"I don't know… I don't know… He just…"

"Barbara..

Her eyes were darting around the room in a desperate escape dance. Her face was also beginning to swell where Ray had hit her on the right side, distorting her natural beauty.

"Tell me," he prodded softly, "what set him off?"

Somewhere in the distance they could hear the faint wail of a police car.

"Already?" she said, referring to the sirens.

"You were screaming, shots were fired, you've got neighbors. Nine-one-one response time is supposed to be less than five minutes. If something more is going on here, I need to know, Babs. You and I, we're not completely clean, if you know what I mean."

"I know." She pulled herself up on the bed and sat. He could see that her hands were shaking as she brought the back of her wrist up to wipe the blood oozing from the corner of her mouth. Her hand came away with an ugly red streak on the back. "He… he just… I don't know."

"He just what? Let's go, there isn't much time. What set him off?"

"I got i call yesterday from a woman. She asked me if I'd seen the video. Ape yet."

"What videotape?"

"I don't know. That's the whole point. I haven't got any tape, and I told her. She sounded like she was crying. Then she said it was coming in the mail, and it will show me what a cheating bastard Ray was."

"Who was she?"

"Didn't say. I didn't recognize the voice. She just hung up."

The sirens were now less than a block away as Barbara Molar looked at Shane in desperation. "What're they gonna do?"

"They're gonna separate us. Take statements. This is our only chance to coordinate. We need the same story. Stay with me here, Babs. Keep goin'. What happened next?"

"Ray hasn't been home much since he got his new assignment.

He's been away days at a time, so when he got home tonight, I asked him where he was all the time. I told him what the woman said and he… he just… went nuts. You know his temper, how he gets. You worked patrol with him. He accused me of sleeping with his friends. He called me a whore. He started beating me. I can't take any more beatings. I can't. I told him I was going to leave him, and then he chased me into the bathroom. I locked the door and called you. Then he just "