She turned and ran back inside. She fought her way through the curtains then slapped her hands against the wall until she found the light switch-the stark white bedroom was suddenly ablaze with incandescent light. The shades of gray were gone. Her world was now painted bright red: red on the white bed sheets… red footprints on the white tile floor leading from the bed out to the deck where she had stepped… red handprints on the white wall where she had searched for the light switch… red on the white curtains where she had fought through them… red on her white nightgown… and red on her. Bright red. Blood red. His blood. She stood drenched in his blood. And he lay on the bed with a knife in his chest.
Rebecca Fenney screamed.
ONE
Three hours later and three hundred miles to the north, Scott Fenney stood drenched in sweat. The sun had just risen that Friday morning, only the fifth day of June, but the temperature was already pushing ninety. It was going to be a hot summer.
The traffic light changed, and he jogged across Mockingbird Lane. He was running the streets of Highland Park. He ran five miles every morning, before the town came alive, when the roads were still free of foreign automobiles and the air still free of exhaust fumes, when the only sounds were birds chirping in the tall oak trees that shaded the broad avenues and the only sights were other white men waging war against middle age in running shoes. Scott was only thirty-eight, so he could still avoid such a daily confrontation with his future. But he could not avoid a daily confrontation with his past.