Oblivious to the accordion folder on its stand beside him, Rob paused in the doorway to wipe the soles of his shoes on the entry mat, an act of habitual normalcy in a life from which every trace of the normal was about to depart. He would never recall anything else from the time he swung off the road until after the police arrived. He would not even remember mustering the presence of mind to call them on his cell phone . . . this hole punched in his memory by shock and horror the only mercy availed him that day, and perhaps all that kept him sane in the countless tormented days and nights to come.

For Rob Howell, the chasm between before and after would open with that automatic, momentary pause.

So absurd and yet so natural.

Wiping his shoe bottoms on the mat.

“Cynth?” he called from inside the door.

No answer.

“Cynth? You home?”

Still no answer.

Rob moved farther through the house, saw the kitchen light was on, and found his gaze suddenly drawn to a puddle of wetness on the small section of floor visible through its entry from his angle in the middle of the hallway. Something was spilled there on the floor. Something red. Splashed across the floor tiles, tendriled out into the thin puttied spaces between them. A gleaming puddle of red on Cynth’s precious new kitchen tiles, which Rob had painstakingly laid himself not three months earlier as a fifth anniversary present to her.

His heart thumped.

“Cynth?”

Not a sound except for the greys barking outside.

Dread perched on his shoulders like some cruel taloned bird, Rob rushed into the kitchen, looked down near the feet of the table, and began screaming wildly into the silence of the house, his legs melting away underneath him, the world blurring out in a gush of tears, screaming, screaming, his wails of horror and grief rising from the bottom of his lungs until they shredded off into hoarse, hysterical sobs.

What he had seen was an abomination.

“Hey, Roger, you made it!” Hugh Bennett said in a bassoon voice, coming over from the parlor entry. “Been looking forward to this a while . . . heard you were finally on the way from the airport! Guess it’s been quite a haul for all of us staying here—except Tom o’ course!”

In Gabon only a few hours, Roger Gordian was not too surprised to find King Hughie waiting for him at the large colonial home of Thomas Sheffield, an expat Sedco official whose guest he would be for the next couple of days.

What did catch him unprepared was the retinue of perhaps eight or ten suited, seated Sedco executives in the parlor behind Hughie.

“Good to see you.” Gordian looked into his large, broad-cheeked face. Bushy white eyebrows ran together under the forehead like a solid raft of clouds. “Everyone’s here for dinner?”

Bennett slapped him on the back as they shook hands.