Halfway home, snow began to fall. In less than a minute, it changed from a few fat flakes spinning crazily in the wind to a curtain of white drawn across the road. The Audi shuddered in the breeze. I gave thanks for the grip of the high-quality tires on the slick blacktop, but even with good traction visibility forced me down to a crawl. The six-mile drive from the market to my father's farm took fifteen minutes. When I pulled in, both my dad's and my brother's vehicles were in the driveway. I parked behind Jake. Even though it was further away, I knew he'd be the more decent of the two about asking me to move my car if I was in his way. Determined to make it in one trip, I gathered up purse, grocery sacks, and cake box and pushed my door open with my foot.

Movies showed snow as fat fluffy flakes that drifted down gently as feathers fallen from a bird in flight. The reality was that kind of snow rarely amounted to anything. Accumulating snow fell in tiny, biting pellets that came at you sideways and bit into every bit of exposed skin. I squinted against the onslaught and managed to get inside where I dropped everything on the table in a halfway gentle manner that, hopefully, didn't result in any broken bottles or smashed cake.

The house felt colder than normal, not much warmer than outside, save for the absence of wind and snow. I retreated to the doormat and stamped my feet. "I'm home. You guys in here?"

Uncanny silence answered me. Another thing about movie snow—there's no good way to convey the way that snow muffles and morphs sound. Reality shifts when it's snowing.

I'd be glad to return to the land of sunshine and drought. Forgive me, Lord, for my selfishness. I know California needs rain, but I loved the bright sun.

"Dad? Jake?"

Silence.

I toed my boots off and left them on the rack to drip dry. With the mop in the pantry, I wiped my slushy footprints from the floor, making sure to get every trace of mud. From the window over the sink, I couldn't see any sign of life in the barn. No lights, no movement, but there wouldn't be if the guys were in the office. I walked into the hall to hang my coat in the closet there.

At the bottom of the stairs was a wide pool of blood. Blood had splashed up onto the walls and the banister and the threadbare carpet runner in the center of the steps. A thin, tacky river of blood separated me from the closet door. It flowed downward, pulled along by gravity along the sloping floor of the house that had been settling into the earth for nearly two centuries.

My heart seized painfully in my chest, depriving me of the ability to draw breath. I could neither scream nor move. Lights flashed behind my eyes and I was eight years old again, holding my mother's broken body in my arms.

Every beat of her heart pushed more blood from her body. It ran in great waves over my hands, no matter that I tried to press my palms against the wounds on her scalp, her arms, her shoulder. A bright red rose of blood bloomed on the white knit fabric of her nightshirt.

"I'll call the ambulance. I'll get help," I said, but I was terrified to let go of her. It seemed my too-small hands were the only thing holding her together.

"He killed me."

"What?" My gaze darted to the top of the stairs. "Nobody's here, Mama." Fear wrapped steely fingers around my fluttering heart. What if someone was in the house. Daddy and Jake were working in the fields. Was I alone with my wounded mother and a killer?

Mama coughed, a wet, gurgling sound like the sink made when it got plugged up. Foamy red bubbles formed at the corners of her mouth, but she clutched my wrist with unbelievable strength.

"He's a killer, Jess. Don't leave him alone. Keep an eye on him, always."

"Mama?" Tears came then. I'd been trying to hold them back, and I thought I'd been succeeding, but my they dripped from my chin and mixed with my mother's blood.

"He's always been a killer. Always."

"Nobody killed you, Mama. You just fell down the stairs. It'll be okay. I'll get help." My voice, squeezed through the painfully constricted tunnel of my throat sounded alien to my ears. But I couldn't get help. I remained trapped in Mama's unrelenting grip.

She coughed, and blood sprayed from her lips. "Poison," she whispered. I leaned in closer to hear her gurgling words. "Killed. Promise. Can't alone. Can't. Promise. Killed... me."

"I promise, Mama. I promise, but please don't die." Sobs so forceful they threatened to crack my ribs wrenched out of my little body. "Don't leave me, Mama."

But the blood no longer gushed out in rhythmic waves. She was gone.

I looked around at the vast amounts of blood, rivers of blood, lakes of blood, a drowning red tide of it soaking through my clothes and wetting my skin with sticky warmth.

Not again.

It wasn't possible.

No one lived through such a thing twice.

But there it was, right in front of my eyes. I stumbled backward, pressed my body against the wall, dug my fingernails into the crumbly plaster. The silence of the house suddenly took on an ominous tone. This wasn't the silence of solitude, but the stillness of a predator waiting for it's pretty to draw near enough to be killed.

He's a killer.

"Jake." No matter that I longed to scream loud enough for the neighbors to hear, my voice betrayed me, refusing me more than a hoarse whisper. "Jake."

He's always been a killer.

"Oh, God, Jake." My words trembled, barely more than a shaky breath.

Who's blood stained the floor?

At last the scream tore out of my throat with such force that pain shot through me. "Jake!"

I stumbled back into the kitchen and fumbled through my purse with shaking hand, desperate to latch onto my phone, but the jumble of shapes and textures meant nothing to me. Grabbing the bag by the bottom, I upended it and shook it so that the contents scattered across the kitchen table and spilled onto the floor. My phone landed between a packet of tissues and a tin full of mints.

"Nine one one, what's your emergency?" She sounded bored.

"I'm at my father's house. There's blood." In the palms of my sweaty hands I could feel the warmth of my mother's blood, pouring from her body and I almost didn't make it to the trash can before I started retching. It went on until sweat poured from my face and my knees threatened to buckle. At last, I was able to draw in a shaky breath. From a great distance, I heard a tinny voice. My phone lay on the floor, still lit up, despite a crack across the front of the screen.

I tore a paper towel from the roll and wiped my mouth before picking the phone up. "I'm here. I'm sorry."

"Is someone with you?"

"No. I'm alone. My father and brother should be here. Their cars are here, but they're not in the house." My gaze moved to the window. They could be in the barn. "There's blood everywhere, but I don't know what happened. I'm going outside now to see if I can find them."

She asked for the address and I told her and begged her to stay on the line with me while I struggled back into my boots and jogged through the snow. Any human connection, even this cool, disconnected female voice, was better than being alone.

The second I stepped into the barn, I knew something was wrong. The smell was all wrong, cold and stale. No animals rustled in the shadowy stalls. As in the house, deaf-like quiet reigned. Dread turned my feet heavy and I struggled forward toward my father's office. The single lightbulb clicked on, dimmed by a thick layer of dust. The same dust, gray and ancient covered the desktop and the filing cabinets. A barn swallow fluttered overhead in the empty hayloft. Empty. Not stocked for winter.

"He's not here."

"The officer is about three minutes out," the woman said.

I turned and looked back toward the house. My father's truck sat in the drive on rotted tires. Dead, claw-like thistles scrapped the under-carriage.

Sirens wailed in the distance, drawing nearer by the second.

I hung up on the emergency operator and stared into the snow storm. A single set of footprints led from my car to the house.

"Jake!" I screamed for my brot