Marianna slid out of her car, looking more pale than usual. She was clothed head to toe in somber black. Alan, shutting the doors of the new Mustang as Mari sleepwalked her way to the house, was dressed in a black suit. They'd just come from a double funeral.

Mari made a beeline for her bedroom, to change into something less depressing. On the way, she knocked on Pollythene's door, hoping her daughter wasn't on the computer again.

"Come in!" she called through the door. Marianna suddenly remembered that Polly's sixth birthday was coming up soon. Or had she missed it?

"What are you up to?" Mari said, then stopped as she saw her daughter marking an "x" on a wall-mounted map of Layla:). "What's that?"

"It's where all of the murders happened. See, right by the Club is the first one, and the other three insignificant ones here and here and here, and that's Lisa, and that's Marie." Mari cringed at the names of her former waitresses, but Polly didn't notice. "I'm trying to figure out where the axe-murderer will strike next."

"Polly, that's morbid," her mother said, but even as she was saying it, she'd figured it out. "Polly, connect those spots."

"What?"

"Connect them, in order, with a curved line. Like this." She took the marker out of Polly's hand and connected the x's with a spiral. She continued the line... it led straight through their house before hitting the coastline.

"Mommy?"