“Well . . . this is just hearsay, y’know, but one of the guys in the shop—Lloyd—he was workin’ near Gus, and he thinks . . . God, this is crazy . . . but he thinks it looked like Gus shoved his hand right into the saw.”

“What?”

“I know, I told you it was crazy. Who would do such a thing?” He scrabbled in a breast pocket of his work shirt for a crumpled pack of cigarettes.

“Why would he want to injure himself?” James asked, thinking of Leon Palleja’s earlier comments along the same lines.

“Who knows? It’s just what I heard.”

“From who?”

“Oscar Aaronsen,” Bobby admitted with a scowl. “He, Oscar, I mean, was working the skill saw, not far from where Gus was cuttin’ tile, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gus adjust a tile, obviously at the wrong angle, and then what does he do? Close his eyes and ram the tile at the wrong angle so that the blade goes right between his fingers and he starts screamin’ and cussin’ and . . . oh, well, like I said, it’s freakin’ nuts. Just a rumor.”

Was it?

“Forget I said anything. It’s gossip. That’s all,” Bobby said, and he took off, but James wondered. He felt as if he were at the vortex of some strange whirlpool where nothing was as it seemed and reality was blurred.

He stared through the windows to the shop, where work went on as usual: Carpenters, electricians, and plumbers milled around the houses being constructed; saws screamed; and rock music thudded. It all appeared the same, but it was different. Vastly so. Now beneath the calm exterior of a normal workday lurked the presence of something darker, something where people went missing or worse, or men risked life and limb to intentionally mutilate themselves.

Why?

Of course, no answer came to him. He switched on the small television mounted over a file cabinet, the volume just loud enough to mute some of the noise from the shop, and turned to the stack of invoices on his desk.

The invoices swam in front of his eyes, however, and he found concentration impossible. He rubbed his jaw, felt the tracks of the claw marks on his cheek beneath his beard, and wondered about Megan. Guilt tore at him. His actions, taking up with Sophia, had been the spark for her anger, the reason she’d attacked him, the impetus for her driving out of Riggs Crossing to who-knew-where. He hadn’t physically assaulted her, but his actions had propelled her out of his door and into the night. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what had happened. Was there something more?

And now Rebecca was in his life again.