There was a moment of aching silence that Jenny knew would never be filled again by the tender and winsome voice of her mother.
She became aware of the sirens again. She'd somehow blocked them out. But they filled her ears now. So many of them.
She gently straightened her mother's body on the bed and then stood up. Her father lay on the floor below her, a sad marionette whose strings had been cut, and whose limbs were all sharp unnatural angles.
She had loved them both so much. So much.
***
The nightmare was over, she realized as she walked to the front door, leaning on Coffey for strength. But so was the dream, the earnest dream of her youth when people were just what they seemed to be, and sadness was never more serious than losing at puppy love.
She walked out the front door of the mansion to see ten police cars ringing the front of the drive, all headlights pointed right at her, all emergency lights saturating the night sky with blood red.
She wouldn't find any comfort until much, much later when, near dawn, she would fall asleep in Coffey's arms.