Look Closely - Laura Caldwell [10]
“It’s nothing precise,” I said, raising my head to meet his eyes again. “As I mentioned, I just want you to be ready.”
“If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s this. I am always, always ready.” He closed the file folder in front of him as if the subject were also closed.
“All right then. Let’s review what’s going to happen this week.”
I took them through what I expected of the arbitration step by step, and when we were finished, McKnight stood from the table and began moving toward the door. It was twelve o’clock, one hour before the arbitration started.
“Please call if you want lunch sent up,” he said to me. “You do eat, right? You do require regular human sustenance?”
I blinked a few times, confused at his hostility. “I’ve been known to eat once in a while,” I said wryly.
“Good to hear it. I’ll see you at the arbitration.”
“I think we should walk over together so that we can talk some more about your testimony,” I said.
He stopped and turned around. “I think you’ve taken up enough of my time.” With that, he sailed out the door.
I looked at Beth. “What the hell?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t take it personally. Supposedly, he wasn’t always like this. I’ve heard that he used to be a decent guy until he got a divorce years ago. He was never the same after that.”
“A divorce made him such a jerk? Are you kidding me?”
She shrugged. “You never know what can push a person over the edge.”
A few days later, I sat at a scratched wooden table, alone in the arbitration room, getting ready to present McKnight’s Web designer as my next witness. Since everyone else was at lunch, the room was cool and quiet. The proceeding was being held in a stately old government building near the federal courthouse, the place where McKnight Corporation would find itself in approximately six months for a trial if the arbitration didn’t go well. The arbitrators had barred members of the press from the room, but journalists were always stationed outside, like vultures waiting to swoop, so most of the time I stayed put until I had to leave for the day.
It was hard when the room was so still. I wasn’t as focused as I should have been. My thoughts kept straying from the notes and deposition transcripts piled in front of me to the letter tucked at the bottom of my trial bag. I kept counting the days until I could leave Chicago and drive to Woodland Dunes. Only two more now.
So far, the arbitration had been an odd mix, some parts better than I expected, others decidedly worse. I’d been pleased with my opening argument. I went into that zone where I wove my words easily, where I could read the arbitrators’ faces and change my course when their interest waned. The only thing that threw me was the constant feel of Sean McKnight’s eyes on me. It didn’t seem like the lustful watch of a man interested in a May/December romance. That would have been simple, because I knew how to handle come-ons. No, his stare felt more like an ever-present evaluation. Every time I saw him observing me from the corner of my eye, I had to force myself to concentrate so that I could keep on the path of my statement.
Luckily, after the opening arguments, McKnight did as he said he would and disappeared until it was time for his testimony. Once he was on the stand, he became the charming person customers associated with McKnight department stores. I was surprised when the plaintiff’s attorney, Evan Lamey, didn’t hit McKnight hard with questions about the Fieldings takeover. I would’ve liked to think that Lamey was entranced by McKnight’s good looks and smooth talking, but I knew better. Lamey was trying to cast a shadow of doubt over McKnight with his cross-examination, all the while saving his real zingers in case a trial was needed. As a result, McKnight finished his testimony at the end of