I admit I screamed, too, a combined reaction, part nervousness for my illegal break and enter and part expenditure of extra energy I'd been feeding with my angst the last few hours. Alice grabbed for me and I grabbed right back and the pair of us shrieked like co-eds in a bad horror movie as the stationary image of my Grandmother Iris glared at us in all her glowing, rigid glory.

Footsteps pounded overhead, someone racing down the stairs. I barely had time to shut off my ...