I knew the quarterly tax write-offs, the font sizes preferred by our pharmaceutical clients, the private extension of the regional media director, and the exact balance of the petty-cash drawer Nick used to pay for his Friday afternoon dry martinis.
Now, my keycard was a piece of dead polyvinyl chloride resting on the center console.
I looked down at my hands.
My right sleeve—the cuff of my crisp, ironed white dress shirt that my wife, Clara, had pressed for me at six o’clock this morning—was stained.
Not with ink.
Not with burnt office coffee.
A smear of dried, brownish-red arterial blood, three inches long, was caked into the fibers of the cotton, stiff as dried parchment.
And mixed with the blood was a faint, chemical scent that had lingered in my nostrils since seven-forty-five:
*The sharp, synthetic odor of aerosolized nitroglycerin and cold mountain loam.
