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pain cleared her mind.
    Brought everything home with nightmarish clarity.
    And this she did not need.
    Or want.
    But she knew she had to act, had to do something, had to quit losing it and slipping into la-la land.
    Wiping her lips off with the back of her hand, feeling the crusted blood at her palms, she pulled herself up. Made herself stand. She was not in a good way either physically or psychologically. The first thing she had to was to get the hell out of here. Make it to the Carroll’s or the Petersen’s. Better yet, over to Pauly Costello’s place. Costello was a mean, ornery old bastard. He’d been a war hero in Vietnam and was still tough as steer hide. Besides, he had guns. Lots of guns.
    Where was her cell?
    In her purse?
    Tara steadied herself, refusing to truly process that body in the kitchen and what was written on the fridge in blood and what it all would mean to her and her life in general. That was for later.
    Get going. Get the police.
    Slowly, with great effort, she started to move. She knew she was probably in shock. She found the little table in the entry. Her purse. She dug out her cell, leaving sticky red smears on it. She found her cigarettes and tried to get one in her mouth while attempting to dial 911 and dropped first the cell, then the cigarette. She tried a second and third cigarette and dropped them both, then threw the pack against the wall.
    She picked up her cell.
    She had to use it because the other phone was in the kitchen and that would mean going back in there, into that fucking slaughterhouse, and nothing on earth could compel her to do so. She kept trying to dial the cell, but her fingers were numb and stupid and it was like trying to type with boxing gloves on. She threw the cell, too, knowing that she had to get to the neighbors. The guy with the guns.
    GUN CONTROL IS HITTING WHAT YOU AIM AT.
    That’s what the bumper sticker on Costello’s rusty Ford F-150 said. Tara had always thought it to be the paradigm of deluded right wing conservatism, the type of thinking that remained firmly entrenched in brainwashed, archaic values as the world moved forever forward, grinding the old school firmly beneath its heel. Crazy thinking. But sometimes you needed crazy bastards to win the war. Or at least to wage the first battle.
    The door.
    She grasped the door knob by its tarnished brass handle, feeling a deadly weight in her head, sure that the bad man would be waiting out there.
    Then the phone rang in the kitchen.
    And kept ringing.
    Ignore it and get out of here, Tara thought.
    But then she turned and ran into the kitchen, having to step through the blood and see the butchered remains of Margaret, her head filled with that wet, fleshy stink of raw meat. As she reached for the phone, she saw something she hadn’t before: the back door was ajar, a series of dirty footprints and scuff mark leading from it to the blood and remains.
    She practically tore the cordless from the wall.
    “ LISTEN TO ME, WHOEVER THIS IS!” she shouted into the receiver. “THERE’S BEEN A MURDER HERE AND I THINK MY SISTER HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? THIS IS NOT A FUCKING JOKE! CALL THE POLICE! THIS IS FOR REAL! CALL THE FUCKING POLICE—”
    And through the thunder of her panicked voice, she heard a low, awful, evil voice speak to her from some dead and dark place:
    “I’ve got your sister.”
    Maybe there was something relevant she should have said. But when her lips parted, all she managed was, “What? What the hell did you just say?”
    “ You heard me,” that vile voice sang out. “I’ve got Lisa. I’ve got that little cunt tucked away high and dry.”
    For a moment, Tara felt hopeless… bovine, stupid. But it didn’t last long. Something dirt-mean and horrendously pissed-off clawed right up from her core. “Listen to me, you sick little freak! If you’ve got her, then you better fucking let her go right now! Do you hear me? Because if you don’t, if you don’t—”
    “Shut