The premise is pure Nightmare Fuel, especially for a parent: coming home from what should've been an ordinary night out only to find that someone has broken into your home and taken your children. Then there's the demand for $8 million in exchange for the children's return. Margaret and Steve are a roughly middle-class couple who had to work hard just to get into that position; they don't remotely have access to that kind of money and have no idea how they can raise it, yet this is the demanded price for their children. They're far from the kind of people who would usually be targeted for this sort of thing and it's scary to think this could happen to a relatively ordinary family who were just going about their lives. The Frawleys are so unlikely to be targets of a ransom kidnapping that early on, the FBI even consider the possibility that the ransom demand is a smokescreen and the girls were taken by predators, though luckily this isn't the case.
The opening scene is pretty nightmare-inducing, in a similar vein to the old "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs" Urban Legend. 19 year old Trish is babysitting the Frawley twins for the night and is on the phone to her boyfriend downstairs when she thinks she hears one of the girls cry out. As she heads upstairs to check, she tries to put on a light, but it doesn't work. Trish initially dismisses this as the old house's faulty wiring, but when she gets to the landing she realizes it's dark up there too, even though she should be able to see the twins' nightlight through the open door. Trish is certain she left the door open, with her confusion turning to growing horror as she realizes that if the door had been left closed this whole time, she shouldn't have been able to hear the twins. Then she hears softly approaching footsteps and heavy breathing behind her...She's too frozen in terror to do anything as the intruder grabs her and forces something over her mouth. She's later found tied and gagged in the house, having no idea what happened to her or the twins, though she luckily wasn't further harmed.
Norman Bond's recollections of how he killed his ex-wife are utterly chilling; he expresses no remorse and even smiles at the memory of how frightened Theresa looked when he rose up from his hiding spot on her car's backseat. Theresa begged Norman to spare her, including pleading with him that she was pregnant. Norman was unmoved, with it being all but stated he killed her from spite and jealousy because she was pregnant by her new husband. It's not mentioned exactly how he killed her, though she was well aware she was going to die; it's also not mentioned what he did with her body, with all that grisly stuff being left to the reader's imagination. Norman also took Theresa's wedding ring from her body as a trophy of sorts; he emotionlessly recalls that it was difficult to remove because her fingers were swollen from her pregnancy. Then there's the fact he constantly wears her second wedding ring - along with the ring he gave her - on a necklace; he does so as a reminder he's not as pathetic as everyone thinks, taking pride in what he did. Norman walks around everyday with proof that he murdered Theresa around his neck, with no one being any the wiser.
