He knocked on the front door of the house and found that it was unlocked, so he barged in unannounced.

He discovered his wife's younger sister, Judi, playing with the twins on the living-room floor, bent over a game of Monopoly, which he believed they were all capable of losing —not a winner in the group.

"Daddy's home!" he exclaimed, and beamed a smile that was perfectly horrible. He then pointed a Beretta at dear Aunt Judi's chest.

"Don't make a sound, Judi, not a one. Don't give me the slightest excuse to pull this trigger. It would be so easy, and such a great pleasure. And yes, I sincerely hate you, too. You remind me of a fat version of your beloved sister.

"Hello, children! Say hello to your dear old dad. I've come a long ways to see you. All the way from America."

His twin girls, his sweet daughters, started to cry, so Shafer did the only thing he could think of to restore order: he pointed his gun straight at Judi's tear-stained face and walked closer to her. "Make them stop whining and screeching. Now! Show me you deserve to be their keeper."

The aunt bent low and pressed the girls to her chest, and while they didn't actually stop crying, the sound was at least muffled and subdued.

"Judi, now listen to me," Shafer said as he moved behind her and pressed the barrel of the Beretta to the back of her head. "As much as I would like to, I'm not here to fuck and murder you. Actually, I have a message for you to be passed on to the home secretary. In a strange, ironic twist, your absurd, pitiful life actually matters for now. Can you believe it? I can't."

Aunt Judi seemed confused, her natural state as far as Shafer could tell. "How would I do that?" she blubbered.

"Just call the sodding police! Now shut up and listen. You're to tell the police that I came to visit, and I told you that no one is safe anymore. Not the police, not their families. We can go to their houses, just like I came to your house today."

Just to make sure she got it, Shafer repeated the message twice more. Then he turned his attention back to Tricia and Erica, who interested him about as much as the ridiculous porcelain dolls covering the mantel in the room. He hated those silly, frilly porcelain doodads that had once belonged to his wife and that she had doted on as if they were real.

"How is Robert?" he asked the twins, and received no reaction.

What is this? The girls had already mastered the hopelessly lost and confused look of their mother and their blubbering auntie. They said not a word.

"Robert is your brother!" Shafer yelled, and the girls started to sob loudly again. "How is he? How is my son? Tell me something about your brother! Has he grown two heads? Anything!"