“We will. I promise you we’re using every resource at our disposal.”
“But you still can’t promise me he won’t get away, can you? You still can’t promise me I won’t be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life, that I won’t wake up one night and see that sick fuck standing over me. You can’t promise me there won’t be any more bloody sheets in my laundry or bleach spots on the carpet, can you? He did it again, with a detective sitting right in my living room! Even with all of us armed with guns he just walked right in here and raped me again!”
“Sarah, I am sorry. I don’t know how it happened. I must have fallen asleep and he got in the house somehow and hit me with something.”
“No.” Josh spoke up. “He didn’t get in the house. He was already here. He was in here hiding somewhere, somewhere we didn’t look.”
“We looked everywhere, Josh. He wasn’t in here.”
“He had to have been. We must have missed something. Harry was sitting right here on the couch. Look how far that front door is from here. If someone had walked in that door Harry would have had plenty of time to react. And even if he somehow overpowered Harry, which I can’t really see happening, we would have at least heard the struggle upstairs.”
“So, he must have ambushed me somehow,” Harry agreed.
“He might have still come in through a window. You have vinyl window frames. They don’t make a lot of noise when you open them and they’re notoriously easy to break into. He could have popped open a window and crept into the house without anyone knowing he was here. He used a hammer in that video. If he caught Harry from behind with the hammer there wouldn’t have been much of a struggle,” Detective Lassiter said.
“I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right.”
“Well, we’ll make sure the boys from CSU are thorough when they go over the place. We’ll have them dust everything for prints. We’re going to have to do another rape kit on you…and you too, Mr. Lincoln.” Detective Lassiter looked over at Harry. “Maybe even you too.”
“Awww, fuck. Are you kidding me?”
“You saw the tape. You saw what he did to them. We have to be thorough about this.”
“So, you don’t think we faked the tape?”
“I never did. I just couldn’t explain it any other way.”
“And now? Did Harry tell you about the case he worked on like ours?”
“He told me. It still doesn’t make sense to me. I mean, I believe in God. I even believe in the supernatural. But I just can’t believe that God would let someone like that have that kind of power. I’m sure if we thought about it long enough we could figure out how he’s doing it. There’s got to be a reason that doesn’t involve mystical powers.”
Harry shook his head and snorted in disgust.
“How is this any different than the power a parent has over their children? How many times have we seen parents abuse that power, neglect, beat, torture, and molest their own kids? Crackheads, junkies, and meth addicts have kids. Those young, innocent lives in the hands of people who would trade them for a dime bag. God gives immense power to really fucked-up people all the time. This really isn’t any different.”
Detective Lassiter held up her hand and turned her head away. She closed her eyes like she was trying to compose herself but her eyebrows furrowed and her nostrils flared.
“Harry, I’ve told you about this before. I’m not going to stand for you bashing my faith. You’re free to think what you want, just keep it to yourself because I don’t want to hear that shit.”
“You asked a question.”
“I’m serious, Harry. Back off.”
Harry waved his hands in surrender.
“You did ask.”
“So what are we going to do?” Sarah asked. “Where will we go? What about Josh’s job?”
“He’s going to have to miss a few days.”
“He’s extra-board. He’s not technically a full-time employee even though they work him harder than anybody. He can’t miss days. He doesn’t get any sick time or anything like that. They’ll fire him.”
“Well, does Dale know where you work?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I can’t remember if we told him when we introduced ourselves or not.”
“Because if he does, he can follow you back to Sarah.”
Everyone turned to look at Sarah again. She felt more like a victim now than she had in days. Everyone had to look out for poor, poor Sarah. They had to make sure the boogeyman didn’t get her.
And did I mention that the boogeyman looks like fucking Don Knotts in The Incredible Mr. Limpet? Sarah thought.
“Well, I have to work or we’ll lose our house.”
“Let the damn bank have it,” Sarah said. “I can’t stand to look at that bedroom anymore. And that smell. I’ll probably smell that for the rest of my life as it is. The house is worth half of what we paid for it now anyway. We’ll never get that equity back. We’ll just go back to being renters. This neighborhood is turning into a ghost town anyway.”
The two detectives stood beside Sarah’s husband, looking at the stain in the ceiling.
“I don’t know if I’d cry too much about losing this place now if I was you. No offense but it would creep me the hell out to live here,” Harry said, turning his back on the room and buttoning his sports jacket.
“That’s real sensitive, Harry.”
“No. He’s right. Fuck this house. Just give us some time to pack our things.”
“You can’t lose your job though. We can’t even get an apartment without a job and this isn’t like it was a few years ago when you could just walk right out and get another job. People are being laid off left and right. You need this job.”
Sarah was standing between her husband and the two detectives with her arms folded across her chest. She pointed at Josh’s chest as she spoke. Her fingernails had been bitten almost down to the cuticles. Josh withered. His entire body appeared to wilt in front of her.
“She’s right. I can’t get fired right now. I’m going to have to go to work.”
“Okay. Well, you’re just going to have to be careful. Watch to see if anyone is following you. Once we decide on what hotel we’re going to put you up in you’re going to want to make sure you drive past it a few times before you park just to see if anyone is following you. I’ll drive you home the first night just to show you what I mean.”
“Thanks, Detective. I don’t mean to put you out. We just really can’t afford for me to lose my job.”
“I’ll take him. Neither one of you can drive worth a damn.”
Detective Mike Torres stood in the doorway eating a bag of spicy Doritos and licking his fingers. He walked into the room swaggering like a B-movie matinee idol. Sarah couldn’t hold back her laughter. He looked like such an asshole. Even his melodramatic entrance was overdone and evidence of a massive unchecked ego. Detective Lassiter rolled her eyes.
“So, does that mean you believe us now?” Sarah asked.
Torres shook his head. He was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and a red silk tie. He was still wearing black jeans with black motorcycle boots. He looked like a member of a Mexican motorcycle gang who’d cleaned up for a job interview or a court appearance.
“It means that I’m going to do my job. There’s an APB out for the little geek across the street. He may have attacked a cop. So we’ve got him for assaulting a police officer. You’ve got him on tape breaking into the house and there’s no other weird shit on the tape that would render it inadmissible. I don’t need to know how he’s doing this shit. I’m curious but it don’t really matter as far as I’m concerned. All I need to do is do my job and bring him in and keep you two safe. This is just another stalker case to me.”
Torres took another handful of Doritos and then crumpled up the bag. For a moment Sarah was afraid he was going to toss the empty bag on the floor. Even with the house reeking of curdled blood and decay she still felt protective of her home. This had
been her dream home. She and Josh had upgraded everything they could from the stainless-steel Whirlpool refrigerator to the matching stainless-steel KitchenAid convection oven, microwave, and even the dishwasher. The faux cherrywood blinds were all upgrades as well. But the stained concrete floor was the centerpiece of the house. Josh had ripped out all the carpeting on the first floor himself and then brought in a friend to stain the floor a golden tan and then seal it. It was gorgeous and unique. Despite what she’d said earlier about abandoning the house, Sarah felt a queasiness inside at the thought of leaving it all behind.
Detective Torres smiled wanly, then placed the crumpled bag into his pocket.
“So where are we taking them?” Torres asked.
“To one of those extended-vacation hotels on Tropicana.”
“Those places are shitholes,” Josh said.
“No. These are pretty nice. They’re new and they have a kitchen and a laundry in their rooms. They’re like studio apartments. They even have one-, two-, and three-bedroom suites. Besides, you won’t be staying there long,” Detective Lassiter said.
“What if we stayed at the hotel where I work? I’m sure they’d give us a decent rate. They’re practically giving rooms away now that the economy is in the toilet.”
“Because if Dale McCarthy is still stalking the two of you, and we have every reason to believe that he is, then the hotel where you work would be the first place he would check.”
“Then how about the Bellagio?” Sarah asked.
“You’re joking right?” Torres said.
“Of course I’m joking. Unless you can swing it.”
Detective Lassiter laughed.
“Yeah, we’ll see what we can do. But in the meantime you need to get packed.”
Sarah and Josh walked upstairs together. Sarah looked around her house when she got to the top of the stairs.
“I know I’m supposed to hate this place now, with all that’s happened here. It does creep me out. I almost feel like the house is haunted now. Every time I look at those spots on the carpet I keep thinking about the nightmares in my head that turned out not to be nightmares and the things that were on that tape. I get nauseous just thinking about it and I feel my heart race and I want to scream. But I’d rather get rid of the carpet and throw out the mattress and paint the walls a different color than just leave. I just can’t imagine leaving this house. This is our home, Josh. How can we let this monster chase us out of our home? How could we let a few terrible, horrible memories replace years of good memories? Besides, our credit is so fucked up we’ll never be able to buy a new house and the president is supposed to be doing something to stop the foreclosures. We need to fight for our home, Josh. We need to fight Dale. We need to fight anyone who tries to force us out of our home.”
Sarah looked at Josh and could see the indecision on his face. There was pain in his expression. Sarah could see him wrestling with the idea of staying. He had been relieved when the detectives had suggested they leave the house and Sarah had agreed. Now that she was having second thoughts about leaving, Sarah could see all the tension winding its way back into his muscles. She knew Josh wanted to forget everything that had happened in this house and she couldn’t blame him. What had happened to him threatened his entire identity, his whole sense of self. He didn’t want to be around anything that would remind him of that humiliation, and this house was the single biggest reminder. She couldn’t blame him if he wanted to burn it to the ground and piss on the ashes. But she also couldn’t allow it. She had to fight for her home.
“Okay, baby. We’ll make it work somehow. We’ll figure something out.”
They walked into the bedroom and that overpowering smell made Sarah’s stomach churn. The odor of death and decay had gotten worse since the night before. There was a fly in the room. Sarah didn’t know how it had gotten in but she knew that it was just a matter of time now before the bed would be full of maggots. Josh pinched his nose and turned to look at her with a grimace on his face.
“You sure you still want to live here?”
“We need to get rid of that mattress. It will be okay. This is our home.”
“Okay. If you’re sure, then I’m sure.”
They pulled two suitcases out of the closet and began to pack. Sarah threw in her running shoes and some workout gear along with four changes of clothes. She didn’t know how long they would be at the hotel but if it was longer than four days, then she’d have to come back and get more clothes. She looked at Josh’s ice skates tucked in the corner and his hockey jersey hanging above it. She had been upset at not being able to run and here Josh hadn’t been on the ice in over two weeks and he hadn’t said a word. Sarah looked over at Josh and felt a pang of guilt. When all of this was over she had to make sure to give him more time for himself. Brawling with some bartender on the ice was just the sort of thing Josh needed to restore his manhood. Though murdering Dale with his bare hands would have probably been more effective. Sarah really hoped that could be arranged.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Sarah, her husband, and Detective Harry Malcovich sat in the waiting room of the hospital. Waiting for someone to swab their orifices for traces of semen and check them for tearing and bruising. Sarah studied Harry’s face. He looked more than embarrassed. He looked enraged.
One by one they were called into the room to see the nurse. Detective Lassiter was there, along with a rape crisis counselor. They walked Sarah into the examination room. Sarah disrobed and the detective helped her into her hospital gown.
The nurse busied herself preparing the rape kit while Trina Lassiter and the counselor tried their best to keep Sarah calm and relaxed. Sarah did not feel anxious at all. She felt numb. This was her second rape kit in a matter of days and she had no idea how many times Dale had actually raped her. At least three times that she knew about and probably closer to five or more. Sarah wondered if the numbness she was feeling was what sex slaves felt like after being raped by one john after another, day after day after day. Thinking about herself in terms of a sex slave made her feel even worse.
“My name is Karen Burns. I’m going to give you my card so we can talk later. Right now I’m just here to answer any questions you might have and to help the detective and the nurse guide you through this process. I know you’ve been through a terrible ordeal but we are here to help.”
The rape counselor was a young blonde woman in her twenties who looked like she was fresh out of college and dressed very conservatively in a plain white shirt and a long blue skirt that came almost to her ankles. Her hair was pulled back in a bun. Sarah guessed that the woman was probably Mormon. There were a lot of Mormons who worked in the hospitals in Las Vegas for some reason. Most of them were volunteers but an almost equal number were health-care professionals.
The counselor spoke calmly to Sarah, explaining everything that was about to happen. Sarah wondered if this woman had ever been raped. She doubted it but it wouldn’t have surprised her either. There had to be some reason a woman like her went into a profession like this.
“Just relax. The nurse needs to take a couple samples from your rectum and your uterus. It might be a little uncomfortable but it will be over quickly. Detective Lassiter and I will be right here holding your hands.”
“This ain’t my first rodeo,” Sarah said, borrowing a phrase from Harry. “I was just here last week.”
“Oh,” the counselor said and looked over at Detective Lassiter. She looked back over at Sarah with a different, somewhat less sympathetic expression on her face.
“She’s not a prostitute, Counselor. She’s just had one very tough week,” the detective offered by way of an explanation.
The woman was clearly confused and more than a little shocked. Sarah supposed it was shocking. But given everything else she’d seen in the last couple of days, being raped more than once in less than a week no longer felt quite so shocking, though no less degrading and humiliating. She felt no less violated than she had the first time
she was here. The only difference was that now she knew what they were going to do and what they would find and she’d had time to prepare herself mentally for it. She was not going to allow herself to break down in tears again, though now would have probably been the appropriate time to do so and she certainly felt like crying, like screaming, and punching the walls. She just didn’t know if she’d ever be able to pull herself back together again if she allowed herself to fall apart now. The counselor was still looking at Sarah skeptically and somewhat judgmentally. Sarah could see all the questions on the woman’s face. She felt like telling the young counselor that she’d been murdered perhaps half a dozen times as well.
“How many rape victims do you see in here every day?”
“It’s hard to say. We see a lot of prostitutes and victims of domestic violence who we would classify as date rapes. Often, those are even more violent than the assaults from strangers. But on average I see about two or three a day.”
“Two or three a day?”
The woman nodded.
“And I’m just one counselor.”
Sarah didn’t know why she found that so surprising. Rape was one of those things she had never thought much about until she’d woken up screaming a week ago. Sarah wondered why the counselor was even there and where she’d been last week when it was just Detective Lassiter and the nurse.
“Aren’t you a rape counselor, Trina?” Sarah asked the detective.
“I’m a victims’ advocate. It’s slightly different. A lot less training.”
“So where was the counselor last week?”
“NASCAR was in town last week along with about a hundred thousand fans. It was a busy week for rape counselors.”
She said it so matter-of-factly, as if it should have been common knowledge that the incidents of rapes increased during sporting events. Sarah supposed that it should have been obvious. But that was just not ordinarily something you thought about.
The nurse busied herself lubing her rubbergloved fingers so that she could slide them more easily into Sarah’s vagina to get the sample. Detective Lassiter sprayed her with something she called luminol and scanned her with a UV light. There were glowing splotches all over Sarah’s breasts. She didn’t bother to ask what the splotches were. She was pretty certain she knew.
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