She knew what was going to happen.

“You people, you take everything from us.” The man’s hands were at her throat. “Our land. Our food. Our diamonds. White devils.”

“I work with your people, every day.” Tara tried not to show her terror, but she knew he could see it in her eyes. “I work at the AIDS clinic in Pinetown.”

“AIDS? YOU gave us AIDS! You white doctors. You kill our children.”

“Bullshit.” Anger was Tara’s last defense. “You kill your own children with your ignorance. We try to help you. My husband has given millions-”

One big black hand covered her mouth, forcing her to the floor. The other tore at her shirt, grabbing hungrily at her breasts. Tara knew better than to fight. The bastard would probably enjoy it. Instead she retreated from her body, barricading herself in her mind.

It’s only my body. It isn’t “me.” He can’t touch me.

She felt him on top of her, inside her, the stench and weight of him, the rage with which he forced his huge, grotesquely swollen cock inside her body.

Think about the children. If he gets what he wants from me, maybe he won’t hurt them.

He wasn’t fucking her. He was stabbing her, frenziedly pounding himself into her flesh, his entire body a weapon.

The police will come, or Gabe. Oh God, Gabe! She stifled a sob. The clock on the wall said ten after four. Where are you?

Gabe crouched by the side of the road, his hands black with oil.

Stupid Bentley. He’d had new tires put on only last month and already one of them had a flat. He was annoyed about being late again. Tara was always berating him about it, and for once he’d made a real effort to leave the office in good time. As he heaved the spare out of the trunk, it occurred to him that he hadn’t changed a tire since he was a teenager back in Scotland. Bloody hell, I’m getting old.

Two police cars roared past him, sirens wailing.

Must be another break-in.

He got to work.

Tara heard the sirens. Hope welled up within her.

The man stopped raping her and pulled up his pants. Fear flickered in his eyes. He shouted to his companions: “Masihambe! Amaphoyisa!”

Tara understood the Zulu. “Let’s go. Police.” She started to shake with relief.

Thank God. Oh, thank God. It’s over.

For the first time, she wondered if the rape would mean she’d lost her baby. There was blood on her thighs.

Five men charged down the stairs and leaped out of the ground-floor windows like gazelles. Weren’t there six of them before? Had she miscounted? She tried to get a closer look at their faces, but it was impossible, they moved so fast.

Grabbing his backpack, the ringleader started after them. Then he stopped and turned around.

“Fucking bitch. You typed in the alarm code, didn’t you?”

He moved toward the stairs. Tara’s blood turned to ice. The children.

“No!” She lunged at him, but her legs collapsed beneath her like Jell-O.

He started to climb.

The electric gates were closed.

“No sign of forced entry. You sure this is the place, man?”

“Yah.” The police sergeant nodded. “McGregor. It’s the Phoenix guy. Maybe they got in around the back.”

“You know how to open these things?”

The senior officer looked wearily at the Fort Knox-like gates. He was called out to break-ins almost every day. Nine times out of ten it was a false alarm. Kids playing around with the safe, or some dumb Bantu maid getting spooked and hitting the panic button.

“You can’t. Not without the code. We’ll have to climb over, boss.”

The senior officer sighed. He was getting too old for this.

“Come on, then. Dax, Willoughby, you drive around the back. Wits about you lads, eh? You never know. This could be the real thing.”

“Sure, boss.” They all laughed.

Five o’clock. Forty minutes to change a stupid tire. You’re pathetic, Gabe McGregor. Pathetic.

Turning the corner, Gabe saw two squad cars parked outside his gates.

“Sorry, sir. You can’t go up there.”

“What do you mean I can’t go up there? This is my house. What’s happened? Where’s my wife?”

Blood drained from the young cop’s face. “Just stay here, sir. I’ll fetch DI Hamilton.” He set off at a run up the drive.

Bugger this, thought Gabe. Grinding the Bentley’s gears into first, he slammed his foot down on the gas pedal, sending his wheels spinning and throwing up a plume of dust like a sandstorm.

“Sir! Stop!” But it was too late. Gabe’s car shot up the hill like a bat out of hell. Seconds later, he sprinted into the house. Cops swarmed the entryway like sand flies.

“Tara!” Gabe shouted into the rafters. He could hear the panic in his own voice. “Tara? Darling?”

A policeman approached him.

“Gabriel McGregor?”

Gabe nodded mutely. “Where’s my wife? Where are the children?”

“If you’d just sit down a minute, sir…”

“I don’t want to sit down. Where have you taken my children?”

A man appeared at the top of the stairs. In his arms was a gray canvas body bag.

It was only four feet long.

TWENTY-FOUR

THE BRUTAL SLAYING OF GABRIEL MCGREGOR’S WIFE AND children was a story that gripped not just South Africa but the world. It was a Greek tragedy: the white philanthropist and his doctor wife, attacked by the very people they had spent their lives trying to save.

A few weeks after the killings, the gruesome drama took another, unexpected twist. Gabe McGregor walked out of Phoenix’s office one lunchtime as usual. He hadn’t been seen or heard from since.

Conspiracy theories abounded on the Internet: Was Gabe involved in the murders? Maybe Tara was planning to divorce him, and he had her killed to protect his fortune? He discovered the kids were not his and murdered them in a jealous rage? Had he killed himself out of remorse? Had he assumed a new identity and fled justice?

Of course, there wasn’t a shred of evidence to support such lurid speculation. But that didn’t stop tabloids around the world from dredging up every buried secret from Gabe’s past, his drug addiction, his record for assault and battery, his investigation for fraud, dissecting each of them in salacious detail and salivating over their imagined “implications.” Many people spoke up in Gabe’s defense, among them the police investigating the McGregor killings, Robbie Templeton, the world-famous pianist and AIDS campaigner, and Dia Ghali, Gabe’s former partner at Phoenix and a hero to many black South Africans. But their voices were drowned out by the baying of the mob.

Race relations had come so far in the new South Africa. No one wanted to believe that this beautiful white doctor and her photogenic children had been slaughtered by a gang of angry black men whom the cops had no chance of catching. Not when there were so many other, more interesting possibilities.

For those who knew Gabe and Tara, however, this was no soap opera. It was sobering, unimaginable reality.

Lexi was in her office in New York when she got word of the murders.

“But they can’t all have been killed. Not the children, too. There must be some mistake.”

There was no mistake. Lexi’s first feeling was pure compassion. Poor Gabe. All of them, his whole family, gone! She wanted to call or write to him, but quickly realized how inappropriate that would be. She and Gabe hadn’t spoken in more than two years. And for a very good reason. As she was fond of telling Robbie and anyone else who would listen, Lexi Templeton hated Gabe McGregor.

Lexi saw the world in black and white. She did not operate in grays. Ever since she was a little girl, playing with her dolls, she’d divided the people around her into two camps: friends or enemies.