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suddenly, this mysterious female might visit harm on his family while they slept, he ran to the foyer and up the stairs. He almost fell down the staircase when the voice cackled gleefully a few feet behind him.
    David whirled around. There wasn’t anyone else on the stairs.
    The knife ready, he moved back downstairs. But the evasive female kept silent, despite several more trips around the entire floor in hopes of drawing her out from her hiding place. Weary of the game, he waited in the living room. The clock on the mantle read 1:05 a.m. Too much adrenaline to go back to sleep, he turned on the TV and set the volume low. Perched on the edge of the sofa, he suffered through three late-night infomercials while waiting for something else to happen.
    Just before two-thirty, after one last uneventful tour of the main floor, he returned the knife to the cutlery block in the kitchen and turned off the television and all of the downstairs lights. By then, the earliest morning birds outside began their songs in earnest as he trudged upstairs. But before he reached the second floor landing a high-pitched ring emanated from the dining room.
    P-i-i-i-n-n-g-g-g!
    With his heart racing, David tiptoed back down the stairs and crept over to the dining room. He half-expected the ringing sound to stop as he flicked on the switch to the chandelier, but it didn’t. The noise resonated from a large crystal bowl that graced the middle of the antique dining table. He couldn’t help but stare at the bowl, listening to the reverberations until they died.
    Why in the hell is this happening to us??
    The room grew cold around him, and David felt an odd sensation....like a hundred menacing eyes watched him from every direction. He shivered as he considered the connection between tonight’s events and what happened in Gatlinburg. As much as his pragmatic mind hated the idea, too many similarities said so.
    And the voice...who did it belong to? Was it even real? If not, is this what happens when you go insane? Maybe all the tireless hours he worked the past few months had finally caught up with him.
    “ This is just too crazy,” he snickered, uneasy. He turned off the chandelier and stepped back slowly from the dining room. A deathlike heaviness surrounded him as he paused in the foyer’s darkness.
    He wasn’t sure if anything or anyone followed him upstairs or not, but the hairs on the back of his neck didn’t stop tingling until he climbed back into bed and pulled up the covers. When he heard the female’s laughter coming from downstairs again, he told himself over and over that it wasn’t real. Thankfully, it became harder to keep his eyes open. Once he succumbed to sleep, it seemed like a matter of minutes before Miriam’s alarm signaled the start of the new week.
     
     
     
    Chapter Six
     
     
    “ Come on, kids, we don’t want to be late!” urged Miriam, motioning for Jillian and Christopher to gather up their book-bags and lunch boxes. She walked briskly over to where David stood, next to the coffeepot in the kitchen.
    On his second cup of coffee, he paused long enough to give her a kiss.
    “ I had a great time this weekend,” he whispered in her ear. “If you’re up for some fun later tonight, you know where to find me.” Offering a wry smile, he winked.
    “ Oh, yeah, big boy? We’ll see about that. It looks like you could use some serious rest.”
    She looked up into his eyes. Painfully aware she noticed the redness under them, he’d missed out on his usual seven hours of sleep.
    “ A few more cups of petrol, and I’ll be good for the entire day!”
    “ Yeah, right.” She turned away and headed toward the front door.
    “ Bye Daddy! Bye Ty!” said Jillian and Christopher, just before they exited the house. Jillian stuck her head back in through the doorway. “I like your coat, Ty!”
    “ Wow, son…now that looks great!” Miriam agreed. She stopped to admire her eldest child decked out in his new leather jacket as