The sudden quiet below, followed by Adelina’s screech, had finally pierced the room upstairs.

A few seconds passed, and then footsteps came down the staircase in a chaotic scramble.

Warner rounded into the hallway a man in freefall — shirt buttoned askew, hair in tufts, face drained of blood.

Renae came down behind him, coat yanked tight, her face a blotchy crimson.

The instant Warner’s eyes found the frozen slide glowing sixty inches high — his own text, his own wire transfer, his own name — his body went rigid, as if struck.

His first words to his wife of eight years, caught, were not an apology.