Bloodlines

Marshall Madison, a widower and father estranged from his two children, has a deep, dark secret. Struggling to come to grips with his wife's suicide and the unspeakable reasons that caused it, Marshall is possessed with a lonesome hunger for his daughter Caroline, who has been placed with a foster family, and his little son Thad, a runaway, who is vulnerably wandering the streets of New York. Now living alone in a downtown Manhattan he "commandeered" from a tenant who met a gruesome death, Marshall will let no one stop him from reclaiming his children.

One evening in her new home, Caroline conjures up a nightmarish memory of a time when her "first family" was still together. She recalls an incident when her mother carried Thad into her bedroom, ordered the two children not to leave the room, and piled furniture in front of the bedroom door to prevent Marshall from getting to them. Caroline will never forget her mother's exact words: "He won't do it to you, Caroline. And he won't do it to you again, Thaddie!" Eternally burned into her psyche is a blood-splattered scene composed of a screaming match between her parents and a glimpse of her mother's dead face when the police opened the barricaded bedroom door.

Meanwhile, young Thad is living a miserable existence inside an abandoned, rat-infested flophouse. Stealing whatever bits of food he can to survive, Thad is emotionally nourished by the belief that his father is out there, somewhere, on a quest to find his children, his "bloodlines.' Caroline is struck with more horrific visions, including one where she sees an image of her brother forlornly looking for their father who is in the midst of planning a "family reunion," saying, "I'm coming for you, Caroline." What follows would make death seem like a pleasant alternative.