Chapter 1

The rain was bad. Great sheets of it were coming down from the early afternoon sky and clinging fiercely to the windshield of Harper McLain's silver Audi. The windshield wipers' frenzied efforts to fight the deluge were to no avail and visibility was as poor as Harper's mood.

The past week had been hell for the 33 year old. His unwashed sandy blond hair was limp and his normally deep hazel eyes looked downcast and haggard. Harper had attracted that unfortunate odor that seems to linger around airports; the scent of arrested motion and frustration. For almost a whole week he had been dicked around by a hospital board who had expressed great interest in a brand new, state of the art, MRI machine his company sold.

Remembering the particulars of his wasted trip, his thoughts grew black as the clouds hovering low in the sky. Six days spent in Austin, Texas, in the punishing summer heat, only to discover that the hospital had signed an agreement to buy the Magnetic Resonance Imager, the same damn model I was selling, from Phoenix fucking Medical Technologies and that prick Tim Stockman! That commission should have been mine!

Now, here he was coming home a day early, and the rain was coming down in a solid torrent with the barometric pressure so low his prematurely arthritic right knee was set to aching constantly.

At last, the turn to his neighborhood came up on the right. Harper let his anger start to bleed away. After all, he was coming home a day early to his wife Ashley. A whole day with no work and nothing else to occupy him. Things would be better after he could lean back in his recliner with a beer and just listen to her. Always sweet and soothing. Ever ready to listen to him or politely remind him that things weren't as bad as they appeared.

Thinking back, it was a little strange he hadn't heard from her. Usually she was a stickler for daily communication whenever he went on business trips. Harper guiltily realized he had been wholly absorbed in trying to hawk his medical tech and that calling his wife had been shoved rudely to the bottom of his priority list. Maybe he could make it up to her somehow. Take her out someplace nice to eat ... with money he hadn't made.

Big suburban houses rolled by in the rain, their gutters overflowing with water. Good, Harper thought to himself, she's home. Her black BMW was parked in the driveway and Harper parked next it, noting a light on upstairs. Holding a newspaper over his head to keep rain from getting in his eyes, he retrieved his suitcase and briefcase from the trunk and hustled to the front door. Faint music coming from upstairs greeted his ears as the front door swung open.

As he walked into the kitchen, the smell of something going bad directed his gaze to a multitude of dirty dishes in the sink. Something weird was definitely going on here.

His travel suitcase thunked to the floor while the brown leather briefcase he carried found a place on the kitchen table. "Hey, Ash?" he called as he loosened his tie and took off his coat, placing it on the back of a chair in the kitchen. "Ashley?"

No answer drifted from upstairs. Must not be able to hear me over the music, he mused. Harper draped his tie over his coat while his mouth twisted into a frown. The beer could wait. Better go see Ashley first.

Harper undid a couple buttons on his shirt as he thumped steadily up the stairs. His right knee sang out a litany of pain with each step. The music, now easily discernible as some horrible electronic clamor, grew louder as he ascended. Weird, he thought. Ashley hates that stuff. A slice of light spilled out onto the off-white carpet of the landing as he reached the top of the stairs.

Before he could call out his wife's name again, he noticed another sound. Rhythmic, but not musical. A slurping, sucking noise he couldn't place. Curious, he kept quiet and walked to the door. Nothing could be seen through the crack and Harper pushed the door open slowly.