and considered what that might be. His eyes. Yes, that was it. His eyes were dark and piercing. They looked as if they could see right through you. And more than that, they looked cruel. Brisbane was clearly not someone you’d want on your bad side. And he was not someone to keep waiting, Emma thought as the elevator opened onto the fortieth floor. She fast-walked down the hall toward Brisbane’s office.

“Emma Davis to see Mr. Brisbane,” she announced somewhat breathlessly to the great man’s secretary.

J. Devereaux Braxton regarded Emma haughtily. “He has been expecting you,” the perfectly coifed woman replied. “Go right in.”

“Thank you,” Emma said, trying hard to sound breezy and cheerful when in truth she felt as if she might vomit. She took a deep breath, then marched into Brisbane’s domain.

Brisbane swiveled around in his massive leather chair when he spied her. “Emma, please come in.”

Emma’s first view of Brisbane’s digs nearly knocked her off her feet. The man had a huge corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides, giving the effect that if you took a running leap, you could fly right out into space. I would die of fright if I had to work in here, Emma thought.

“Beautiful view, isn’t it?” Brisbane said, mistaking Emma’s wide-eyed look for excitement rather than stark terror.

“Lovely,” Emma agreed, trying to avert her eyes.

“I was just watching some boats at the lakeshore. Spring is such a splendid time of year in Chicago. Take a look yourself, if you’d like.” Brisbane motioned toward a Meade telescope positioned at one of the windows.

“No, thank you,” Emma said politely.

“Then please have a seat.”

Emma dutifully parked herself in one of the dark leather chairs in front of Brisbane’s desk and took a quick look around. She had been in other Franklin & Holland partners’ offices and they were all lavishly furnished, but Brisbane’s was simply magnificent. The parquet floor was accented by a series of thick oriental rugs. The enormous desk was mahogany and in a corner was the most ornately carved file cabinet Emma had ever seen. I’m definitely not in Kansas anymore, she thought.

Brisbane took off his reading glasses and set them down in front of him. “How are you enjoying your start at Franklin & Holland?” he asked genially.

“Fine,” Emma replied nervously.

“What cases are you working on?”

“The principal one is Tift v. Forage King Industries.” “That’s a products liability action, isn’t it?”

“Yes. At the moment I am researching successor liability issues because our client acquired the business from another company and it is not clear which of them actually manufactured the product in question.”

“Who is the billing partner on the case?”

“Tom Cane.”

“Oh, yes,” Brisbane nodded. “Tom mentioned a couple of weeks ago how pleased he was with your work.”

The constricted feeling in Emma’s chest began to recede a bit. Maybe she wasn’t going to be called on the carpet about her work after all.

“What else are you working on?” Brisbane asked.

“A number of other things. Just last week I was given a new environmental tort case.”

“Are we keeping you busy enough?”

“I’ve been quite busy,” Emma replied, not sure where the conversation was going.

“The reason I ask is that I have an assignment I’d like you to help me with – that is, if you can work it into your current schedule.”

Emma was stunned. A management committee member was giving her an assignment? Of course she could work it in! “I’m sure I could find the time,” she said brightly.

Brisbane smiled. “Excellent. What do you know about trusts and estates?”

Emma frowned, feeling the opportunity slipping away already. “Just what I learned in law school, I’m afraid.”

“Well, I need someone to help me with a T and E matter. An old school friend of mine, Oak Greythorne, died recently.” Brisbane leaned back in his chair. “Oak was a rather tragic figure, brilliant but flawed. He was plagued by demons and prone to many excesses his entire life and unfortunately they finally killed him. He had no family and left his entire estate to a charitable trust. I would like your assistance in transferring the assets to the trust. Does this sound like something you’d be interested in?”

Emma searched for the right response. While she was thrilled that Brisbane had enough confidence in her abilities to offer her this plum assignment, she was concerned that her lack of experience in that particular field might cause him to realize he had made a mistake.

“I’m very flattered that you would think I am capable of handling this, but I have never done any probate work before and I’m not sure I’d be able to do a competent job.”

“Don’t worry about that. I will be overseeing everything,” Brisbane assured her. “I just need you to handle the legwork, so to speak. I have no doubt that you would do a wonderful job.”

“Well, in that case, I would love to help you out,” Emma said enthusiastically.

“Excellent,” Brisbane said, smiling. “I’ll have Devereaux bring the file down to you within a day or so, and I will put together a list of the tasks that need to be done. After you’ve had a chance to look that over, we’ll talk again.”

“Great!” Thinking the meeting was over, Emma stood up.

“One more thing,” Brisbane said.

Emma sat right back down again.

Brisbane leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that most associates would consider working with a senior partner to be quite a desirable assignment.”

“Of course,” Emma said.

“You probably understand better than I do that jealousy can sometimes erupt over associates’ assignments and I’m sure you would agree that fits of jealous pique between young attorneys at a firm is counterproductive and should be avoided whenever possible.”

Emma nodded, trapped in his gaze.

“So if you don’t mind, I think it would be best if you did not tell anyone else at the firm about this assignment.”

“Certainly.” Emma nodded again.

“Devereaux give you a special client code that you should use to enter your billing charges into the computer. Oh – and I think it would also be best if you would route any secretarial work to Deveraux rather than using your own secretary. It will just make everything smoother.”

“Of course,” Emma said.

“I’m glad we understand each other.” Brisbane stood up and Emma did the same. He walked her to the door. “I’m so pleased that you are willing to find the time to help me with this project, Emma,” he said. “If our collaboration on this matter runs as smoothly as I think it will, I am sure I’ll be able to send other, more significant cases your way.”

“Thank you, sir,” Emma said. “I appreciate your confidence in my work, and I promise I won’t let you down.”

“I’m sure you won’t. Thank you, Emma. We’ll talk again when you’ve finished reviewing the file.” He opened the door and she rushed out before he had a chance to reconsider his decision and give the assignment to someone else.

Emma nearly floated back to her office. “So what happened?” Lorraine asked. “I take it you weren’t fired because no one came to pack up your office.”

“No, I wasn’t fired,” Emma said, quickly trying to come up with a cover story that her savvy secretary would buy. “Brisbane is interested in expanding the firm’s nationwide recruiting efforts, and he thought I might be able to provide a fresh viewpoint, so he asked me if I’d be interested in serving on the recruiting committee.”

Emma was not sure if it was her imagination or if Lorraine really was frowning. “He had you come to his office to ask you to be on the recruiting committee? He couldn’t ask you that on the phone or by e-mail?”

Emma shrugged. “We also discussed the cases I’m handling. Maybe he wanted to check out my work.”

“I’ve heard that Louis Brisbane has an eye for the ladies,” Lorraine said. “Maybe he wanted to check you out.”

Emma laughed, feeling a tense situation defuse. “He was a perfect gentleman, and besides, I don’t think I’m his type. I’m just a hick from Kansas City, remember?”

“Be careful,” Lorraine said seriously. “He could be a wolf in lawyer’s clothing.”

“Don’t worry. I can take care of myself.”

Emma walked into her office, shut the door behind her and resisted the impulse to let out a whoop of joy. She couldn’t believe her good fortune. A management committee member had singled her, Emma Davis, out for a special project. He had all but promised that good work on this matter would yield more assignments. And then, if things went well -– dare she even think the word – partnership might be in her future. There was no doubt about it, Emma thought smugly, her future at Franklin & Holland was suddenly looking very bright indeed.