This story is for my friend, Kristy, whose idea this was. I hope I've done it justice. It has not been beta'd so any and all mistakes are mine.

I just want to warn you that updates will not come as quickly as my previous story...that was complete before I started to post it and I just did last-minute editing. This story is not yet finished...I know where I want to go but am not certain of the path. I will get there so please bear with me.

Chapter 1

Milton Crosby gazed at the creased photograph, his vision blurred by tears. He gently rubbed the little girl's face with his thumb as he drew in shuddering breaths, trying to calm himself down.

He allowed the anger to take him over, welcoming the thoughts of vengeance that filled his whole being.

It was like this every year on the anniversaries; her birthday, Christmas...her death. But this year was different. This year he was in a position to do something about it.

He had recently been released from Cabrillo State Mental Hospital after 18 months and was quietly settling back into the community. A job had been procured for him in a print shop with a small apartment above. Things should have been looking good but the past festered, turning his thoughts dark.

The photograph showed a tall black man staring at the camera with spaced-out eyes. He held a small girl in one arm who happily displayed a gap-toothed smile. The man's other arm was slung around the shoulders of a lanky pre-teen.

Milton stared at his 12 year old self, feeling bitterness at the hand life had dealt him. Not long after the photo had been taken, his father had been killed by two cops...'resisting arrest' they said.

Everything had gone wrong after that. Milton had always been a 'difficult boy' but after his father's death he had run wild. As their mother had abandoned them not long after his little sister, Emily's, third birthday, the children were now alone in the world. They had been separated and put in different foster homes. Emily had settled well with her foster family and the authorities were trying to find adoptive parents for her but then tragedy had struck. A carelessly discarded cigarette had sparked a fire that engulfed the house and all the occupants, leaving Milton totally alone.

He ran away countless times and eventually found himself running drugs for the same man his father had worked for. His school attendance had always been sporadic but it swiftly became non-existent.

He had always had a fascination with fire and had been setting small fires in trash cans from an early age. This had escalated after Emily's death as he began to desire bigger and bigger fires to satisfy his craving.

At nineteen years of age he found himself in prison after being caught at the scene of a fire he had set in a disused building. This set the tone for the next three years with spells in and out of prison for various drug or fire-setting offences and eventually he was committed to Cabrillo State in the hope that a remedy would be found for his obsession.

Milton quickly learned to play the system and after a year and a half he was pronounced 'cured' and released back into the community he had terrorised.

His obsession had shifted focus now. Although he still flirted with fire-setting, he was now intent upon getting revenge for the death of his little sister. Unable, or unwilling, to accept it for the tragic accident it was, he began to search for the cops who had taken away his father and removed the only stability in his life. In Milton's mind they were responsible for Emily's death and he was determined to make them pay.

Milton settled into his new life, hiding his fixation behind the friendly mask he displayed to the print-shop customers and his neighbours. But secretly he was making enquiries about the cops who had destroyed his life. He looked forward to watching their homes burn, their families die like Emily.

However he learned that one of the cops was already dead, killed on the orders of a mobster, hung on a meat-hook so he heard. Thwarted of his revenge he redoubled his efforts to track down the man's partner.

He discovered that he was now a married man with two children of his own, a boy and a girl who was about the age Emily had been when she died. In fact she looked a little like the Emily he remembered and that planted a seed in Milton's mind. He would take the cop's daughter to be his new Emily. Then he would know how Milton had felt all those years ago, robbed of a precious little girl.

He smiled at the photo. "Soon," he whispered. "Soon we'll be together again, Emily."

And so he began to formulate a plan. He took to driving past the cop's house at various times of night and day. He followed the family to church and back every Sunday. He followed the children and their mother on a variety of shopping trips. He even followed the school bus.

He printed hundreds of leaflets and began to drop them at all the houses in the street...'An eye for an eye' they said in bold print. Most of them ended up in the trash but Milton didn't mind. His message was being delivered and that was all that mattered to him.