A few minutes after Al Stram left the Fitch household, eighteen year old Katie Moreland pulled into her grandmother's driveway across the street. Her mother had taken her grandmother shopping earlier that day but had promised to be back by ten, it was ten-thirty and Anna Moreland was never late. Katie noticed the car was still in her grandmother's driveway. "Grandma probably started talking about her cats." Katie thought. She almost left, but then she remembered how much grandma had wanted her to visit.

With a sigh she got out of her car cursing the cold and began to walk up her grandmother's driveway. When she opened the door, the bodies of her mother and grandmother were the first thing she noticed. She didn't know it at the time, but Al Stram had spent the morning spying on the neighbors, using her grandmother's house as a vantage point.

In a panic she raced outside, "Think! Think! What to do? Didn't grandmother say a couple of cops lived across the street?"

The road was empty when she raced across it without looking both ways. Seeing a light on she began pounding on the door, "C'mon, open up! My mother and grandmother have been murdered! I need help!" maybe the home's occupants were asleep. Desperately she tried the door and found it unlocked. She knew breaking and entering was completely frowned upon, especially with a cop's house, but at the moment she could care less.

As soon as the door opened her ears were assaulted by the sounds of a crying baby and a press conference on TV. "Hello! Anybody home?"

A sound like someone trying to speak came from the kitchen. Without thinking Katie raced towards it. The woman was sprawled in a growing puddle of blood barely conscious. When Katie saw the knife she first thought the woman had attempted suicide, but the blood was puddled under the blade and not on it.

She looked for the phone quickly finding it on the wall nearby, she began to dial 911 "Hello, I'm at 110 Sheridan Street, a there is a woman with what appears to be gun or knife wounds in the kitchen of the residence and there are two more women dead across the street at house number 108."

After she had finished with the phone call, Katie walked over to the woman, she was still semi alert and her eyes followed Katie's every move, analyzing her like, well she was an intruder. There were two wounds, one in her chest area and one in the stomach area. Katie tried to staunch them with a cloth, wishing she'd paid more attention in health class.

"Who did this to you?" Katie asked not really expecting an answer.

The response was barely understandable, and it sounded like the woman said Strom, this at the time meant nothing to Katie.

The woman began to close her eyes just as the ambulance pulled into the driveway. The two police cars parked across the street.

xxx

Fitch practically jumped out of the passenger seat before Washington even had the SUV stopped and before Washington and Mason could even get out, he was across the street.

"How is my wife?" he asked the EMTs frantically, noticing that Ariana seemed a little more alert when he showed up.

The younger of the two kind of gave him a funny look, that showed if this weren't a critical situation he'd be questioning the age difference, the older EMT was more helpful.

"She might need a blood transfusion, but thankfully her injuries don't seem life threatening otherwise."

Fitch breathed an audible sigh of relief. "Can I ride with her to the hospital?" he started to ask before remembering his daughter upstairs.

His panic was short lived however, when Mason came up behind him, "I'll check on Ella, you go with her to the hospital."

"Thank you." he whispered softly.

Next chapter he finds out that Stram is to blame.