'Two Little Girls In Blue'

Chapter 1

"Hold on a minute, Rob, I think one of the twins is crying. Let me call you back."

Nineteen-year-old Trish Logan put down her cell phone, got up from the couch, and hurried across the living room. It was her first time babysitting for the Frawleys, the nice people who had moved into town a few months earlier. Trish had liked them immediately. Mrs. Frawley had told her that when she was a little girl, her family often visited friends who lived in Connecticut, and she liked it so much she always wanted to live there, too. "Last year when we started looking for a house and happened to drive through Ridgefield, I knew it was where I wanted to be," she told Trish. The Frawleys had bought the old Cunningham farmhouse, a "fixer-upper" that Trish's father thought should have been a "burnerupper." Today, Thursday, March 24th, was the third birthday of the Frawleys' identical twin girls, and Trish had been hired for the day to help with the party, then to stay for the evening while the parents attended a black-tie dinner in New York.

After the excitement of the party, I'd have sworn the kids were dead to the world, Trish thought as she started up the stairs, headed to the twins' room. The Frawleys had ripped out the worn carpet that had been in the house, and the nineteenth-century steps creaked under her feet.

Near the top step, she paused. The light she had left on in the hall was off. Probably another fuse had blown. The wiring in the old house was a mess. That had happened in the kitchen this afternoon. The twins' bedroom was at the end of the hall. There was no sound coming from it now. Probably one of the twins had cried out in her sleep, Trish thought as she began to inch her way through the darkness. Suddenly she stopped. It's not just the hall light. I left the door to their room open so I could hear them if they woke up. The night-light in the room should be showing. The door's closed. But I couldn't have heard one of them crying if it was closed a minute ago. Suddenly frightened, she listened intently. What was that sound?

In an instant of sickening awareness, she identified it: soft footsteps. A hint of equally soft breathing. The acrid smell of perspiration. Someone was behind her.

Trish tried to scream, but only a moan escaped her lips. She tried to run, but her legs would not move. She felt a hand grab her hair and yank her head back. The last thing she remembered was a feeling of pressure on her neck.