Through the double windows, the Dallas sun baked the manicured lawn of our Highland Park home.

The air conditioning hummed, but it did not cool the sudden heat in my chest.

Footsteps hurried up the spiral staircase.

Graham did not knock.

He pushed the study door open so hard it rebounded off the brass stop.

His face was flushed, a map of red veins showing through his pale skin.

He had sweat through the collar of his blue dress shirt.

“I need you to sign something,” he said, slamming a leather portfolio onto my desk.

I did not flinch.

I looked down at the gold-embossed logo of the Ralston Group on the leather.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Just some corporate resolutions,” he said, pulling a silver pen from his pocket.

His hand shook slightly as he clicked the cap off.

“We are restructuring some of the commercial holdings,” he said.

I knew exactly what holdings he meant.

They were the three strip malls on the north side of the tollway.

They were the only properties he had left that were not already fully leveraged.