The Resurrectionist

“I’m good with that. Let’s look into it.”

Sarah smiled.

“Thanks for tonight. I needed this. Even with everything that’s going on. I’m having a great time. I think we both needed this.”

Josh smiled back at her, then leaned in and kissed her on her forehead and then on the tip of her nose.

“I think I needed this too. I know I haven’t really been handling this whole thing well. I-I haven’t really said anything…you know…because I don’t really like to talk about it but part of the reason I’ve been freaking out is because this thing just brings back my own memories.”

“I know. I figured. And you’ve been great. I know it’s been hard on you too. Do you want to talk about it at all?”

Josh shook his head

“I’m having too good a time to fuck it up now. Let’s just listen to the band some more.”

Sarah wondered if even listening to this old music might have been reminding him of his youth. She laughed when the band made a major goof. Josh looked at her. He had caught it too.

“That’s not Prince. Is it?”

“That’s Michael Jackson.”

The band had launched into an energetic version of M.J.’s classic “P.Y.T.”

“I’m getting tired anyway.”

“Okay. Let’s go up to the room.”

They staggered toward the elevator, with the Prince band wailing out “Pretty Young Thing” in the background. For some reason, the absurdity of it brought them to another fit of laughter as they waited for the elevator.

An hour later they were back in the hotel room snoring soundly. For the first time all week, Sarah had no dreams.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Sarah woke feeling rested and warm and cozy, wrapped in a goose-down comforter that smelled like lavender and jasmine. She reached beneath her pillow and took out her digital recorder. It had recorded nothing but hours and hours of snoring and the sound of rustling pillows and sheets. Sarah sighed, relieved. She stretched, reaching up toward the padded headboard and flexing her toes, smiling, feeling wonderful. She leaned over and kissed Josh on the lips. His breath reeked of alcohol but Sarah didn’t mind. She slid her tongue between his lips and kissed him deeply, teasing and tickling his lips and tongue with the tip of hers, then sucking on his tongue and twirling her tongue around it like she were giving him head. She knew she was a fabulous kisser and sure enough he responded.

She could see the outline of his erection through the sheets. She reached down and stroked it a little as his eyes fluttered open.

“Good morning, lover.”

“Well, you’re in a good mood.”

“Let’s order room service.”

Josh nodded toward the tent that was rising in the sheets.

“Do you want to play first?”

Sarah couldn’t remember the last time Josh had initiated sex. It figures that he would choose this time to do it. She was still feeling weird about sex, still feeling somehow violated. She didn’t think she was ready to open herself up to anyone right now, not even her husband. She wasn’t ready to feel anyone inside of her.

“I’m sorry. I’m just not ready yet.”

Josh visibly deflated, even down to the root of him where he had been swollen and throbbing just moments before. He looked disappointed. I guess it took her denying him sex before he showed any interest in it. Though, truth be told, she had never before given him an opportunity to miss it. He never had to ask for it because she was usually all over him before he had the chance to.

Maybe a little break would be good for both of us, she thought.

“That’s okay. When you’re ready.”

“How about we spend the day riding roller coasters and shopping and acting like tourists? We haven’t done that since we moved here. We could even hit the buffet or go to one of those new four-star restaurants with the superstar chefs?”

“Now, that sounds excellent.”

“Have you ever had caviar?”

Josh wrinkled up his nose and shook his head.

“Well, we’re going to have to educate that palate of yours.”

“I thought you did that on our first date?” Josh joked.

“Second date. And I don’t recall you needing much instruction. You were already quite the cunnilingus connoisseur if I remember correctly.”

Josh turned and looked deeply into Sarah’s eyes. Sarah could feel her body melt under the heat of his gaze. She could feel all of his love and desire boiling from his eyes. It had been far too long since he’d looked at her that way.

“Actually, you were the first and only woman I’d ever done that to.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Wow. I’m flattered. What made me so special?”

Josh shrugged. “You did me first.”

“Don’t tell me that I was the first woman who ever gave you a blow job?”

Sarah saw Josh’s eyes gloss over and she knew she had gone too far.

“Yeah, you were the first woman.”

The air between them suddenly went flat and stale. Silence fell like a curtain. Once again Sarah felt like she needed to do something to comfort him even in the middle of her own crisis.

“Ever ride the Big Shot?”

Josh’s eyes refocused and he looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language.

“The what?”

“The Big Shot. At the top of the Stratosphere?”

A smile spread across his face. A love of thrill rides was one of their mutual vices.

“Are you serious?”

“Oh yeah. Are you game?”

“Hell yeah! But first, let’s order that breakfast.”

Sarah grabbed the room service menu as Josh reached for the phone.

“Oooooh! They have bagels with lox and cream cheese. And they have French toast!”

“I just want steak and eggs.”

“Okay, go ahead and order it. I’m going to take a shower.”

Sarah climbed out of the bed. She saw Josh look at her as she scrambled up from beneath the sheets and then saw the look of disappointment when he noticed that she was wearing pajamas, long flannel pajamas. She had never worn pajamas in their entire marriage. She had complained and protested vehemently when Josh had worn them, calling them his armor, an attempt to put a barrier between them. She’d even gone so far as to cut holes in all of his pajamas forcing him to go to bed nude, the way she preferred him. Now, she was the one wearing armor.

Just feeling Josh’s disappointment again, twice in the space of two minutes, was overwhelming. Still, she walked into the bathroom and closed the door before she disrobed.

The shower had twin heads that shot two forceful sprays of water. Sarah had the temperature turned up as hot as she could stand it and the two powerful multijet sprayers felt like a deep tissue massage, blasting away the last vestiges of tension and stress from her muscles. This was all she had needed, a good night’s sleep and a hot shower to scrub the filth and sweat from her dreams off her skin. Her complexion was turning red as the scalding water scoured her pale flesh. It felt as if her soul were being cleansed and purged. Unexpectedly, she began to cry.

Her body hitched and jerked as the tears burst up from deep within her as if she had tapped some deep underground reservoir of sorrow. Everything had been so perfect. Her life had been flawless. Her biggest complaint until less than a week ago had been boredom. Now she was either being raped, probably drugged, and possibly murdered every night and somehow resurrected each morning or she was crazy or some combination of the two. Somehow, in the span of a few days, her perfect, flawless life had turned into a nightmare, literally.

The tears continued to come with increasing force and for once she made no attempt to rein them in. She allowed them to come unrestrained, emptying her soul, and letting the water from the shower wash them away. She had cried more this week than she could ever remember crying in her adult life. But this time, it felt good.

When she finally stepped from the shower, all the tears were gone. She had expected to feel exhausted after crying so hard and long but instead, she felt refreshed. She looked in the mirror at her eyes. They looked puffy and swollen. She opened up her cosmetic case and withdrew some eye shadow and cover-up. By the time she stepped out of the bathroom her face held no evidence of her crying jag even though she was certain Josh had heard her.

This time she didn’t bother to cover herself when she stepped naked into the bedroom. The quick intake of Josh’s breath made her smile and almost brought the tears back. She still took his breath away. He still found her beautiful and desirable. But the last thing she wanted, the last thing she would have been able to stand, would have been for him to touch her. She turned away from him and began getting dressed.

Someone knocked on the door and Sarah reached for her purse even as she heard the man on the other side call out, “Room service.”

Sarah looked at Josh who stood up and walked to the door. Not a single part of him was worried that it might be Dale on the other side with a knife, ready to plunge it into his chest and then rape and murder her, and that let her know loudly and clearly that he didn’t believe her at all. He had already made up his mind that it was all in her head. Sarah kept her hand on the gun in her purse and tried her best not to feel resentful.

It was the same waiter from the night before. He smiled politely and then looked down at her hand, which had slipped inside her purse and was clutching the Sig Sauer. Her finger was a fraction of an inch from the trigger. The butt of the gun had been sticking out of the purse and she slid it back in when she saw him looking. He looked up at her eyes and then managed a weak smile. Josh followed the waiter’s eyes down to her purse and then he let out a sigh, scribbling a tip and a signature on the receipt and ushering the waiter out the door. Sarah could tell that Josh wanted to say something about the gun but with it still clutched in her hand he obviously thought better of it. Sarah let go of the Sig Sauer and joined Josh by the bed. The silence was back and it coated them like a blanket all through breakfast. Sarah didn’t mind it though. The food was too good for her to even think about having a conversation unless it was about what she was putting into her mouth at that moment.

The French toast was fluffy and covered in powdered sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, syrup, and whipped cream. Truly decadent. Sarah began shoveling the toast into her mouth like she were a fat kid at a pie-eating contest. Like it or not, she was going to have to hit the treadmill tonight after Josh left to start his shift. It was either that or get curves in places she didn’t want them.

The bagels were covered in cream cheese that had been whipped until it was as light as Cool Whip. They were piled with smoked salmon, slices of beefsteak tomatoes, red onions, and capers. Sarah showed them no more mercy than she had shown the French toast.

She looked over at Josh who was patiently cutting his steak into little cubes and dipping each individual piece in A1 sauce before putting it in his mouth. He’d eaten his eggs and hash browns first, everything in order, and had just begun on his steak. Sometimes she even had a bigger appetite than he did and she had to remind herself of the number of calories she burned doing cardio to keep from feeling like an absolute cow. Making love to her was about all the cardio Josh ever got. Still, she was going to have to start cutting back. Her metabolism was bound to slow down and when it did she’d be 300 pounds if she continued to eat like this. But that was something she would hopefully not have to worry about for a long time and in the meantime there was so much good food to eat in Vegas. She was happiest of all that Las Vegas had given up on trying to be a family destination and had begun going after the highend crowd with fancy restaurants and designer boutiques. Today, she intended to sample her fair share of both. She had already decided on Spago for lunch at Caesars and then dinner at Fleur de Lis at the Mandalay Bay where she was going to force Josh to try caviar for the first time. After that, they’d go to Joël Robuchon at the MGM Grand for dessert. It was a good thing she’d won all that money playing the slot machines. If she had it her way, she was going to need it.

Sarah finished eating, then slipped into a pair of jeans and a baby T-shirt as she waited for Josh to finish eating his steak.

“Hurry up. I want to hit every roller coaster on the strip before lunchtime.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Dale was afraid that he was going to be discovered. Ever since the woman across the street had shot at him he’d been waiting for the police to come and arrest him. He had been certain that one of the neighbors must have heard the gunshot and called the police but, after he’d stabbed her and left her bleeding on the floor, he could not stand the idea of wasting the opportunity. If he was going to go to prison, he wanted this to be his last memory of the outside world. He wanted to fuck that beautiful whore one last time.

He’d pulled off her clothes and raped her there on the floor. Then he’d dragged her onto the bed and sodomized her while her body continued to exsanguinate, cumming inside her sweet little ass as she’d bled to death. The very next day, she’d knocked on his door and he’d been certain that one of the neighbors had seen him fleeing the house. As he’d opened the door he had begun going through the details of the previous evening, trying to remember if he’d done anything to give himself away, left any evidence that might lead back to him, and simultaneously composing lies to explain them away.

But Dale had been careful. He was sure of it. He was always careful. He had scrubbed the blood out of the carpet using bleach and detergent. He’d stripped the bed and changed the sheets, then washed the sheets in the laundry. He’d even dragged her body into the bathroom and washed the blood from her skin before putting her back into bed. There should have been no evidence that he’d ever been there. So why was she standing outside his door?

Her husband had been with her and the look in his eyes, embarrassed, uncertain, rather than vengeful and enraged, let him know that whatever they thought they’d found was not conclusive. Her husband was still not convinced. Her eyes, on the other hand, were full of fury. Even still, he’d been surprised when she had slapped him. It was something new, something different. None of the others had slapped him. None of the others, as far as Dale knew or cared, had the slightest clue that anything had ever happened to them, except maybe for Dorothy Madigan. He’d heard that she’d killed herself just like his mother had, burned herself alive. But this woman knew, or thought she knew something. She had slapped him. She had been ready to beat the hell out of him when her husband had dragged her away, apologizing for her behavior…and now she was gone. She had not been home all night. It was driving Dale crazy.

He’d broken into her house again last night and it had been empty. Her toothbrush and makeup case were gone along with some clothes. They had packed in a hurry and fled. That left Dale without a playmate.

He imagined that she was at the police station giving a statement and that soon the police would come and take him away or else her gigantic ape of a husband would beat him to death. Dale paced the floor nervously, wondering what to do. He needed something to calm his nerves. Usually, that meant raping and killing someone but the only person he wanted to fuck, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen let alone actually had sex with, was missing and he didn’t know where she was or what to do about it.

It wasn’t fair. He wasn’t hurting anyone. There was no way she could remember what he’d done to her and besides, he always brought her back. He’d always brought them back. Thou Shalt Not Kill. All except Grandma, but that hadn’t been his fault. She’d died of natural causes. And his mother had still blamed him for her death. She’d punched and slapped him because he wouldn’t bring her back. But he had never liked Grandma and without her around he had his mother all to himself. Right up until she’d set herself on fire and tried to take him with her.

Why? Why didn’t she love me? Why doesn’t anyone understand me?

Dale knew he was not an attractive man. He had never filled out. He looked like he were on chemotherapy. His childhood acne had never fully gone away and had left his complexion scarred and pitted. His posture was bowed with narrow shoulders that rolled inward making him look almost hunchbacked. He looked like Gollum from The Hobbit. No way he could have ever gotten a real girlfriend. No way he could have ever gotten anyone as beautiful as Sarah Lincoln. She belonged to her idiot husband with his big chest and thick, hairy arms. He got to fuck Sarah every night and what was he? A fucking blackjack dealer! What made him so much better than Dale? That’s why Dale had taken so much joy in killing him.

Sarah’s husband was the same type of guy who’d teased Dale all of his life, the high school jock who got to fuck the homecoming queen in the back of his daddy’s car. Dale could never have gotten a woman like that to give him the time of day. That’s why God had given him this gift. It evened everything out. It allowed him to have things he wouldn’t normally be able to touch, things like Sarah Lincoln.

Where the fuck was she?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Sarah and Josh were at the top of the Stratosphere hotel, the tallest building in the city, strapped into a thrill ride a hundred stories, 1,081 feet, above the strip, prepared to be rocketed to the very top of the tower at forty-five miles per hour and then dropped 160 feet. She could see all the way up Las Vegas Boulevard from Sahara to St. Rose.

“I am scared to fucking death!” Sarah called out to Josh.

“Me too!”

The air jets went off, propelling Sarah and her husband straight up, the sky rushing toward her, the wind whipping tears from her eyes and splaying them across her face. Sarah screamed, then laughed when she realized that Josh was screaming too. The ride paused at the top. Weightlessness. Then it began a vertical free fall almost more terrifying than the ascent. It felt as if they were falling all 1,081 feet rather than 160. The street below rushed up toward them and Sarah felt as if they would just keep falling all the way down to Las Vegas Boulevard.

She could imagine herself and her husband shattered on the concrete and asphalt, their bones and organs spilling out from the broken sacks of flesh that had contained them and intermingling in a bloody collage of mangled meat. The ride slowed and when it neared the bottom it bounced back up. Then weightlessness again, then another bounce before it came to a halt.

Her heart felt as if it had risen into her throat and then collapsed down into her stomach. Josh looked like he was going to throw up.

“Oh shit.”

It was all either of them could say.

They left the Stratosphere and went to the Sahara to ride Speed, another air-propulsion ride that traveled at incredibly fast speeds and left her feeling as if her stomach had leaped up into her chest. From there they walked up the strip to Circus Circus. Las Vegas Boulevard was packed. Tourists were walking by staring at the hotels and not paying attention to where they were going. One of them bumped into her and Josh started to go after him. The guy began stammering out a hurried apology as Josh lunged for him.

“It’s okay. He said he was sorry.”

Josh relaxed slightly and they continued walking again but this time Josh walked slightly ahead of her, holding Sarah’s hand and pushing anyone out of the way who looked like they were about to bump into her. He almost knocked one kid into the street and Sarah had to restrain Josh again when the guy called him a dick.

“Well, you were being a dick. Now, relax. I can take care of myself. It’s so crowded down here that you can’t really expect no one to bump into me and you can’t kick everyone’s ass. I don’t want you to get shot over something stupid.” Josh considered it and tried to relax. He still walked the rest of the way with one arm around Sarah’s waist and the other hand in front of them, deflecting pedestrians.

They finally made it to Circus Circus and Sarah headed straight for the Canyon Blaster, an indoor roller coaster that was just a bit of a disappointment after riding the Big Shot and Speed but was fun nonetheless. Then they went on to ride the big roller coaster at New York-New York. Sarah’s pulse felt as if she’d just run a 10k at full sprint.

“You ready for lunch now?”

Sarah nodded.

“I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t eat first.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“It’s either Spago or Little Buddha’s.”

“Mmmm! Sushi.”

“Little Buddha’s it is.”

They made their way to the parking garage. Sarah felt so happy she was almost giddy. The past few nights had been so terrible, so unbelievably horrific, that riding roller coasters and heading over to the Palms hotel to eat sushi in a four-star restaurant felt surreal. This day felt far more dreamlike than the nightmares she’d been having.

Little Buddha’s was a Japanese restaurant that had one of the most romantic atmospheres of any restaurant in Las Vegas. The décor was black and red with a twenty-foot bronze Buddha overlooking the dining area. Sarah and Josh were seated at a booth opposite the bar, which was already crammed with yuppies, models, and young club-hopping tourists as well as a few highend call girls. Even among this gathering of Las Vegas’s most beautiful, Sarah stood out.

Wearing only a T-shirt and jeans and with her hair pulled back in an unruly ponytail, she easily shamed the heavily made-up, surgically enhanced twentysomethings in their designer dresses and their hundred-dollar hairdos. Josh was staring at her with those love-struck puppy-dog eyes that made her melt inside. He reached out and took her hand. Sarah smiled and the candlelight twinkled off the tears in her eyes.

“I love you, Sarah.”

“I love you too, Josh.”

The waiter came by and took their wine order, then whisked away and came back almost instantly with a bottle of Riesling. Josh loved sweet wines and, though she loved to tease him about it, secretly, so did Sarah. They went down the sushi menu, ordering only the fanciest rolls. Josh was allergic to shellfish but in these small quantities it was relatively harmless. Between the two of them they ordered seven rolls.

“You should have brought Benadryl with you. I ordered a bunch of rolls that have shrimp in them.”

“Mmmm. I love tempura shrimp rolls. Besides, I have an early warning system. My lips will swell long before my throat does. As soon as I feel my lips start tingling I just back off the shrimp and start drinking a bunch of water.”

“Well that sounds sexy. I always wanted to kiss Dizzy Gillespie.”

“What if I told you that I looked more like Steven Tyler when I go anaphylactic?”

“Steven Tyler in the seventies or now?”

“Hmmm? I’m not sure. You’ll just have to let me know.”

The first few rolls arrived and Josh went straight for the tempura shrimp roll wrapped in eel.

As fast as the rolls came Sarah and Josh cleaned them from their plates. When they were finished they both felt as if they would burst. Sarah’s tongue still burned from the wasabi. She doused her taste buds with the last of the wine, reducing the fire in her mouth to a pleasant sting.

The rest of the day was spent sightseeing, window-shopping, and eating. They wandered through the Forum shops at Caesar’s Palace, pausing to watch the talking Greek statues do their once-an-hour show, before wandering through Hugo Boss, Versace, and Calvin Klein. They crossed the street to the Bellagio and wandered through the Prada store and Sarah almost succeeded in talking Josh into a $900 handbag. Hours later, hungry again, they wound up at Fleur de Lis where, just as she’d promised, Sarah got Josh to try caviar for the first time.

She ordered a two-ounce tin of beluga caviar that came with chopped shallots, egg whites, and sour cream.

“Oh, my God. This is amazing.”

“It’s eighty-five dollars an ounce so don’t fall in love.”

“Too late.” Sarah smiled and winked at Josh.

Josh chuckled and shook his head. “I guess I need to start making more money.”

“Just stick with me, kid. I’ll take you places and show you things.”

After dinner they drove back up the strip to The Venetian.

“You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” Sarah asked.

“What?”

“Ride the gondolas. I know it’s corny but I think it would be fun.”

“I’m down for it.”

“I know it’s not exactly Venice but it’s the next best thing.”

“Actually, the French Riviera is the next best thing or maybe Paris. These guys don’t even have real mustaches. I bet they don’t even speak Italian.”

“Don’t ruin it. Let’s go. It’ll be fun.”

“Buon giorno! Benvenuto, signore! Benvenuto, signora!”

The gondolier welcomed them aboard. Sarah turned and winked at Josh as if to say: “See, he does speak Italian.”

They pushed off from the little dock and began rowing toward a small walk bridge where another gondola had just passed. As they drifted out across the artificial lake, the gondolier began singing “Caro Mio Ben,” an old Italian love song.

“Isn’t this cool? He’s got a pretty good voice, huh?”

“Ask him if he knows any Prince.”

“You’re funny.” Sarah smacked him on the arm, then snuggled up against him again.

Night had fallen and the lights of the strip outshined the moon and stars. It felt like a perfect honeymoon. It was easy for Sarah to imagine that they were actually in Venice, that they weren’t in the same town they lived in every day. Sarah pulled Josh closer as she realized that the night was almost over. Tomorrow they would be going back home, back to their normal lives. Sarah hoped the nightmare was over now.

Back at the hotel, Josh and Sarah ordered a bottle of champagne from room service and crawled into bed. They clicked through channels on the TV and then settled on a prime-time special about Barack Obama. They watched it for a while, then changed the channel to Big Love on HBO when the president began talking about the economy. They didn’t need any more bad news.

They sipped wine and cuddled, enjoying the warmth of each other’s body. Occasionally, they kissed. Before she fell asleep, she turned on the digital recorder and slid it under the pillow.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Once again, Sarah woke up and reached under the pillow for the recorder. Josh was still sleeping, snoring a low, rumbling lion’s purr that was somehow not the least bit unpleasant. Sarah rewound the recorder and pressed play. She sat for a long moment listening to nothing but the occasional moan and snort and the sound of rustling pillows. She was just about to turn off the recorder when she heard herself scream.

“No! No! Noooo! Oh my God! Don’t. Don’t! Helllllllp!”

All the hairs stood up on Sarah’s skin and she sat up bolt straight in bed. Her jaw dropped and the saliva in her mouth dried up. She began to tremble all over. Her teeth chattered as a chill crawled over her. She could not move, couldn’t think.

“AAAAAaaaaaaarghhhhhhh! NOOOoooooooooo!”

It sounded like she was being murdered. Sarah rolled over and shook Josh awake.

“Josh! Josh! Oh, my God. Listen! Listen. I’m not crazy!”

Sarah shook him until his eyelids flew open and he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, trying to orient himself and give her his full attention. She held the recorder out to him, pressing it up against his ear as he struggled up from sleep. Just then she heard the unmistakable sound of Josh’s voice come over the recorder.

“Shhhhh. Baby, you’re having a dream. Go back to sleep.”

Sarah wilted.

“A dream?”

“You woke up screaming in the middle of the night. You said you were being attacked.”

“A dream?”

It should have been a relief but somehow it made her feel like an idiot. She tossed the covers aside, ran into the bathroom, and shut the door. This time, she didn’t make it into the shower before the tears came.

Sarah sat in the bottom of the tub letting the water strike the top of her head and run down her face. She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there when she slowly began to feel another emotion come over her, relief. If it was all a dream, then that meant she had not been raped. It also meant she owed the neighbor an apology. Her relief was short-lived however.

Through the sound of the shower, Sarah heard Josh knocking on the door. They were gentle, cautious knocks, Josh checking to see if she was okay.

“I’m all right. I just feel a little silly. I’ll be out in a minute,” Sarah called out.

Josh knocked again.

Sarah turned off the shower and stepped out of the tub.

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

“I think you need to come out now. You’ve got a call. It’s the detective.”

Sarah wrapped a towel around her head and another around her waist. She stepped out of the bathroom and the moment she opened the door and saw her husband’s face, she knew there was something wrong.

“They found semen,” he said.

Sarah’s expression asked the question that froze on her lips.

Josh shook his head and dropped the phone into her hand.

“It’s not mine.”

Sarah couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She lifted the phone to her ear, still staring at Josh.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Lincoln?”

“Yes?”

“This is Detective Trina Lassiter. I met you at the hospital on Friday.”

“Yes?”

“I wanted to let you know that we got the lab results back. They tested positive for seminal fluid.”

“Wh-where? Where did they find it?”

“Everywhere.”

“Wh-what do you mean everywhere?”

“Mrs. Lincoln, we found traces of semen in your rectum, in your vagina, in your mouth. It was everywhere.”

Sarah shook her head in disbelief, her mouth still hanging open in shock, stupefied by what she was hearing.

“D-did they test it against my husband’s?”

“Yes, we did. Unfortunately, your husband’s semen was a negative match.”

Sarah felt her stomach drop as if she were back on one of the roller coasters. Her vision narrowed to a pinpoint. She dropped to her knees and began regurgitating violently.

“How is that possible? Th-they said there were no signs of rape. How is it possible? It was him! It was Dale. I know it was him.”

Sarah picked up the phone again.

“What about the drugs? Did they find anything in my blood?”

“No signs of any barbiturates or narcotics. No sign of hallucinogenics either.”

“Did they check for roofies? What about GHB or ketamine?”

“They ran a full toxicology screen. There was nothing but estrogen and alcohol. Look, the mind is a funny thing. You might be blocking it out. That could be why you don’t remember.”

“I want him arrested. I want my neighbor put in jail.”

“Are you sure it was him?”

“I remember him. I can see his face as clear as day.”

“When I spoke to you before you weren’t certain you’d actually been raped.”

“But now we know. We have his semen.”

“I’m still not certain that I can get a warrant to compel him to give us a DNA sample. Not with the evidence we have. I don’t know if your statement would convince a judge.”

“Wh-what? Well, what am I supposed to do?”

“I’ll come to your house, we’ll go over your statement again, and I’ll talk with your neighbor. Are you at home now?”

“No, we’ve been sleeping in a hotel room. I couldn’t stand to stay in that house.”

“I could meet you at your hotel. Where are you staying?”

“Hollywood Galaxy. Room 1912.”

“I’m going to question your neighbor first. I want to see if he’d be willing to give us a DNA sample voluntarily. Will you be staying at the hotel a few more days or will you be returning home?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask my husband.”

Sarah hung up the phone and stared out the hotel window. They found semen. Everywhere.

Josh was on his knees scrubbing the floor where she’d vomited with a bath towel. He didn’t look up when he spoke to her. He just kept scrubbing.

“How is that possible, Sarah? They didn’t find any drugs in your system. They didn’t find any bruising. Anywhere!”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not remember someone cumming in your ass? How the hell do you expect me to believe that? How do you think that makes me feel?”

A sudden rage came rushing through Sarah and it was all she could do to control it. She didn’t want to let this thing, whatever it was, tear her and Josh apart. But she couldn’t stand the thought of Josh questioning her about something like this. How fucking dare he?

“How it makes you feel? Are you fucking kidding me? Do you know how selfish, how fucking insensitive that sounds? I was fucking raped! It wasn’t you who they found a stranger’s semen in, Josh. It’s me getting violated every night by Lord knows who!”

Josh shook his head and let out a sharp exhalation of breath that almost sounded like a chuckle.

“I’m sorry. I am. I just don’t know what you expect from me. I mean, look at it through my eyes. You can’t even explain what the hell is going on. All I know for a fact is that someone else’s semen was inside my wife.”

Josh threw the towel on the floor and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He looked away from Sarah, still refusing to make eye contact. Sarah knelt down and put an arm around him. She was still angry but her instinct was still to comfort him, to try to make everything okay.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

Josh picked up the towel and started scrubbing the carpet again.

“So what happens next? What happens if Dale’s DNA is a match with the semen they found? Are they going to arrest him? I mean, you’ll get ripped apart on a stand. They’ll say it was consensual. It’ll be your word against his and you don’t have a shred of proof. He’ll say you two were having an affair or something.”

“Is that what you think?”

Josh was still not looking at her. He had soiled three towels and was reaching for a fourth. He squirted shower gel onto the floor and continued rubbing the carpet with the fresh towel.

Sarah took her arm from around his shoulders and stood up, both hands on her hips, feeling that rage boiling inside her again, wanting to explode. She felt the urge to kick Josh in the back of his head. Instead, she took a deep breath and knelt back down beside him.

“Look at me, Josh. Is that what you think?”

Josh still did not turn his head toward her when he spoke. She put a hand on his cheek to try to turn his head to face her but he jerked his head away and continued staring at the vomit stain on the floor.

“I don’t know what to think. I don’t know. I mean, you don’t remember, and I have heard of people getting raped and blocking it out. I know it happens. And with the sliding-door lock busted I suppose someone could have come in the house. But I was home. I was home, Sarah! It’s just not possible that we’re both blocking it out. It’s not possible that someone broke in while I was asleep, fucked you and ejaculated in you, then got it up again and fucked you in your ass, ejaculated again, then got it up a third time and came in your mouth, all while I was snoring beside you. How could that be possible?”

Sarah shook her head. Her rage turned to a deep sadness. Josh was right. There was no reason for him to believe her. She wouldn’t have believed him if the tables were turned. Whatever was happening to her was about to destroy her marriage. It was rapidly eroding the trust she shared with her husband and she knew that once the trust went the love was next. Tears were streaming down her face. She began to dry heave.

“I don’t know!”

Josh punched his fist into the floor and Sarah jumped. For a moment she was afraid he was going to hit her. It was the first time she’d ever found herself afraid of her husband and she immediately felt guilty for it. Josh was big but he’d never been a bully. He was usually gentle and sensitive. This, however, was uncharted territory. She’d never before given him a reason to question her loyalty. Still, Josh was mild and nonconfrontational by nature unless he felt like he was being deliberately provoked. Attacking a woman just wasn’t in him. Sarah thought about Josh storming out of the house with a gun in his hand when she’d first told him that she thought she had been raped. He had been fully planning on killing their neighbor. Sarah wondered if she really knew her husband as well as she thought she did.

“It’s not possible, Sarah! It’s just not fucking possible!”

“So you think I cheated on you?”

“Maybe it was a date rape or something and you felt guilty about it and so you invented this whole thing. Maybe you blocked that out and you really believe that this whole fantasy is true. Maybe you sleepwalked across the street and fucked the neighbor in your sleep. I don’t fucking know, Sarah, but you’re a sex addict, a goddamn nymphomaniac or something! I know I can’t satisfy you. So why wouldn’t you be getting it somewhere else?”

Sarah reached out for him and Josh pulled away. He was sobbing but he wouldn’t let her see his face. It was some type of pride thing.

“Josh, I didn’t cheat on you. I’m not a sex addict. You satisfy me completely. We have a great sex life. I’m sorry if I made you feel like I wasn’t satisfied. You always make me cum. I don’t need anybody else but you. I love you and I think you’re sexy as hell.”

Josh finally turned to look at Sarah. Tears were streaming down his face. Sarah felt her heart break.

“Then explain this to me. Tell me what the hell happened.”

“I don’t know. I’m not lying to you and I’m not trying to hide anything.”

This was so natural for Sarah, comforting Josh when she ought to have been losing her mind, when she ought to have been screaming at him, punching him, and crying hysterically. But flipping out like that wasn’t like her. She had not been herself since this thing started; it felt good to be calm again. This was normal to her.

Sarah had just gone from vomiting on the carpet to kneeling down to take the soapy rag from his hand and wrapping her arms around him, laying his head on her chest and rocking him like a baby. Surprisingly, the transition felt effortless to her. Comforting him helped take away some of the terror she was feeling. She had to be strong for Josh. He needed her.

“I’m sorry, Sarah. I know you wouldn’t cheat on me. I’m just so fucking confused. None of this makes any sense. I just don’t know what to do.”

“Let’s try to figure this out together then. Okay? Look, let’s go over what we know.”

“Okay. I’ll try.”

Trying to solve this puzzle would make them both feel like they were doing something. It would make them feel less powerless, more in control of the situation like Sarah felt after they had purchased the gun. Sarah knew that Josh needed this. He immediately became more alert, less depressed.

“Okay,” he said, turning to face her, “what do we know?”

Sarah took a death breath and hesitated for a long moment before she spoke.

“First, I saw you getting murdered by the neighbor. I remember him raping me and slitting my throat. When I woke up the next morning, you and I were alive but the bed was saturated with blood. The dreams or memories or whatever they are seem to come and go. Sometimes they’re vivid and I can remember just about every detail and sometimes I can’t remember anything. I woke up three nights ago and found that the sheets had been changed, the walls and the rug had been cleaned, my gun had been fired and all the bullets had been removed from the clip. But since we’ve been in the hotel there hasn’t been any strange things happening.”

“Except you did have a nightmare.”

“Yeah, true, I had a nightmare. But that was it. Nothing in the room had been changed. There wasn’t any sign that anything abnormal had happened at all. No bloody mattress and no missing sheets. And the digital recorder didn’t record anything unusual.”

“But we know that someone other than me had sex with you on the night before we got here because they found another man’s semen inside you.”

Josh was staring at Sarah, studying her face, trying to gauge her reaction. It pissed her off. He still doubted her.

Sarah wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up about the semen. Just hearing him say it made her feel as if there were a cold draft wafting beneath her skin. It made her want to stab him to death just to keep him from repeating it again. She wanted to forget about it, she wanted to pretend that the detective had never called. But she needed to figure out what was happening to her. This wasn’t something she could just ignore.

“Yeah, okay. They found semen, but no signs of vaginal or rectal bruising or tearing and no drugs in my system.”

Josh stood up and began to pace the floor.

“It doesn’t add up.”

“No. It doesn’t make sense. But we know something is going on. So, what are the possibilities?”

“You could be sleepwalking and washing the sheets in your sleep.”

“But then where did the blood in the mattress and the semen come from?”

“You could be having sleep sex.”

“I don’t see me being able to leave the house without waking you up.”

“Well, they didn’t test me for drugs. Someone could still be drugging me and then sneaking in and having sex with you and you could just be blocking it out.”

“That’s possible. Or I could be drugging you and then sneaking out and having sex with other men and making up all the rest of this.”

Josh looked at her. Shocked.

“Somebody had to say it. I know you’ve been thinking it. You’ve damned near said as much. We have to address every possibility. Then we can exclude them one by one. So, is it possible that I could be cheating on you and just making up all of this?”

Josh blushed, then shook his head, dismissing the notion.

“It wouldn’t make sense. You were the one who insisted on the rape kit and they would have never found the semen if you hadn’t. Why would you do that if you were cheating on me? I mean really, I wouldn’t even know about any of this if you hadn’t told me about it. It wouldn’t make sense for you to bring all this up if you were fucking around on me.”

Sarah was relieved. She slapped Josh on the arm.

“Then why the fuck did you say all that shit about me being a nympho and not being satisfied with you? Why’d you make me think you didn’t trust me?”

Josh shrugged.

“I’m sorry. That was just my insecurities talking. The thought of another man having sex with you is just driving me crazy. I want to fucking kill somebody.”

Josh was pacing the floor, clenching and unclenching his fingers, looking for something to break that he wouldn’t have to pay for. He settled on punching the pillow.

“Someone could still be drugging us both. They could be using something rare that they don’t test for. We can’t rule that out.”

“A new date-rape drug?”

Sarah nodded.

“Could be, I mean it’s possible. I still think we’re missing something though. We need to think waaaaay outside the box.”

“Okay, let’s do it. Let’s not rule anything out yet even what we know is impossible. What if everything you remember is true?”

“You mean that I’ve been raped and murdered two or three nights in a row? That you were murdered too? How would that be possible?”

“We’re not thinking about what’s possible yet. We’re just laying everything out right now. We can start ruling things out later.”

“Okay, so then we’ve both been murdered.”

“But we both woke up, alive.”

“So somehow we healed. Either we healed on our own or someone healed us.”

Sarah shivered.

“Okay, that’s just fucking creepy. What else?”

“Hypnotism? Some sort of subliminal suggestion or mind control of some sort? Someone could be attacking you and maybe knocking me unconscious somehow and then hypnotizing us both so we don’t remember, maybe making you think you’ve been murdered just to freak you out more.”

“Even weirder. What else?”

“I don’t know. Can you think of anything?”

“Well, we’ve covered sleep fucking, infidelity, drugs, spontaneous regeneration, and hypnotism. I think that about covers it. So what do we do now?”

“We need to prove that you’re being attacked. Catch the fucker redhanded.”

“Well, we could always go back to The Spy Shop and buy that nanny cam. If we can get him on camera, then we’ll have our proof.”

“You’re right, that’s probably the only way. Do you have any money left from the slot machine?”

Sarah picked up her purse and began shuffling through a stack of bills. They were mostly twenties and fifties with only a few hundreds left.

“About nine hundred dollars.”

“We spent sixteen hundred dollars last night?”

“Well, we spent about four hundred on food and then I bought you that shirt from Armani Exchange and those pants from Hugo Boss and then I bought a skirt from Calvin Klein…”

Josh shook his head and laughed.

“Okay, it doesn’t matter. It was your money. I guess that means we can either buy the camera or the alarm but with the money we already spent on the gun, we can’t do both. I haven’t put anything in the bank for next month’s mortgage yet.”

Sarah didn’t hesitate.

“Let’s get the camera.”

“Are you sure? What if we see something…terrible?”

Sarah thought for a moment. An alarm would just chase the rapist away. Then she’d never know what was happening, who was causing all of this, or if she was crazy. She had to see it to believe it. But even more, she wanted Josh to see it. She wanted him to see with his own eyes that she wasn’t crazy, wasn’t lying, wasn’t cheating. It made her skin crawl to imagine watching herself getting raped on camera. Her stomach did a little flip as she tried to picture it in her mind. She shuddered and turned back to Josh.

“We need to catch this fucker. We need evidence.”

“If we set up a silent alarm and link it to an armed security response, then we might still catch him redhanded.”

“Might. He might still get away before security could get there. They might get there too soon before he can do anything and he could get off with simple breaking and entering. If I had it my way we’d have both. Catch him on camera and then apprehend his ass coming out the front door. But we can’t afford that. Given our options, the camera makes the most sense.”

Josh nodded.

“Okay. We’ll get the camera. When is that detective coming?”

“She said she was going to talk to the neighbor first. See if he’d give a voluntary DNA sample.”

Josh turned to look at her.

“You think he will?”

“I don’t know. Would you? I mean, after I slapped him and threatened to kick his ass?”

Josh shook his head.

“I’d tell you to screw yourself.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“It would make him look guilty though.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the same as actually being guilty.”

Sarah looked around. Her mind was working overtime. She wanted an answer now. The idea of going back to that house without knowing if she was still in danger was starting to make her panic.

“Maybe we could steal a DNA sample from him somehow.”

Josh shook his head.

“And where would we get it tested? Do you have a DNA lab I don’t know about? We don’t even have the sample they took at the hospital to compare it to and the police won’t test it because it would be inadmissible.”

“Maybe we could ask that detective to give us the sample she took from me and we could take it to one of those paternity-testing places?”

“We could certainly ask but she’d be crazy to give it to us.”

Sarah’s brow furrowed.

“Why do you say that? Why shouldn’t she give it to us?”

“Because she knows we’d need to get a sample from him in order to compare it to, which means we’d have to either steal a sample or coerce one out of him and probably by force. And then what happens if it’s a match and I kill the guy? She’d be an accessory to murder.”

Sarah looked at Josh, shocked.

“Would you? Would you kill him? I mean…if it turns out that he is the guy doing all of this?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’d do.”

Sarah rushed into his arms and hugged him tight.

“I don’t want you to go to jail. I don’t want to be without you. Promise me you’ll let the police handle it no matter what we find.”

Josh turned his head. His body tensed.

“I can’t promise you that.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

The knock on Dale’s door was hardly a shock. He had been expecting to hear from his neighbor again. He knew he should stay away from her but he couldn’t help himself. She was just so beautiful—and she remembered. He was sure of it, could see it in her eyes. She remembered, and yet she wasn’t afraid. She had even come over to confront him. Had even threatened him. It was something new and exciting to Dale, a murder victim who remembered her own murder, and actually had the nerve to confront the man who had raped and mutilated her. Dale had an erection just thinking about it. He was having a hard time keeping himself from masturbating, but didn’t want to waste his potency on his hand. He wanted to save every ounce of it for Sarah.

Someone knocked again. Dale took his time walking to the door, trying to think of things to relax his erection so whoever was on the other side wouldn’t see that his cock was hard. Dale looked through the peephole and was surprised to see a black woman standing outside his door with a young Mexican police detective at her side, his gold shield clipped to his belt next to his holster. He was in shirtsleeves despite the weather, which had turned unusually cold for September. Dale didn’t recognize the woman. She wasn’t bad looking despite her obvious age, but Dale couldn’t remember doing any black chicks lately. He hadn’t done anyone but the neighbor since he’d moved in. Since meeting Sarah, Dale had discovered the joys of monogamy. Besides, the black chick wasn’t his type. Her hips and thighs were too big and her breasts would have smothered him.

On closer look, the black woman was obviously a detective as well. She wore a gray blouse, gray pleated pants, and ugly black loafers. Definitely a cop. Dale began to sweat. What were the cops doing here? Had he left behind some evidence? Were they about to put him in jail? Dale knew he was too frail for prison. Those big, angry convicts would rape him every night and there’d be nothing he could do about it. The detective banged on the door again while Dale’s eye was pressed to the peephole, startling him.

“Shit! What do you want?”

“Mr. McCarthy? Dale McCarthy?”

“Yes?” Dale had a moment were he considered running. He looked at the back door and then calculated his chances of reaching it before the two detectives kicked in the front door. He wondered if he could elude the cops long enough to make it out of town and then maybe out of the country.

“I’m Detective Trina Lassiter and this is my partner, Detective Michael Torres. We need to speak to you a moment.”

“About what?”

“You know what it’s about.”

Dale felt as if his entire world had just imploded. They knew. They’d come to arrest him. His face would be on television. Everyone would call him a pervert, a sadist, a murderer.

But how can I be a murderer when I haven’t killed anybody? Sarah and her husband are both still alive.

“You here about that crazy bitch across the street? She assaulted me!”

“Just open the door and we’ll talk about it. You can tell us all about how she attacked you.”

Dale could see the detective beside her chuckle.

Fuck them both, he thought. But he opened the door.

“Do you mind if we ask you a few questions? Can we come in?”

Dale didn’t answer. He stepped aside and gave them room to enter. The two detectives filed past him and immediately began looking around the room, no doubt searching for clues, as if they expected to find a bloody knife and a pair of Sarah’s torn underwear on the living room floor.

“So what’s this about?”

“Your neighbor across the street claims you broke into her house and raped her while she was sleeping.”

Dale smirked.

“She’d have to be an awfully light sleeper.”

The two detectives looked at each other. Dale caught the look between them and tried to wipe the smirk from his face.

“She thinks she may have been drugged. Do you mind if we look around your house?”

“Yup. I certainly do mind.”

Lassiter stepped closer to Dale, purposely invading his space. She was a large woman, physically intimidating. Dale knew she was trying to unravel him. Unfortunately, it was working. Dale looked away from her, at the floor, the walls, the other detective, back at the floor, anywhere but at the woman with her enormous breasts almost poking him in the chest.

“See now, Mr. McCarthy, being uncooperative like that makes you sound guilty. What would we find in here if we were to look around? A collection of Mrs. Lincoln’s underwear? Your porn collection? Maybe pictures of the neighbor you took peeking through her windows when she wasn’t looking?”

Detective Torres started wandering around the living room looking at Dale’s books, his DVDs, peeking under his couch cushions.

“Hey! I said you couldn’t search my house!”

“Oh, I’m not searching. I’m just looking at what’s in plain sight. You’re kind of a boring dude, ain’t ya?”

The detective was holding up a DVD of Splash with Daryl Hannah that Dale had bought from Wal-Mart.

“When was the last time you updated your DVD collection?”

Dale felt his blood pressure escalate. He knew that the detectives were trying hard to anger him and that losing his temper would only further amuse them or give them the probable cause they needed to arrest him. He tried his best to keep his voice calm and steady, but he could feel the heat in his cheeks and forehead, knew his face was probably the color of a particularly livid sunburn.

“Please, do not touch my things.”

Dale gently removed the DVD from the detective’s hands and replaced it in his DVD stand.

“Afraid we’ll find that porn collection?”

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave my house right now.”

Lassiter stepped up close to Dale again, once more invading his space.

“I can tell you don’t like us, Dale.” She pulled out a plastic ziploc bag with a Q-tip and a specimen slide inside it. “How about you let us take a swab of the inside of your cheek. Then we can test it against some DNA we took from Mrs. Lincoln and exclude you as a suspect. Then you never have to see us again.”

Dale’s face lit up. He tried his best to hide his smile, dropping his head to stare at the floor. But as quickly as he would suppress the self-satisfied grin spreading across his face, it would come bursting back wider and more exuberant than ever.

“W-where did you find the DNA?”

The detectives exchanged quick looks. Torres shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.

“Now why would you want to know where we found the DNA?” Torres asked.

Dale looked from one detective to the other. He felt his smile returning so he averted his eyes back to the floor.

“Just curious. Did they find it inside her?”

Lassiter turned pale and Dale could tell that Detective Torres wanted to hit him.

“Excuse me?” Lassiter said.

“Where’d they find it? It must have been inside of her. It’s semen isn’t it? Someone came inside her. That’s why you want my DNA. Was it in her ass? In her mouth? Or was it all over her tits?”

“That’s enough, Mr. McCarthy.”

“Have you seen her tits? It looks like she’s had a boob job but she hasn’t. They’re real. I can tell by the way they jiggle when she walks. They’re real and fucking perfect. Not all big and flabby like yours. Hers are firm and perky. I bet that’s where they found the semen. Because if it was me, that’s what I would have done. I’d have fucked her right between those perfect tits. Now, since I’m not going to let you swab my cheeks for DNA so you can try to frame me for something I didn’t do”—Dale turned to the female detective, no longer bothering to hide either his smile or his erection—“no matter how much I would love to have been the one who fucked that sweet cunt, you can go on and get the fuck out of my house.”

The detectives looked shocked. That made Dale’s smile widen even more. They had been trying to make him uncomfortable. But they were amateurs. Dale was a master of psychological warfare. He watched them turn and walk toward the door. The big black woman turned toward Dale one last time before she left.

“You know we’re going to catch you, right?”

Dale chuckled.

“You mean you’re going to catch the rapist, right? The one that you say attacked her in her sleep, as incredulous as that seems? But since that isn’t me, I guess I won’t be seeing you again.”

Torres stopped this time and grabbed Dale by his T-shirt, balling the front of the shirt up into his fist.

“You’ll be seeing us again, motherfucker. Believe that.”

Dale began to shiver.

“Do-don’t-don’t manhandle me! Let me go!”

The detective let him go and walked out the front door, slamming it behind him. “Fuck you very much, Detectives,” Dale muttered at their backs.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Sarah was just about to call downstairs for room service when the phone rang. She picked it up on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mrs. Lincoln?”

“Detective Lassiter?”

“My partner and I are in the lobby. Do you mind if we come up?”

“No. Come on up.”

Sarah didn’t like the sound of the detective’s voice. She sounded too serious, almost angry.

“That was Detective Lassiter. She’s on her way up.”

Josh looked anxious and excited but there was definitely worry on his face.

“Did she say anything?”

“No. But she didn’t sound too happy.”

Sarah and Josh sat on the bed waiting. It took a long time before the detectives finally knocked on the door. Sarah fidgeted the entire time. She kept looking from the bedside clock to the door and biting her nails. It felt like time had slowed to a limp.

“Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln?”

Josh got up and opened the door while Sarah remained on the bed, anxiously gnawing at her fingernails.

Josh opened the door and Detective Lassiter rushed into the room followed by a short Mexican detective.

“That guy is an asshole!”

“Who?” Sarah asked.

“Your neighbor. Dale. He’s a fucking dick! Excuse my language.”

“That’s quite all right. What did he say?”

The detective paused. She looked over at the other detective beside her.

“This is my partner, Detective Michael Torres.”

“Uh…hi. What did he say?”

The two detectives looked at each other. Sarah could tell something was wrong. Josh looked agitated as well. He could obviously sense that something wasn’t right.

“He asked us where we found the DNA. He wanted to know if whoever raped you had ejaculated on your breasts. Then he indicated that that’s what he would have done.”

“I’ll fucking kill him!”

The way Josh said it, no one in the room doubted his seriousness.

“Look, I talk to a lot of insensitive assholes and not all of them are guilty. Not every pervert is a rapist. Some people just have a twisted sense of humor.”

“You think he was just kidding? You told him that my wife had been raped and he said that he wished that he could have cum on her tits and you think that was just some kind of fucking joke?”

“What I’m saying is that I can’t prove he did it. Yeah, I think the guy is fucking weird, disgusting, and probably guilty of something. I just can’t say that he’s guilty of raping your wife. I can’t say it for sure because she can’t.”

“But what do you think?” Sarah asked. “Do you think he did it?”

The detective opened her mouth, then hesitated. Sarah knew that the woman had been about to give the automatic response, the one she’d been trained to give, something safe and legal. The detective looked at her partner and then back at Sarah. She let out a sigh, then sat on the bed next to Sarah.

“He seems guilty to me. All of my instincts tell me that he’s a fucking creep who belongs behind bars. It’s just that my hands are tied without an eyewitness. I can’t compel him to give us a DNA sample. No one’s going to give us a warrant on what we’ve got. I can dust your house for fingerprints and then see if he has any on record to compare them to but I can’t arrest him.”

Sarah nodded, acknowledging the detective while at the same time wondering why she bothered. She certainly wasn’t agreeing with her. She was getting sick of these cops telling her that they couldn’t do shit to help her.

She smirked and wiped a tear from her eye, then picked up her suitcase and began balling up her clothes and shoving them in without folding them.

“Thank you, Detectives. We’re going home now. I guess we just have to do this ourselves.”

“Don’t do something you’ll regret. I’d hate to have to arrest either of you.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t let Josh kill that piece of shit. Not unless we catch him in our house. Then all bets are off. But one way or the other I’m going to get that evidence. I’ll make sure you have enough to arrest him.”

Detective Lassiter stood in the middle of the room not saying a thing. Sarah could feel the woman’s eyes on her back as she packed. Josh began packing as well, leaving the two detectives to just stand there and watch.

Finally, Detective Torres spoke up.

“I’ll speak to the lieutenant and see if we can get a patrol car to cruise by your place a few times at night. You know, just to check for anything suspicious. But like Detective Lassiter said, we don’t want you two doing anything that’s going to make us have to arrest you. Just stay cool and let us do our thing. If this guy’s really been breaking into your house, we’ll catch him. Believe that.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said without turning around, still hurriedly packing her suitcase.

“Are you going straight home?” asked Detective Lassiter.

“No. We have one stop to make,” Josh said. He had already thrown a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, along with his work uniform, deodorant, shaving cream, razor, and toothbrush into a duffel bag and was ready to go.

“Do you mind if we stop by later on today?” Lassiter asked. “We’ll dust your house for prints and see what we find. We’ll need to get your prints as well to compare them against any that we find.”

“That’s fine. We should be home in a couple of hours.”

“Okay. We’ll come by this afternoon.”

The two detectives turned to leave. Sarah had just zipped her suitcase shut. Detective Lassiter turned back to face Sarah. The two women made eye contact and Sarah saw the woman mouth the words, “I believe you.” Reflexively, Sarah reached out and hugged her.

“Thank you, Detective. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

“Call me Trina. I’ll see you this afternoon.”

Sarah fought back tears as she let the detective go and watched the two of them leave the hotel room. Now she and Josh would have to leave as well. It was time for them to go back to the house.

“If you want, I could take the night off.”

“You’re working tonight?”

“Yeah, I was called in to work the highlimit table.”

“That’s more money isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Much bigger tips.”

“Then you’ve got to go. We need the money. All of this is just costing a fortune. I’ve got a gun, we’re buying a security camera, and there’ll be a patrol car cruising by the house a few times a night. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m just working ten to six. I’ll be home by seven. We can take a nap when we get back to the house until I have to leave and then you can stay up until I get home if you’re nervous.”

“That’s fine. I’ll just load up on coffee. I’m thinking about changing my dissertation topic anyway so this’ll be a perfect excuse to get some work done.”

“You’re changing it again? What to this time?”

Sarah picked up her suitcase and handed it to Josh, who took it automatically and carried it out the door. That was the best thing about being married to a guy as big as Josh. She felt no need to try to prove to anyone that she was his physical equal. He was a big man so he moved all the furniture and lifted all the heavy stuff. Fuck women’s lib. Sarah waited for Josh to hold the door for her before she walked out of the hotel room.

“I have no idea what I’m going to write about. I was thinking about doing something on the psychological effects of the housing crisis and the recession on marriages. Losing your dream house to foreclosure must be devastating to a relationship. And a lot of marriages are going through a total change of dynamics since most of the jobs lost are in male-dominated industries like banking and construction. Women are taking over as breadwinners. That has to fuck with a guy’s ego, and that in turn must wreak havoc on the marital bedroom and would probably even cause an increase in domestic violence and divorce.”

What didn’t need to be said was that she was changing it this time because she just couldn’t write about sexual deviancy while she was going through her own sex-crime drama.

“That sounds pretty damn interesting. If you can write that one fast enough you could probably sell that as a book. It’s timely enough.”

“We’ll see.”

“You sure you’re going to be okay?”

“Yup. I’ll be fine. I’m going to go for a long jog to burn off all that rich food we ate last night. I haven’t worked out the entire time we’ve been in the hotel. And then I’m going to spend the rest of the night doing research until you get home. I’ll keep the gun right beside the computer and put holes in anyone who steps foot in that door.”

“Then we’re stopping by the hardware store to get a security bar for that slider door. And we’re leaving all the lights on in front of the house. If someone walks up to the house, I want everyone to be able to see him.”

After checking out, they drove directly to The Spy Shop.

“I knew you two would be back. I could tell the way you were looking at that nanny cam, the one with the teddy bear, right? It’s one of the most popular items we sell. But that’s kind of old-school. I’ve got something a bit more state-of-the-art.”

The clerk walked them over to a tiny round disk with a lens in it.

“This is the perfect camera for any type of light conditions and the lens is only one and a quarter inches. It’s the smallest camera we make. The Night Observer Wireless B/W Camera System can ‘see’ in three times less light than the standard nanny cam, making it perfect for mounting in any darkened area around your home. Its small size makes it easily concealable. You could lay this sucker out in plain sight and no one would even notice it.”

“How much is it?”

“I can let you have the camera and the remote VCR for just about a hundred and forty dollars.”

“Why is it so much cheaper than the bear?”

“Because the bear is cuter.”

The guy winked at Sarah and Sarah scowled back.

“Does it have a motion detector?”

“No. Once you turn it on it’s just on.”

“But the teddy bear has a motion detector and it’s in color?” Josh asked.

“Yeah, and we’ve got it in a wireless version now.”

“We want something that will record everything that happens in the room. Or something we could put really close to someone, close enough to see their face, without them knowing it’s there,” Sarah said.

“If you like the concealment possibilities of the teddy bear, and the color recording features, we have a few other hidden cameras you might be interested in.”

The clerk walked them over to where the teddy bear camera sat amid a bunch of other seemingly innocuous household objects.

“We have a radio alarm clock with a camera in it. This one has that motion sensor you asked about, and it comes in color.”

Sarah looked over at her husband and smiled. This would be perfect if she was attacked in her bed again. The camera would record everything. But if he raped her on the floor as the stain on the carpet would indicate he did at least once, this camera might miss it. Josh looked over at her and Sarah shook her head.

“What else do you have?” she asked.

“We have stereo speakers with a camera in it. We have fake plants. We even have toasters and wall clocks and, of course, paintings and pictures. If you want to get the entire room, this smoke-alarm camera mounts to the ceiling and will capture everything in the room from an overhead perspective. I don’t know how clear the details will be but it’s at least as clear as those old surveillance cameras they used to put in liquor stores, and they caught criminals with those. It has a ninety-two-degree field of vision and a seven-hundred-foot line of sight. If you mount it over your door you should catch the entire room. It’s wireless and can be hooked up to a wireless VCR to record everything it sees.”

Sarah looked at Josh and they nodded in unison.

“How much?” she asked.

“This one is three hundred and fifty dollars plus another sixty for the VCR.”

“Wow. That’s a little more than we were planning on spending.”

“But it’s perfect,” Josh said. “We’ll take it.”

Sarah couldn’t help but feel a little foolish as they left the store. They had already spent over $2,000 trying to prove she wasn’t crazy and protect her from her phantom rapist. As confident as she was that she was being raped by the neighbor, she had just as many doubts. She couldn’t help but feel a little worried that she might turn on the VCR in the morning and see video of her leaving the bedroom in the middle of the night and then coming back and changing the sheets and scrubbing the walls and floor. She was even more terrified that the video would show her welcoming Dale into her bedroom while she was sleepwalking. If that happened, her marriage was over.

They drove to the hardware store and picked up the security bar and then drove straight home. The detectives were already at the house when they arrived, parked by the driveway in a black Crown Victoria. Their presence made Sarah even more confident. They were starting to take her seriously. They believed her. At least Detective Lassiter did.

Sarah stared hard at the closed blinds across the street. They did not move as she pulled up but she had little doubt that Dale was over there watching. His lawn was beginning to look unkempt, as if he had not mowed it since he moved in. Sarah couldn’t remember ever seeing him outside since the day he moved in.

The detectives met them on the driveway as Sarah and Josh parked their car and began pulling their bags out of the trunk.

“Would you mind if we went in first? We’d like to try to get as many prints as we can and you might smudge them.”

“Sure. We’ll wait outside.”

“You can come into the living room after we’ve dusted the front-door handle and the living room furniture, at least the surfaces that we can get prints from.”

“Don’t you have a team for this? A CSI unit? Like on TV?”

The detectives gave each other one of those looks, the kind people give each other when they’re sharing a secret and weighing the pros and cons of letting someone else in on it.

“We’re sort of doing this unofficially. That rules out the crime-scene unit,” Lassiter said.

“In the movies cops can just call up their buddies in CSU and they’ll do a job for them as a favor. In the real life there’s a shitload of red-tape bureaucratic bullshit involved,” Torres added.

“So, you’re saying this whole case is unofficial?” Josh asked.

“It’s not closed, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s our case and we’re keeping it open.”

“But your superiors aren’t committing any resources to it.”

“No. The lieutenant thinks there’s no crime or that we’d never be able to prove it if there was one because of your police statement. So it’s just the two of us.”

“Well, thanks. Thanks for believing us.”

The detectives started at the front door, examining the handle set with a flashlight. Detective Torres was twirling a brush, fluffing its bristles. He dipped the tip of the brush into a can of black latent-print powder, then lightly dusted the powder onto the door handle. The detective knelt down and gently blew off some of the powder. Then he pressed some clear tape onto the door handle and began smoothing it down with his thumb. He then transferred the tape onto a card and labeled and initialed it.

“I’d better sign it too,” Detective Lassiter said. “Chain of evidence.”

Detective Torres passed the card to his partner while he scribbled in his notebook. He took four more prints from the handle, labeling each one.

“The rest of the prints are too smudged. I think that’s all we’re getting off this.”

“I think that’s good. Most of them are probably from the Lincolns anyway. Let’s go inside.”

The detectives entered the house, leaving Sarah and her husband on the front porch.

“Do you think they’ll find anything?” Sarah asked her husband.

“I don’t know. But remember what they said about getting a print match. If he’s not already in the system, then the only way they can get a copy of his prints will be to arrest him.”

“Do you think they would?”

“You mean arrest him?”

“Yeah, they could probably pick him up for something even if it isn’t for rape. Maybe trespassing or something.”

“I don’t know if they would go that far,” Josh said.

Sarah looked across the street.

“That fucker. If they find his prints in our house I might just kill that bastard myself.”

“If they find his prints in the house they’ll arrest him and that will be the end of it.”

“Not really. I’d have to testify in court. Fuck, that would suck. Do you know what a terrible witness I would make? I don’t even really remember what happened.”

An hour went by before the detectives poked their heads out and told Sarah and her husband that they were okay to come inside.

“Sorry, I almost forgot about you. I’m going to fingerprint both of you while Detective Torres goes upstairs and dusts your bedroom.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Most of the prints are identical, from what I can tell. Those probably belong to you two. But there were some on the slider door handle and the dining room window that didn’t match the others. They may be from a houseguest or a visitor, a friend, the pest-control guy, just about anyone but we’ll run the prints anyway just to be sure.”

It took two more hours before Detective Torres came back downstairs.

“We’ll get back to you if we find anything.”

“Thank you, Detectives,” Sarah said.

Josh walked them to the door and then walked into the living room and collapsed onto the couch.

“Tired?”

Sarah sat in Josh’s lap and wrapped her arms around him.

“Exhausted.” Josh laid his head on her breasts.

“Let’s go upstairs and take a nap. It’s been a long day.”

“Let’s set up the camera first.”

Sarah carried the bags upstairs while Josh removed a stepladder from the downstairs closet. Sarah was already unwrapping the box, sitting on the bed reading the installation instructions when Josh returned.

It took them a moment to figure out how to sync the camera with the VCR but soon they had it installed in the ceiling where the smoke alarm had been.

“Well, let’s just hope there’s not a fire.”

“The other alarms are still working. The house isn’t that big. We’d hear the one in the hallway if there was a fire.”

They stripped down to their underwear and crawled under the covers. Josh turned on the television and they lay in bed together watching Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Phil, falling asleep just before Judge Judy. Sarah kept waking up every ten minutes and reaching under her pillow for the gun, just to make sure it was still there, just wanting to feel the comfort of its weight. She stared at the front door, expecting it to creak open at any moment and for Dale to be standing there holding his stumpy little cock.

She felt her eyelids begin to close and her head droop forward. She forced her eyes open but the weight of the day lay heavily upon them, slamming them shut. Soon she was dreaming about roller coasters and caviar.

Minutes went by before she opened her eyes again, feeling a moment of panic before she reached once again for her gun and felt it there, tucked into the pocket of her Kevlar pillow. Beside her, Josh was sleeping soundly. His snores were comforting. He sounded like a purring lion. As Sarah stared at the door, she remembered that Josh had never put the lock on the new security bar on the sliding door. She reached under the pillow and began to remove the Sig Sauer.

Pulling it from beneath the pillow, Sarah rose from the bed and walked across the room, stepping around the clean spot on the carpet as she made her way to the bedroom door and opened it. Sarah had been prepared to scream. She had not been prepared to be struck over the head with a hammer. The gun tumbled from her hand and bounced across the plush carpeting with the upgraded padding. It barely made a sound. Sarah could still hear her husband snoring as Dale stepped over her limp body into the bedroom. Everything began to go black as she heard the hammer whack into bone and Josh grunt once, then fall silent.

It wasn’t over when she woke up. Dale was still there. Josh was alive, bleeding from his head, one eye closed, the other one dilated, duct tape over his mouth, around his wrists and ankles. It was still light outside. How did Dale know we would be sleeping? How was he watching us? The questions came and went. There was too much going on to dwell long on them.

Seeing Josh helpless like that, big, strong Josh who had always been her protector, who had always made her feel safe, turned her world upside down. It was more terrifying than the realization that she too was bound and gagged and would soon be raped and murdered. Seeing that helpless, frustrated, terrified look in his eyes made her ache deep inside. It broke her heart. She knew that he would have helped her if he could and that not being able to was killing him. Being helpless in the face of this anemic little scarecrow of a man whom he would have murdered in a fair fight, if the guy hadn’t caught them both by surprise. And how is he doing it? How is he able to ambush us both and overpower us before we know he’s here? How does he know when we are sleeping?

Josh began to scream against the tape as Dale turned toward Sarah. Sarah winced as Dale smacked her husband with the butt of her gun, the gun she’d bought to defend herself.

“Okay, Mr. Big Man with your big muscles. Think you’re so fucking tough? You come to my house and threaten me? You send the police to arrest me? Well, who’s in control now? We’ll see how tough you are after you watch me fuck your pretty little wife.”

Sarah wept as she felt Dale’s hands on her breasts. She closed her eyes when she felt the hands pry her legs apart and tried not to show her fear or her pain, for Josh’s sake. She could still hear Josh screaming against the duct tape, roaring in impotent rage. When she felt Dale’s lips and tongue slathering her nipples in saliva, felt him bite them and twist them as if he was trying to tear them right off her chest and then felt his tiny cock begin thrusting inside of her, she wished with everything she had that Josh had been strong enough to rip through the duct tape and save her. She wished that she could have watched Josh tear this pervert’s head off his fucking shoulders with his bare hands. Part of her was disappointed when it didn’t happen. Part of her hated Josh for not defending her. She tried to ignore the thoughts going through her head, telling her that Josh could have broken the tape if he really wanted to. It was just tape not rope or chains or something. She tried to ignore the thought that Josh was just too scared to help her, that he would have rather let her get raped than risk getting shot or stabbed or hit over the head with the hammer again. She hated herself for feeling that way. She felt guilty and ashamed but she couldn’t help it. This skinny little bitch of a man was raping her while her big, strong husband sat helpless two feet away on the same bed and just watched.

Sarah moaned and wept as she endured the invasion of Dale’s oily little cock, his mouth biting and slobbering all over her breasts, hand groping savagely, mauling her flesh. When he withdrew his cock from within her and pointed it in her face ejaculating on her forehead, eyelids, and cheeks. Sarah broke, weeping out loud. Dale continued fondling her breasts and twisting her nipples until they turned purple while stroking his limp cock back to full erection.

“My dick may not be as big as your husband’s over there, but I’ve got stamina. I can fuck you all night.”

Dale was grinning at her, still stroking his diminutive pink penis, and Sarah wished that she didn’t have the gag over her mouth so she could have spit in his face. Sarah looked over at her husband. Dale’s semen had dribbled down her forehead and into her eyes, burning them and blurring her vision. She blinked it from her eyelashes and tried to focus on Josh’s face. There were tears streaming from his eyes. Sarah was both touched by his compassion and empathy and disgusted by his weakness. He could find the strength to beat up guys in bars and parking garages for insulting him but here was this piece of shit fucking her in front of him and Josh did nothing. Deep down she knew that it wasn’t fair to blame him. He’d still been asleep when Dale had clubbed him over the head with the hammer. He’d had no chance to defend himself or her. But she couldn’t help feeling like he should have been able to do something. Six hundred dollars’ worth of weight equipment in the garage, Josh could bench-press over 500 pounds and squat more than 700, but he couldn’t stop this waifish little geek from raping her.

“How does it feel, Big Man? How does it feel to watch another man fuck your pretty wife? I gotta hand it to you. You’ve got yourself one hell of a piece here. This is the best pussy I’ve ever had. Oh, but don’t cry now. It ain’t over yet. I’m going to give you something to cry about. You think it was bad watching your wife get raped while you just sat and watched? Well, now I’m going to let you know exactly how she felt.” He turned back to look at Sarah. “And you’ll get to know how he felt. You can sit there and watch while your big manly stud gets fucked in his ass.”

Josh really began to struggle now, twisting and rolling around on the bed as if trying to escape, kicking out his taped feet in Dale’s direction, trying to keep him away from him. Sarah couldn’t help but notice how much harder he fought for his own ass than he had fought for hers. Dale easily rolled her husband onto his stomach, cracking him with the pistol once more and then digging the barrel of the gun into his check to keep him quiet as Dale spit in the crack of Josh’s ass and then inserted his thumb. He fucked Josh in the ass with his thumb, then removed it and spit in his ass once more.

“You’re going to like this. My cock may not be as big as yours, but as tight as your ass is it should be just perfect for you.” Dale licked his palm and then used it to lubricate his cock. “Relax. You might enjoy it.”

Sarah closed her eyes and turned away as Dale eased his cock into Josh’s ass. She could hear Josh grunt and moan in pain and roar in outrage. Their eyes met and Sarah could see the shame and embarrassment in his eyes. She closed her eyes and tried to block out the sound of the rhythmic slap of Dale’s balls against Josh’s hairy, muscular ass and the squishing, wet burping sound of his cock plundering her husband’s rectum. Sarah began to scream when she heard Dale laugh. No matter what it takes, she had to kill him. She forced her eyes open and tried to focus on everything that was happening, trying to will herself to remember.

When Dale began to shake and quiver, ejaculating in her husband’s dilated rectum, Sarah forced herself to keep watching. She forced Dale’s grinning face into her memory, Josh’s agonized, shamed expression, the sound of flesh slapping flesh, the smells of sweat, blood, and feces. She didn’t blink once even when Dale drew the knife across Josh’s throat and cut him from one side of his jaw to the other. Even when Dale withdrew his stubby penis covered with blood, semen, and excrement from her husband’s anus and came toward her baring the knife, still wet with Josh’s blood, Sarah did not look away. She looked Dale right in his eyes as he drove the point of the knife down between her breasts.

“See you again soon,” Dale whispered, grinning at her still as her heart stuttered in her chest and died.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Josh was already up, getting ready for work when Sarah awoke. It was dark outside. Sarah could see the full face of the moon beaming through her windows.

“I was gonna wake you before I left.”

“Do you have to go?”

“I probably should. We need the money. Do you have Detective Lassiter’s number with you?”

Sarah nodded toward the purse on the dresser.

“It’s in my purse.”

Josh began digging through her bag. He removed Sarah’s cell phone and the detective’s card.

“I’m going to program it into your phone. She’s number eleven on your speed dial. If anything happens just hit eleven. What about your gun?”

Sarah reached beneath her pillow and felt for the pistol.

“Got it right here.”

“Okay. Just stay awake with that gun where you can get to it and I’ll be home soon.”

“I can’t believe I slept that long. I didn’t even get to go for a run. Do you think we should check the camera?”

“We weren’t asleep very long. I seriously doubt anyone broke in here in broad daylight. The sun had just set when I woke up an hour ago.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll check it in the morning when we both wake up.”

Josh kissed her on the cheek and walked out the door.

“Josh, wait!”

Josh walked back into the bedroom.

“Do you think you can install that security bar before you leave?”

Josh took a quick peek at his watch and Sarah knew that he was calculating how long it would take him to drill the four holes it would take to install the bar and screw it into the metal door frame versus the time it would take him to get to work.

“Sure. I’ll take care of it.”

Sarah rose up on her tiptoes and kissed Josh on the cheek. She followed him as he walked into the garage to get the screw gun, a level, and a hacksaw, and then back to the rear slider door. It didn’t take Josh long to get the bar cut down to the right size and installed. Sarah felt a pang of guilt as she watched him work. They hadn’t had sex in days. He hadn’t mentioned it but she knew it must have been bothering him. Just a week ago she would have been begging him for a quickie before work rather than pestering him to install a lock on their door so no one could break in and rape and murder her. She couldn’t wait until they finally caught that fucker. Sarah couldn’t wait to get her life back.

She walked over to the cupboard and took down a tin of Colombian coffee. She pulled down the coffee filters and prepared a fresh pot. It was going to be a long night with Josh gone. There was no way she was going to allow herself to fall asleep without him.

“Okay, it’s all done. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Josh kissed her and headed swiftly for the door. Sarah knew that he was trying to leave before she asked him to do anything else or tried to get him to stay. As badly as she wanted to yell for him not to leave, she remained silent as he walked out the door. She peeked through the blinds and watched as Josh pulled the Saturn out of the garage. As he drove off down the block, Sarah turned her gaze toward the neighbor’s house. The blinds in the front room facing the street were swaying again. Someone had been there just moments ago, watching her, watching Josh leave, she was sure of it.

“That son of a bitch!”

Sarah ran upstairs and retrieved her gun from beneath the pillow. She checked the chamber and the clip as she ran back down the stairs. She ejected the clip into the palm of her hand and froze. It was empty. Sarah was positive that she had loaded it.

“Oh shit.”

She looked back down the stairs and then turned and looked back up the stairs at her open bedroom door. Sarah walked upstairs and back into the bedroom. She looked over at the VCR, then up at the smoke-alarm camera. Before she checked the tape she went into the closet and found the box of .40-caliber bullets and reloaded the clip. As she slid bullets into the gun, she checked the room for bullet holes. There were no holes except for the one in the door and the drywall from the week before.

Sarah’s hand trembled as she reached for the universal remote and turned on the TV. She pressed PLAY and then REWIND and watched in horror as Dale cleaned her bedroom in reverse. Sarah rewound the tape past the murder and then paused it at a scene that made her stomach lurch and heave: Dale raping Josh. She fastforwarded and rewound it several times to be sure what she was seeing.

“Oh God. Oh God.”

She rewound the tape all the way to the end and then watched the entire thing at regular speed. She saw Dale ambush them both and club her and then Josh with the hammer. She watched him pull out a roll of duct tape and bind Josh’s wrists and arms before he regained consciousness and then do the same to Sarah. Then she saw him rape her and then Josh. The next part turned her blood to ice water. She watched Dale murder them, both of them; then she watched him wrap them both loosely in plastic that he had brought with him as he went about tidying up, scrubbing the floor and the wall behind the bed, wiping blood spatter from the nightstand, and then changing the sheets and the pillowcases. Sarah hadn’t even noticed that earlier when she had reached under the pillow for the gun. He had changed the pillowcases. The Kevlar pillowcase was gone. She watched him empty all the bullets from the gun and place it under the pillow and then he arranged Sarah and Josh next to each other in bed.

Seeing her own lifeless body bleeding out onto the plastic was surreal. How was this possible? How could she possibly be watching her own murder on video? It didn’t make sense. She looked down at her chest and there was no evidence of a wound. Just one small freckle she’d had for as long as she could remember. Other than that, her skin was smooth and unblemished. She continued watching the rest of the video.

She watched him struggle to lift Josh back onto the bed without the plastic slipping and spilling more blood onto the freshly cleaned bed and floor. Then she saw him kneel over her. With the camera’s overhead angle she couldn’t see exactly what he was doing. It looked like he was kissing her. Then she saw him begin removing the plastic from around her, once again being careful not to get any blood on the new sheets. That’s when she noticed that the wound in her chest was gone and she was breathing.

“What the fuck?”

Sarah rewound the tape. Sure enough there it was. One minute she’s dead and bleeding and the next she’s breathing. She let the tape play and watched as he did the same thing to Josh before gathering up the plastic and the duct tape and his knife and the hammer and slipping out the door. A few more minutes passed and she watched as Josh got up and began getting ready for work.

“This is impossible. This is fucking impossible!”

She had her evidence, the evidence she’d been waiting for, but evidence of what? Even looking at it on tape she couldn’t believe it.

“Because it’s not fucking possible!”

Sarah rewound the tape and watched it again, once again feeling nauseated and having to fast-forward past the video of Josh’s rape.

“My poor husband.” She wondered how she could ever let him see this. It would scar him for life. Then she watched the murders again, the cleanup, and then the resurrection. Dale had somehow brought them both back to life.

Sarah collapsed onto the floor and just sat there staring at the TV, not knowing what to do or whom to call. She knew she had to call Josh but she didn’t want him to see what she had seen. She knew that it would have destroyed him. She had to call the cops. But what would they do with this? This didn’t make sense. Sarah picked up her cell phone and dialed eleven. Detective Lassiter picked up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Detective Lassiter?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“This is Sarah Lincoln.”

“Mrs. Lincoln?”

“Yeah.”

Sarah paused not knowing what to say.

“Is everything okay?”

“No. I mean…I don’t know. I’ve got something you need to see. I got it on tape…on video.”

“The rape?”

“Yes.” Sarah paused again. “And more.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Sarah hung up the phone and took a deep breath; then she dialed Josh’s number. He didn’t answer. After five rings his voice mail picked up. He must have already been on the casino floor.

“Uh…Josh. You need to call me back. It happened again. And…and I got in on video, all of it. It’s terrible. That sick bastard. It’s so terrible. And there’s more. I know why we can’t remember anything. I know why I thought he murdered me. He did. He murdered both of us. This is so crazy. Call me back. No. Just come home. Come home. I can’t explain this over the phone. You have to see it. I have to show you.”

Sarah hung up and sat down with the gun in her lap. She stared out the window at the house across the street trying hard to suppress the urge to walk over there and knock on Dale’s door and blow his fucking head off. It was harder than she ever could have imagined.

When the black Crown Victoria pulled up outside, Sarah was still holding the gun. At some point she had cocked it. She was aiming it at the neighbor’s door when the insistent ringing of the doorbell finally registered through her fugue. As she uncocked the pistol, Sarah had a moment to wonder what she would have done had Dale opened his front door and stepped outside. She imagined herself pulling the trigger again and again and watching tiny explosions of red blossom in his chest, abdomen, neck, and forehead as the tiny full-metal jackets tore holes in his flesh. The doorbell rang twice more accompanied by a fist pounding on the door before Sarah ran downstairs to let the detectives in.

“You okay? I was just about to kick the door down!” Detective Lassiter said as she stepped into the house and reholstered her weapon. Detective Torres still had his own Glock nine-millimeter clutched in his hands, eyeing her suspiciously before finally opening his sports jacket and slipping the gun back into its holster.

“I’m sorry. I was…distracted.”

“So, you said you had some new evidence? A video?”

“Yes. It-it’s upstairs. Maybe you can make some sense of it. Because I don’t know what the fuck is going on.”

The two detectives followed her upstairs and into her bedroom.

“Sit down.”

Detective Lassiter took a seat on the bed across from the TV while Torres remained standing. Sarah turned on the television and then started the VCR.

“We installed a security camera this afternoon when we got home. It’s in the smoke detector.”

Sarah watched the detectives’ expressions as the tape played. She watched them wince and scowl and frown in discomfort as the rape and murder played out on-screen. Their jaws dropped and Detective Lassiter turned to look at her with a dozen questions on her face as, on the TV screen, Sarah’s and Josh’s corpses began to reanimate.

“What the hell?”

“What the fuck is this?” Detective Torres asked. “Is this some kind of CGI shit? This was all bullshit?”

“No! It’s real. I don’t understand it either.”

“Mrs. Lincoln, this isn’t going to work. If you faked some kind of murder scene to set up the neighbor we can’t go along with it,” Detective Torres said.

“I didn’t fake anything!” Sarah shouted.

“I just saw your husband get up and go to work after having his throat slit! And here you are standing and talking to us after I watched the nerd next door stab you to death. How do you expect us to take this to a jury?” Torres was livid.

Sarah shook her head.

“How the fuck should I know? You’re the cops. I have this piece of shit on tape raping and killing me and my husband and I expect you to do something about it!”

“But you’re not dead!” Detective Torres shouted.

“But I was raped! Here’s the fucking evidence. Now do your damn job!”

“Mrs. Lincoln—”

“Sarah. I told you, call me Sarah.”

“Okay, Sarah. We can’t do anything with this tape. A defense attorney would tear us apart. And what do you think would happen if a jury saw you pop up out of the bed after being stabbed in the chest? They’d think it was all special effects or CGI.”

“Then don’t show them the whole film. Just show them the rape and the murder until we figure out how he did whatever the hell he did to us.”

Detective Torres shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

Detective Lassiter began to speak and then paused. She looked up at the ceiling and then around the room, then back at Sarah.

“We could. We could try to use it to get a confession. We could use it to get a warrant for his arrest and a search warrant for his home.”

“Trina, we would be willfully tampering with evidence,” Torres said.

“Not really. I’m not saying we erase the rest. We just don’t show them the rest. We stop the tape right after the murders.”

There was a long silence while everyone in the room considered the possibilities. Detective Lassiter spoke up first.

“You swear that this tape isn’t a forgery? You didn’t fabricate this or alter it in any way? You swear this is real?”

“I wouldn’t even know how to fake something like this. I don’t know who would outside of Hollywood.”

Detective Lassiter held up her hand to silence her and Sarah stopped talking and tapped her foot impatiently. She felt like she were back in grade school being chastised by one of the Catholic school nuns.

“Fuck all of that. That’s not what I asked you. I want to hear you swear it to me. Swear that the whole thing went down just like you said it did.”

“I swear.”

Detective Lassiter took a deep breath and then ran her hand over her forehead. She looked at the floor and then up at the ceiling and then let out all the air in her lungs in one long, exhausted exhalation. Sarah was afraid the woman was going to call bullshit on the whole thing and just walk right out the door. Sarah had gotten visual proof of what she had been saying the whole time and still the story was no more believable. It still made no sense at all.

“Okay. Then we do it. I’ll go talk to the judge. Torres, you get some black-and-whites across the street and arrest that piece of shit.”

Detective Lassiter stood up from the bed and both Sarah and Torres gasped. Where the detective had been sitting, blood had soaked through the sheets leaving a perfect impression of both butt cheeks. The detective’s entire backside was wet with blood.

“What the fuck?”

“I guess we have what we need to get the CSU over here now.”

“Shit. These are my favorite pants.”

Detective Torres smiled. “And now they’re evidence.”

“Shit,” Detective Lassiter repeated.

Sarah was still staring at the bloodstain. Somehow, it was more real and terrifying than the video. Because that puddle of red made the images on the tape undeniable.

“Why don’t you try calling your husband again. Have him meet us down at the station. We’re going to need statements from both of you. I would suggest that you both try to remember as much as you can.”

Sarah’s hands trembled as she picked up the cell phone. She was still staring at that big red ass-print in the sheets. Her fingers were just about to punch in Josh’s number when the phone began to vibrate, startling her and causing her to drop the phone. It continued to vibrate as Sarah stood above it just staring at it. Finally, she reached down and picked it up on its final ring.

“Josh?”

“What’s going on? Are you all right?”

“The detectives are here. I’m fine. He was in the house again. While we were both sleeping. He broke in and he raped me again. It’s all on tape.”

There was a pause.

“Have the detectives seen the tape?”

She knew that he was looking for some sort of corroboration. He wanted them to verify her story for him.

“Yes. They’ve seen it. Josh?”

“Yes?”

“He did things to you too.”

She hadn’t intended on saying anything. She didn’t want him thinking about it as he drove home. She didn’t want him to be distracted and drive too fast and get into an accident. She didn’t want him playing scenes over in his head, each one more terrible than the previous one, trying to imagine what “things” Dale had done to him. But she didn’t want him discovering what had happened for the first time surrounded by cops, watching him getting raped by that fucking emaciated geek.

Josh’s voice sounded weak and unnaturally soft and timid.

“What things? How could he have done anything to me without waking me up? How could he have done anything to either of us? Did he drug us like we thought.”

“No. We were both awake.”

“Awake? How is that possible.”

“You need to see the tape. He killed us. Both of us. And then he…I don’t know what he did. He brought us back somehow.”

“Brought us back?”

“Just meet us at the station. I’m headed there with the detectives right now. They’re going to need a statement from both of us.”

“Let me speak to the detectives.”

Sarah handed the phone to Detective Lassiter.

“Hello, Mr. Lincoln.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“I have no clue. All I know is that I have a tape showing a multiple rape and murder and I am going across the street to arrest your neighbor and I need you to come down to the station to give a report.”

“Did you say multiple rape?”

“Mr. Lincoln, just meet us down at the station. There’s really nothing I can tell you right now. You’re going to have to see it for yourself. None of this makes sense to me.”

Detective Torres was on the radio calling for backup while Detective Lassiter was talking to the assistant DA trying to get a warrant for Dale’s arrest.

“I’m going to arrest him on probable cause but it would be nice to have a warrant to back me up. We’ve got him on tape committing two rapes along with two counts of attempted murder.”

Sarah was barely listening to the detective’s heated exchange with the assistant district attorney. She was too busy trying to imagine what must be going through Josh’s mind. She tried to imagine how he would react to seeing what Dale had done to him. All she could think about was Josh beating the hell out of those two guys in the parking garage and then him storming out of the bedroom with the nine-millimeter in his hands.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Sarah watched Dale through the twoway mirror. He looked so small as he sat at the metal table across from Detective Torres. The detective didn’t say a word to him, he just sat there staring at him. Dale had asked for his lawyer immediately after being arrested so they couldn’t talk to him until his lawyer arrived. What they could do is make him as uncomfortable as possible.

Detective Torres scowled at him and shook his head. Then he hissed and looked Dale over from head to toe, sneering in disapproval. He stood up and walked around the table glaring down at Dale, then stood behind him and lit a cigarette.

Dale’s discomfort was written all over his face. He was twitching and fidgeting, clearly anxious to speak to the detective and explain himself or flee from the man’s presence. He kept looking over his shoulder to try to catch sight of Torres as if he was afraid the man was preparing to attack him. When his lawyer stormed into the room, he let out a huge sigh of relief.

“Look at that piece of shit,” Detective Lassiter said as she stood beside Sarah, watching through the two-way mirror as Dale began to smirk and grin. “Don’t worry, we’re going to break him.”

Sarah nodded, still staring at Dale as he began to look more and more arrogant and confident now that his lawyer was present. Sarah wasn’t so sure that Dale was the type to break easy. There was something about him that appeared so deeply twisted and disturbed that it made it feel as if her skin were trying to crawl off her.

Dale’s attorney was a portly Italian man in his midfifties with hair plugs, a dye job, and an expensive Italian suit that looked like Armani. The man looked like a mafioso, gold pinkie ring and all. His eyes were hard and aloof. He walked past Detective Torres and plopped down in the chair the detective had previously occupied and slammed his briefcase down on the table. He looked expensive. Sarah wondered how in the hell Dale could afford him.

“I’d better get in there. Are you going to be okay by yourself for a minute? You can wait at my desk.”

“I-I want to see. Do you mind if I stay here? Until Josh gets here?”

The detective looked at her, then looked back into the room where Dale was leaning back in the metal chair, smiling confidently.

“Okay, but be quiet and don’t leave this room. The assistant DA will be here soon.”

She left Sarah and walked into the room to join Detective Torres. She walked over to Dale’s lawyer and stuck out her hand.

“I’m Detective Lassiter.”

“Raul Severino. So, what are we here for?”

“Your client here is being charged with rape and attempted murder. We’ve got him on tape assaulting the couple who lives across the street from him. He broke into their home, knocked them both unconscious with a hammer, raped the wife and sodomized her husband, then slit his throat and stabbed her in the chest.”

Sarah watched the attorney’s face for a reaction. He raised his eyebrow slightly and grimaced but that was it.

“You say you have all of this on tape?”

“All of it.”

“So, let’s see the tape.”

Detective Lassiter turned to her partner, who left the room, then came back minutes later pushing a TV and VCR on a cart. He plugged them both into the wall directly across from the mirror and turned them on. Then he popped in the tape. Just as the tape began to play, Josh walked into the room with Sarah followed by a young Asian woman in a tan suit who Sarah guessed was the assistant DA. Josh looked miserable. He had obviously been thinking about what Sarah had told him was on that tape during his entire drive to the station.

“What’s going on, Sarah?”

“They’re about to play the tape.”

“I’m Assistant District Attorney Patricia Yu.”

“Hello, Ms. Yu.” Sarah shook the woman’s hand and then turned back to watch the TV in the other room.

Once again, Sarah watched as Dale struck her over the head with a hammer and then attacked her husband, clubbing him repeatedly with the hammer and cracking Josh’s skull. She turned to look at Josh as the tape played. It was obvious that he was having a hard time watching it.

“How? How can I not remember this?”

Sarah took his hand.

“Just watch. It gets worse. Much worse.”

Josh met Sarah’s eyes and it was obvious he didn’t want to look away from her, didn’t want to see the rest of the tape.

The tape played, revealing Dale as he bound their wrists and ankles and then as he raped her and then Josh, and finally ending with him slitting Josh’s throat and stabbing the knife into Sarah’s chest.

“No.”

Josh turned to Sarah with a look of shock and confusion. His face was pleading with Sarah for answers and she felt helpless and guilty because she had none to offer and somehow felt that she should have. Josh turned back to finish watching the tape.

“That sick fucking…” Josh’s teeth were clenched tight and his jaw muscles bulged as if he were trying to bite through something particularly tough. His hands were balled into fists and his shoulders were hunched. Veins and cords bulged in his forearms and biceps.

Detective Torres turned off the tape. Josh had turned red and his body was literally vibrating with hatred flowing through his blood like an electrical current. Sarah could almost feel her husband’s rage boiling in the room, raising the heat and humidity, a storm cloud crackling with fury. His lip had curled up into a snarl. His eyebrows were furrowed and his nostrils flared. She was concerned that he was going to have a nervous breakdown right there on the spot.

Josh continued staring at the TV long after the screen had gone black and Sarah continued staring at Josh. She put her arm around him and Josh pulled away, still staring at the screen. Gradually, his eyes drifted over to Dale and the rage that sparked in them was murderous. Sarah could see Josh breathing hard as he struggled to hold in his emotions like a drowning man trying to hold in his last gulps of oxygen before being sucked underwater. His eyes welled with tears even as he continued to bare his teeth in an angry grimace. Sarah was fairly certain that had Dale been in the same room with them there would not have been enough cops in the station to keep Josh off him. Even now, Sarah was worried that Josh was going to burst through the mirror and go after him.

“Josh? Are you okay? Josh?”

When Josh turned to look at her she barely recognized him. She had never seen that combination of emotions on his face before, anger, shame, revulsion, and fear all deforming his facial features into something hideous and frightening. Sarah knew that he was reliving the abuse he’d suffered as a child. It must have been terrible to see the same thing happening to him all over again, and this was so much worse. This was forcible rape. Despite his size and strength he had been victimized yet again. Sarah could not imagine what her husband was feeling. He looked at her as if she had just asked him to solve some impossibly complex mathematical equation.

“Are you okay?” Sarah repeated.

“No. I’m pretty fucking far from okay.”

Sarah pulled him tight, pulling his head down into the crook of her neck, inviting him to cry but knowing that he wouldn’t. His body was as tense and rigid as an iron bar. Sarah turned back to the interrogation room. She wanted to hear what Dale had to say after watching the tape. She wanted to hear his confession.

“The district attorney’s office is willing to make a deal in exchange for your confession.”

“I don’t see anyone from the DA’s office here. And why would they be willing to make a deal if they have this tape?” Mr. Severino asked.

“Ms. Yu from the DA’s office is on the other side of that mirror. If your client is willing to sign a confession, then I’ll bring her in here and we can make a deal. Otherwise, she stays right where she is.”

“But why the hell would she want to make a deal?”

Sarah watched as Dale leaned over and whispered something in his attorney’s ear. The triumphant grin never left his face. After Dale had finished whispering in his ear, his attorney nodded slightly, looking somewhat confused. Then he turned to the two detectives and smiled.

“My client wants you to play the rest of the tape. He also wants to see the hospital records from the couple he is accused of attacking, from the night of the alleged assault.”

The two detectives looked at each other. Sarah felt herself deflate. The bastard had them. She saw the confusion in the lawyer’s face turn to one of smug arrogance as he noted the hesitation in the two detectives. He was still not sure how or why but it was apparent that he now knew that the detectives were hiding something.

“I’m going to subpoena the tape anyway so you might as well show me now.”

Detective Lassiter muttered, “Shit!” and then sneered at Dale who was now sitting back in the metal chair with both hands laced behind his head, grinning obscenely.

Detective Torres turned the VCR back on, starting it from right before Dale’s murder. On the screen, Sarah watched the now-familiar scene of Dale slitting Josh’s throat, stabbing Sarah in the chest, rushing about, cleaning up the room, changing the sheets, moving the bodies, then kneeling over the bodies and bringing them both back to life.

Dale’s attorney was even more surprised and animated than Sarah herself had been when she’d first seen the tape.

“Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me! This is a fake? You faked this whole thing? I am going to have both of your badges. So, I think it’s safe to assume that there’s no emergency room report?”

“You know there isn’t,” Torres responded.

“Then, we’re done here. You go near my client again and you’re both going to wind up in front of an IAD review board.”

Mr. Severino stood up and gestured for Dale to follow him. Dale reached across the room and held out his wrists. Detective Lassiter looked at her partner and then over her shoulder at the mirror. Somehow the woman’s eyes found Sarah’s through the mirrored glass. Sarah could read the apology in her eyes along with the frustration. The detective turned back around and removed the cuffs from Dale’s wrists. Before Dale could pull away, she grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him close, whispering something into his ear. Dale’s eyes hardened, narrowed, his eyebrows furrowed. When he spoke it was through clenched teeth.

“Go ahead, just fucking try it.”

He turned and walked out the door with his lawyer, grinning all the way. Sarah watched the door close. Finally, she remembered Josh. He was still holding her but his body felt slack and loose.

“What the fuck was that? What the hell just happened? Was any of that real?”

“It was all real?”

“But he killed us. He killed both of us. Look!” Josh pulled his shirt collar down, revealing his smooth white throat.“There’s no fucking wound! There’s not even a scar! So what was that?”

“He killed us but he brought us back. He resurrected us both somehow.”

“Resurrected us? You mean Christ on the cross? That kind of resurrection? You’re kidding me, right?”

“That’s why I couldn’t remember anything. He’s been doing this the whole time, ever since that first night. He rapes me, kills me, and then brings me back.”

“Sarah? That’s crazy. That’s just crazy.”

“Then explain it, Josh! Explain what’s on that tape! Explain the bloody sheets. Explain his fingerprints in our house. Explain his semen inside of me!”

Josh began to calm down. He was staring at Sarah, still breathing hard, still looking confused. But he was convinced that she wasn’t lying, she hadn’t somehow manipulated the tape. She wasn’t crazy.

The assistant DA had been silent the entire time. When Detectives Lassiter and Torres walked in she broke her silence.

“What in the hell were you two trying to pull with that stunt?”

“That wasn’t a stunt, at least not on our part. This is the tape we took from the spy camera in their house. We didn’t alter it in any way.”

“Yes, but you knew what was on the tape. You knew it was a forgery.”

“We knew what was on it but we still don’t believe it’s a forgery.”

“So, you think maybe these two got stabbed to death and then just got up and walked away? Because if that’s what you’re saying, then I’m going to be speaking to your captain and recommending you both for a psych evaluation and an immediate suspension. So, which is it?”

“Well, how do you explain what you saw on that tape?”

“How about a fake knife, food coloring, and corn syrup? What are you both morons? You can see special effects like that in any freshman film-school class and you’re willing to risk your badges for it?”

“Excuse me, but fuck you! We didn’t fake that tape.” Sarah spoke up.

The ADA stepped up to her. The woman’s anger was plain and undisguised. She wagged her finger inches from the tip of Sarah’s nose.

“I would say fuck you too but you’ve already fucked yourselves and this case with that bullshit tape. Now, it doesn’t matter if you were raped or not because we can’t touch him. You’ve managed to call into question every piece of evidence these two detectives have uncovered. The fingerprints, the DNA, the blood spatter, it’s all useless now.”

“But it’s real!” Sarah shouted.

“Yeah? And so are Jesus and Santa Claus. Stay away from Dale McCarthy and feel lucky that I don’t arrest you for filing a false police report.” She stormed out of the room, leaving Sarah and Josh alone with the two detectives. Sarah winced when the door slammed behind her.

“We fucked up. We fucked up bad,” Torres said.

“Okay, so I don’t know what else we can do here.”

“Are we on our own then?” Sarah asked.

“We’re not going to let that guy keep attacking you. Our job is to protect and serve.”

“But he’s free. He’s out there, right across the street from me. How are you going to protect us?”

“Maybe you should move. Start fresh somewhere new,” Detective Lassiter added.

“Move? We can’t afford to move. With the economy all fucked up we can’t afford to sell our house. We’ve lost over a hundred thousand dollars in equity in our home. And we can’t live out of a hotel until the damn market recovers. We can’t afford to pay for a hotel and a mortgage. We’re trapped. We’re stuck there with that fucking psycho.”

“We’ll keep working on this. We still have his prints and the ones they found in your home. The CSU has been at your house and they’ve gone through Dale McCarthy’s house as well. If he’s been doing the things that we saw on the tape, then he’s bound to have left evidence.”

“But you heard what that prosecutor said. Dale’s lawyer will get anything we find thrown out of court because of that tape.”

Sarah shook her head. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so damn infuriating. They had Dale on video committing rape, sodomizing her husband, and murdering both of them. It should have been enough to put him away for life, but instead it was the very thing that was keeping him out of prison.

“We’ll find something. We’re not giving up. In the meantime, don’t do anything stupid.”

This was addressed directly at Josh. No one could fail to notice the dark expression on his face. Sarah’s husband was unusually quite. He listened to their exchange but his eyes were far away. Sarah knew where he was. She knew how his mind worked. He was trying to think of all the ways he might kill Dale and get away with it. Josh wasn’t the type to just shoot the guy down in cold blood and spend the rest of his life in jail, not unless there was no other way. He would want to find a way to do it that would keep him out of jail. After everything that had happened today, he would be the number-one suspect if Dale were to disappear unexpectedly or if his body were to turn up riddled with bullet holes.

“I’m in no hurry to go to the penitentiary.”

Josh’s voice was low and without the slightest inflection. It sounded almost robotic. He turned and walked toward the door. His eyes were still glassy, staring off into space as if he were just peripherally aware of the existence of other people in the room.

“Make sure he doesn’t go after him,” Detective Lassiter said. “He’s not thinking clearly right now. Who would be after seeing that? But that won’t keep him out of prison if he goes after McCarthy.”

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything.”

Sarah wondered if she would really be strong enough to keep him from killing Dale if he wanted to. It was not her physical strength she was concerned about. It was her will. She wondered if she’d want to stop him. Her only hesitation was the thought of Josh somehow failing to kill Dale and going to jail while Dale remained free.

It was after midnight by the time they left the police station. The drive home was tense and silent. Despite the lateness of the hour, the freeway was still full with drivers heading to and from the casinos and nightclubs. Sarah watched as Josh stared at the road. She wondered how much of the road he was seeing and how much of the videotape. Josh grimaced and punched the dashboard, tears began to race the crevices and lines in his face from his eyes to his chin.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Did it happen? Did th-that—Did that really happen?”

Sarah nodded.

“That fuck! That little fuck! And I go to jail if I kill him? How is that right?”

“It isn’t. It isn’t right at all. But I can’t live without you, Josh. I want us to have kids together and we can’t do that if you’re in prison.”

“But what am I supposed to do? He raped you! He raped my wife and he…he…fuck! He raped me too! Why the fuck can’t I remember it? How come you can and I can’t?”

“I can’t either. I don’t think I’m supposed to remember. I don’t think Dale expected me to. He looked surprised. I think he thought he would get away with it. I bet he’s done this before. He was too sure of himself for this to be his first time.”

“That fucking freak!” Josh punched the dash again.

“So what do we do?”

“We set a trap. We catch him sneaking into the house and we blow his fucking head off.”

“But how does he keep getting in? How did he know we were sleeping?”

Sarah thought about it for a while. She thought about security cameras hidden in the house with Dale on the other end watching them as they slept. She shivered.

“Fuck.”

“What?”

“I know how he’s doing it.”

“How he’s getting in? How?”

“I know how he’s getting in and how he knows when we’re sleeping. He’s already in the house.”

“What?”

“I saw this news special about these teenage girls who would slip into houses after the owners would leave for work and sleep there during the day. Sometimes they would still be there, hiding in the attic or the closet when the owners would come home. They would share the house. The girls would live in it during the day, eating their food, sleeping in their beds, using their shower, and then they’d leave at night. Think about it. It’s the only thing that makes sense. He probably has a key or something. He could have stolen one at any time while that slider door lock was broken and made a copy. He might have even broken the lock. He lets himself in and just hides in the house until we’re asleep.”

“Then he rapes and kills us both and sneaks back to his house. I can’t fucking believe this guy!”

“I could be wrong.”

“No, I think you’re right. That piece of shit is living in our house with us and we don’t even know he’s there.”

They took the exit off the 215 freeway onto Pecos Road. They were now only ten minutes from their house.

“So, how do we catch him? You want to put another camera in the house somewhere? In the hallway?”

“So we can just get more pictures of him fucking me in the ass? No, I want to catch this bastard in the act. No one gives a fuck about those videos.” Josh sneered. “Maybe we just fake it. We pretend to be asleep and see what happens.”

“But what if we fall asleep for real?”

“Then we’re no worse off than we were. But we could always load up on NoDoz before we get in bed.”

“But then what if he doesn’t come? We can’t keep staying awake night after night.”

“We can for a few nights. I don’t think it will take more than that. This guy is obsessed with you.”

Sarah nodded her head. Chills had begun to climb up her back at the thought of Dale sitting across the street, or worse, in her own house, obsessing over her.

They turned into their small gated community and punched their access code into the keypad. Sarah laughed at the idea that this was supposed to somehow keep them secure. Cars regularly sat outside the gate waiting for someone to enter the right code and open the gates so they could follow them in and no one ever questioned them. Besides, the one person who scared Sarah the most was on the other side of the gate.

“Do we even have any NoDoz?” Sarah asked.

“We do. We’ve also got coffee. But let’s not talk about it once we get in the house, in case he’s in there somewhere.”

“Why don’t we just grab our guns and search the house before we go to sleep? If we find him in there somewhere we just blast his ass right then and there.”

“I really like that idea. But even if we don’t find him in there that doesn’t mean he ain’t there. We should still follow through with the rest of the plan.”

“Agreed.”

Josh pulled the car into the driveway and this time they both turned to look at the house across the street. The lights were on in the windows but other than that the house was still.

“I really hope he’s in here. I can’t wait to say hello.”

“Josh, if nothing happens tonight, can I go to work with you in the morning? Or could you take a couple days off? I don’t want to be in this house alone. I can’t be.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll think of something.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Sarah took the gun out of her purse and cocked it while Josh opened the door and reached a hand inside to turn on the light. Sarah felt her heart thunder in her chest. Her hands trembled and the gun shook as she aimed it into the darkness. The light came on and the glare blinded Sarah for one panicky second during which she almost squeezed the trigger.

“Okay, it’s all clear. I’ll go upstairs and get the nine. Then we can check the house together.”

“I’m going with you.”

Sarah and Josh crossed the floor slowly, looking suspiciously at every dark corner of the room and turning on lights as they went. Sarah jerked open the closet door as they passed it on the way to the stairs. The light in the closet was on but it was empty inside with the exception of a few boxes filled with old clothes, books, and Christmas decorations. Sarah relaxed for a moment; then her heart began to pound again as she and Josh walked slowly up the stairs.

The hallway at the top of the stairs was dark. There was a light switch on the wall beside the stairs and Josh began to speed up to reach it. Sarah could feel his pulse pounding as she held his big, sweaty hand. He was just as scared as she was. They reached the light switch and illuminated the hallway; then they walked over to the master bedroom with Sarah still pointing the gun ahead of them. Josh pushed open the bedroom door and Sarah stuck the pistol into the dark room. She imagined Dale lunging at her out of the darkness and her squeezing the trigger again and again until his chest was filled with a profusion of bullet holes and he fell to the floor bleeding and convulsing. She found the image exhilarating and felt a moment of disappointment when Josh turned on the light and the bedroom was empty.

“Let me check the closet. My gun is in there,” Josh said, and they both moved slowly toward the walkin closet. Sarah doubted Dale would be hiding in there. It was too obvious and the chance of him being accidently discovered was too great. Still, her heartbeat began to ratchet up again as they crept across the carpet to the master closet. This time Josh opened the door and walked right in with Sarah aiming the gun at his back. If Dale had been in there, there would have been no way for her to get a shot off at him without hitting her husband.

Josh reached beneath the sweaters on one of the top shelves and pulled out the nine-millimeter that Sarah hadn’t known he’d had until just over a week ago. He pulled out his car keys and used a tiny key that she’d never noticed before to unlock the trigger guard.

“How long have you had that gun anyway?”

“Since college. My apartment wasn’t in the best neighborhood back then, if you recall.”

“How come you never told me you had it and why did I have to buy a gun if you already had one?”

“You should have your own. I can’t always be around and sometimes I have this one with me.”

“You bring it to work with you?”

“Sometimes. People get attacked in the parking garage more frequently than they ever report on the news. And I have a permit. I got my CCW when we first moved here.”

“And where the fuck was I?”

“Does it matter? Now we have two guns. Let’s go ahead and check the house.”

They looked under the bed first, Josh pointing the Smith and Wesson nine-millimeter under the bed from one side while Sarah stood on the other side pointing the Sig Sauer. It was only when Sarah saw the barrel of Josh’s gun pointing at her face that she became aware of the very real possibility of a crossfire.

“Whoa! Don’t point that thing over here! You could have killed me.”

“Sorry. Why don’t you stay behind me. I’ll look first and you just watch my back. That way we don’t kill each other.”

They searched the other two rooms upstairs, looking in closets and under beds before they walked back downstairs to check the garage. Josh ran and checked the kitchen pantry while Sarah waited with her weapon aimed just over his shoulder. The pantry was empty as well. They peeked into the laundry room as they passed it on their way to the garage. There were clothes piled up on the floor and the laundry faucet had a slow drip but the room was empty. That just left the garage.

There were so many boxes of junk that Dale could have been hiding anywhere. Sarah paused outside the garage door. She squeezed Josh’s hand and tried to think of all the places big enough to conceal a human being. There were too many. An old mattress leaning against the wall, broken furniture, an old foosball table with one broken leg, two barely used mountain bikes, stacks of old records and CDs. Sarah had a terrible feeling that she was about to walk into a death trap.

Josh opened the door and Sarah tried to squeeze through the door beside him in her eagerness to protect him. There was even more stuff in there than she had remembered. In addition to the king-size mattress on one side of the garage there were two old bookcases on the other side, three big moving boxes marked WINTER COLOTHESwinter clothes that stood four feet high were lined up in the center of the garage, the old foosball table was sitting alongside a broken air-hockey table. It was a junkyard maze with a dozen places for an intruder to hide. Sarah swallowed hard and gave Josh’s hand a tight squeeze; then they began to search the garage.

They made their way over to the mattress and Josh peeked behind it while Sarah pointed her gun at it, terrified by the knowledge that she had her back turned to the rest of the room, leaving them completely exposed to an attack from the rear.

“Hurry up, Josh,” Sarah said, looking around the room and bouncing from one foot to the other.

“No one there.”

They checked the boxes next. Josh looked behind them and Sarah looked inside them. There was a large crash behind her. And Sarah felt something slam into her lower back and knock her forward. Sarah whirled around with her gun pointed in front of her and dropped down to one knee in a shooting stance, just like she’d seen the police do on TV. She squeezed the trigger and a shot went over Josh’s head and penetrated the drywall. She heard it ricochet somewhere in the house.

“Shit!”

“Sorry, honey.”

“You almost blew my head off!”

“I said I was sorry. I thought I was being attacked. Why are you over there knocking shit over anyway?”

Josh had accidently knocked over one of the boxes filled with clothes. Several pairs of winter boots spilled out, including a pair of black high-heeled patentleather hip boots that Sarah hadn’t seen since her clubhopping days.

“I tripped. We really need to clean this place out.”

“Let’s check behind the bookcases and then call it a night.”

They hurried through the rest of the garage. Pointing the gun into dusty, cobwebbed shadows, pulse rate rising and falling again and again each time they searched behind or inside some aged and weathered keepsake only to find nothing.

There was no one in the garage.

“Let’s fine those NoDoz. I’m exhausted.”

Sarah and Josh walked back into the house and put their guns down on the coffee table. Just then the doorbell rang and someone knocked on the door so hard it rattled against the jamb. Sarah looked at her watch. It was two o’clock in the morning. Simultaneously, Sarah and her husband reached for their pistols.

“Mrs. Lincoln?”

Her hand paused. She looked at Josh and then back down at the guns.

“It might be the police. They probably heard the gunshot.”

The doorbell rang again. A fist pounded on the door, this time even louder and more insistent.

“Mrs. Lincoln? It’s Detective Malcovich from the police department. Are you okay? We had a report of shots fired at this address.”

Sarah relaxed.

“Just a minute.”

She handed both guns to her husband, who carried them into the kitchen and shoved them in a drawer. Sarah walked to the door and peeked through the peephole. She saw a big, grizzled middle-aged man with salt- and-pepper hair pulled back into a ponytail. He had an unkempt goatee with stray hairs of different lengths spiraling off in different directions. He was taller than Josh, well over six feet, though not as wide or as muscular. Even with his sports jacket buttoned his belly was still visible, bulging over his belt. He looked like an old hippie in a wrinkled brown business suit he’d picked up from the Salvation Army.

“Let me see your badge.”

The man pulled out a gold shield and held it up to the peephole. Sarah had no idea how to determine if it was real or not. She didn’t open the door.

“What do you want?”

“We had a report of some gunshots coming from your home. I stopped by to check on you.”

“We’re okay.”

“I’m afraid I need to see for myself. I’m going to need you to open the door.”

Josh was standing beside her now. Sarah unlocked the door but she let Josh step forward to speak to the detective.

“Can I come in?”

“Let me see your badge,” Josh said.

The detective handed it to him along with his LVPD identification. Josh studied the ID and then the man’s face. He nodded his head and handed the badge and ID back to the detective.

“Harold Malcovich. You can call me Harry,” the detective said, holding out his hand.

Josh shook his hand.

“My name is Josh and this is my wife Sarah.”

“Can I come in now? It will only take a moment.”

Josh stepped aside and Sarah stepped back, allowing the detective to enter.

“What can I do for you?”

“First, what were those gunshots?”

“Gunshot. It was just one. I startled Sarah when she was carrying her gun.”

“Do you have a permit for it?”

“It’s registered in my name and I have a license to conceal. Why would they send a police detective to investigate gunshots? They’re supposed to have a patrol car checking on the house.”

“I was on my way to your house when the call came in. Since I was already headed here I told the dispatcher that I would respond.”

Josh narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

“By yourself? What if there really was something going on?”

The detective raised an eyebrow and shoved both hands into his pockets to pull his pants up.

“Well, I may look like Willie Nelson but I’m an old gunslinger. I can handle myself pretty well.”

Harry winked at Sarah and scratched his scraggly facial hair. He nodded at them and then gestured to the couch in the living room.

“Do you mind if we sit? I think we have a lot to talk about.”

Sarah looked at Josh and then back at Harry. Josh shrugged his shoulders as he always did and began walking into the living room, followed by the detective. The detective unbuttoned his sports jacket and sat down next to Josh on the sofa. His weight created a depression in the cushions that made Josh lean toward him. Josh scooted over, looking more than a little uncomfortable. Sarah joined them both on the sofa. Just a few weeks ago she would have found the image of Josh sitting on the couch looking painfully uncomfortable next to a big long-haired hippie in a wrinkled business suit hilarious. Now she had little humor left.

“So what’s this about?” Sarah asked.

The detective looked Sarah directly in the eyes for an uncomfortably long time. He lowered his head and wrung out his hands; then he licked his chapped lips and brushed a long strand of gray hair back behind his ear.

“I saw the tape.”

“It’s not a fake,” Sarah said before he could continue. The veins in her neck and forehead bulged and her hands clenched into fists.

The detective held up his hands palms out as if preparing to ward off a blow.

“I didn’t say it was. I didn’t think it was. In fact, what happened to you and your husband, I’ve seen it before. I mean, I heard about it. Once.”

Sarah touched her forehead with her fingertips and closed her eyes. She was trembling. She opened her eyes and looked over at Josh. Josh’s mouth hung open and his eyes had widened in surprise.

“You-you-you’ve seen this before?”

“Where?” Josh asked.

“Not on video. I heard an audiotape made by a woman named Dorothy Madigan who was convinced that she was being raped and murdered every night by her coworker. She was having terrible dreams about the guy in the next cubicle breaking into her house at night and attacking her. She had hidden a cassette recorder under her bed the night before and it had recorded everything. I heard her crying and begging and pleading for her life. Then I heard that bastard laugh. It was the most evil sound I’d ever heard. You could hear the bed squeaking while he raped her. She was weeping and praying and then I heard her scream and that scream seemed to go on forever, getting louder and more agonized. It really sounded like someone being murdered. But there she was, standing in front of me without a mark on her. We ran a rape kit on her. We checked her for cuts and bruises. There was nothing. There was no sign, no evidence, that she had been attacked except for that tape.”

Sarah frowned.

“So let me guess. You didn’t believe her?”

“She couldn’t even remember what had happened. She had gone to sleep and when she woke up she played the tape and that’s what was on it. But she couldn’t remember anything. What could I do?”

Sarah wasn’t sure what she was feeling. She was both excited and scared. Anxious to hear what the detective had to say but frightened because she thought she knew what he had come here to tell her. The man who had sat in the cubicle next to the woman who thought she was being raped and murdered every night was now living across the street from her.

“What happened to her? Where’s she now? Can I talk to her?’ ”

“She’s in a mental institute now. She tried to set herself on fire.”

“Oh, my God,” Josh gasped.

“It was Dale, wasn’t it?” Sarah asked. “Dale was her coworker, the one she thought was raping her. Wasn’t he?”

“The man she identified as her attacker was Dale McCarthy. We never arrested him. That’s why his prints weren’t in the system. We didn’t have enough to go on and her story didn’t make any sense. So we closed the case. We figured she was just crazy. Then when she dumped kerosene all over herself and lit a match, we just figured that that confirmed it. Then I heard about your case from Detective Lassiter. I saw the tape and I heard your neighbor’s name. I put two and two together.”

“Do you still have the tape? In evidence somewhere? Can I hear it?”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea. He did…more to her than he did to you. It was pretty violent. On the tape, it sounded like he was tearing her apart.”

“I want to meet her.”

“She’s in really bad shape. That all happened six years ago. She’s been in the Nevada Mental Health Institute ever since.”

“How is he doing it? How is he able to kill people and bring them back to life?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said. “Maybe he’s like a faith healer.”

“But they’re all fake. They’re all scammers. There’s no such thing as a real healer.”

“Do you know that for sure?”

“No, but that Amazing Randi guy has been debunking faith healers and mystics for a couple decades and I’ve never even heard of a faith healer bringing someone back from the dead. And isn’t the deal that you’re supposed to be really pious and have strong faith in order to be able to heal the sick and wounded? Like a monk or a minister or something? It’s supposed to be like a gift from God, right? Are you trying to say that this perverted fuck is some kind of saint?”

The detective waved him off.

“Jesus did it.”

“That piece of shit ain’t Jesus!” Josh roared. There was still pain in his voice. His eyes were fierce and wounded. Sarah could tell he was just barely holding it together.

“No. He’s definitely not Jesus but maybe he’s able to tap into the same type of energy. Maybe it’s God. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe he’s tapping directly into the life force, the force of creation. We assume that that force is intelligent and moral and good. But what if it isn’t? What if it’s random and chaotic and mindless and somehow your neighbor has found a way to harness its energy? What if the same power that allowed Jesus to raise Lazarus from the dead is allowing Dale to resurrect his victims so he can rape and murder them over and over again?”

Josh shook his head and stood up from the couch. He took a few steps away from the couch and then shook his head again with his back to Detective Malcovich.

“No, Detective. I can’t see God giving a power like that to a sex murderer.”

“I didn’t say anything about God. I said the life force, the force of creation.”

Josh turned around and looked at the detective.

“So, are you saying there’s no God, Detective? Just some creative force? What are you, one of those New Age hippies?”

Sarah watched her husband swell up. Religion was a topic she tried to stay away from around Josh. He didn’t go to church every week, not since everything that had happened to him as a child, and she wasn’t sure he’d ever actually read the Bible, but he believed and was more than a little defensive about it. The mere mention of Richard Dawkins would send him off on a tirade. Sarah was a bit more open-minded. She didn’t know if God existed and would never say this to Josh but she thought anyone who claimed to know was deluding themselves. She was hoping the grizzled old detective wasn’t one of those militant atheists. She had a premonition of Josh tossing him out on his rear.

The detective chuckled but didn’t smile. The expression was devoid of mirth.

“Did I tell you I was a vice detective? Twenty years on the force looking at the worst of human nature. Evil and atrocities you could not even imagine. Every day I saw rapists, child molesters, drug dealers, addicts, prostitutes, pornographers, and sex slaves and more than my share of murders and assaults. So, if you’re asking me if I question whether whatever force runs this universe has any morality remotely resembling man’s, then that answer would be yes. I question it. I doubt it. I disbelieve. If you’re asking me if I doubt if an intelligent hand is guiding it all, unless that intelligent hand is even more sick and twisted than the criminals I’ve been locking up for the past two decades, then I doubt it. I doubt it very much. I can’t look at someone like Dale, who can do the things he can do. I can’t look at some rich fuck who can molest his kids or murder his wife or sell drugs to teenagers or kidnap young girls and force them into prostitution and get away with it because he can afford the best lawyers, and believe in some omnibenevolent all-powerful father figure up there watching over us. I can buy a mindless force.”

“But you believe us about Dale?” Josh asked.

“I do. I believe you. And so does Trina.”

“Trina?”

“Detective Lassiter.”

“But not Torres, huh?” Sarah asked. “He ain’t buyin’ none of this, is he?”

“Torres is a bit of a skeptic. Even more so than me. At least he is when it comes to everything but God. He’s a Catholic.”

Sarah stood up and paced the floor.

“So how can you help us any more than she can, Harry? I mean, no offense, but so far the police department hasn’t done shit for us.”

“I’m going to help you catch him in the act. I’ll set up a stakeout right here in your house.”

“Is this another one of those off-the-record deals? That’s how Lassiter got in trouble and all the evidence she and Detective Torres gathered got thrown out and rendered inadmissible.”

Harry smiled sardonically, almost sneering, and for the first time, for just a moment, Sarah thought he looked more like a gunfighter than a hippie.

“Yeah, well I won’t be trying to gather evidence. I’m going to catch him sneaking in here and I’m going to put a bullet right between his beady little eyes.”

Hearing him say it made Sarah aware of how transparent the plan was. It was the obvious thing, which meant that Dale would probably be expecting it. But what else could they do? The other part of the plan that bothered her was that it sounded like premeditated murder. It wasn’t much different than walking across the street and putting a bullet in Dale’s skull right now. She only hoped that a prosecutor would see the difference.

“That’s the same plan we had. But shouldn’t you be trying to arrest him, Harry? Why would you risk your badge doing something like this? I know it’s your job, but officially there’s no case. You could just walk away and let us try to catch him ourselves. Why are you here volunteering to give up your time and risk your career?”

Detective Harry Malcovich reached into his sports coat and pulled out his wallet, a tattered brown leather thing with receipts and business cards spilling out of it and bursting its seams. He pulled out a wrinkled photograph and held it up so Sarah and her husband could see it. It was a picture of a beautiful young brunette in her twenties with big smoldering eyes, long thick eyelashes, and full lips just like Sarah’s.

“I owe it to Dorothy Madigan…for not believing her. If I had stopped him, if I had just believed her, if I hadn’t just dismissed the whole case, she might not have tried to kill herself. If I had stopped him then, he might not have attacked you.”

Sarah’s eyes filled with tears.

“Thank you. Just tell us what we need to do.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Detective Harry Malcovich was on the phone with Trina Lassiter, trying to patiently explain what he was doing at the Lincolns’ home.

“I’m going to set up a stakeout. Yes, I know, Trina. This is your case. That’s why I’m calling you. Starting to night. No, the captain doesn’t know anything about it and I’m not putting in for any overtime. This is all off the record. No. No. I know that. This isn’t my first rodeo, Trina. I’m going to drive around the block and then come back on foot. I’ll hop the fence and come in through the back door. Yes, I’ll let you know if anything happens. I’ll call you in the morning. Good night, Trina.”

He tucked his cell phone back in the pocket of his jacket.

“Is everything okay?” Sarah asked.

“She wasn’t happy. She thinks I’m trying to take over the case. The funny thing is, she admits there’s not much of a case. I’ll explain the connection to my case to her in the morning. Torres is out. He’s got kids and a wife. He’s worried about doing something that might get him fired. Jobs are hard to come by right now.”

Sarah smirked.

“He doesn’t believe me. He thinks I faked the tape somehow. He wouldn’t give a damn about his pension if he thought I was telling the truth.”

“It ain’t the easiest story to swallow.”

“I know.” Sarah looked down at her feet, then over her shoulder at the sliding-glass door with the security bar on it.

“I’ll need somewhere to camp out here while we wait for him to make his move.”

“You can sleep on the couch. How long do you think this will take?”

“I’d love it if he made his move tonight but I’d be surprised. He’ll probably try to wait a few days to see if things calm down but eventually he’ll do it again. He’s obsessed. He can’t help himself. Unless he starts fixating on someone else.”

Sarah looked at Detective Harry Malcovich without responding. There was something about the man that made him appear wise and worldly in a tragic sort of way. He was like a vagabond uncle who had been backpacking around the world since the sixties and only dropped in once in a while in between trips to Egypt or Tibet. Everything he said seemed to hold some deeper meaning that he was keeping to himself but hoping she would figure out on her own. Sarah didn’t know what to say about Dale going after some other woman. She knew she would feel guilty. She would blame herself for not stopping him but she’d also be relieved that her own personal ordeal was over. But Sarah doubted that she’d ever be able to relax knowing he was still out there somewhere and the idea of him getting away with raping her angered her. She wanted him to pay. She wanted to kill him for it.

“So then how many days are you thinking, Detective?”

“Three days. A week at the most.”

Sarah thought about living with a relative stranger for a week and sincerely hoped that it would not take that long. She didn’t like the idea of having a strange man wandering around the house, even if he was a cop. She could see the same uncertainty on Josh’s face but knew he wouldn’t say anything. Josh hated verbal confrontations. If it wasn’t a disagreement he could settle with his fists he tended to ignore it.

“I’m going to go move my car a few blocks away. I’ll come back through the back door so your neighbor doesn’t know I’m here. Just don’t shoot me when you see me hopping your fence.”

Sarah nodded. Josh smirked.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll hold our fire.”

Sarah and Josh walked the detective to the front door and saw him out, locking the door behind him.

“So, what do you think of our new houseguest? He just sort of invited himself, didn’t he?” Sarah said.

“Well. I guess it’s a better plan than taking NoDoz.”

“Well, it’s almost four in the morning now. He’ll be leaving soon anyway. Then I can finally rest and then get that run in that I’ve been wanting to do since we left for the hotel. So much for my thirty miles a week. Maybe I’ll get so fat that fucker across the street will lose interest.”

“You’d still be gorgeous even with thirty or forty extra pounds on you. It would give you some breakneck curves. Just more to love.”

“What about sixty pounds?”

“Now, don’t push it. I don’t even keep that much meat in the freezer.”

“You’re a big, strong guy. You shouldn’t mind lifting a little weight. Might save you a trip to the gym.”

Sarah was trying her best to lighten the mood the way she normally did but today it felt strained and false. She wasn’t in any mood to laugh and hearing the sound of her own forced laughter only made her feel more miserable. She fell silent and just stared ahead at the empty wall, waiting for the detective to return.

“You think we should call Detective Lassiter? You know, just to check this guy out. Make sure he is who he says he is and isn’t some sort of rogue cop?”

“Couldn’t hurt. I’ve still got her on speed dial. Hand me my phone before he comes back. I’ll call her.”

Sarah took her phone from Josh and dialed eleven. The phone rang three times and then Detective Trina Lassiter answered, sounding groggy and mildly annoyed.

“Hullo?”

“Detective? I’m so sorry to wake you.”

“That’s okay.”

“I just wanted to ask you a few questions about Detective Malcovich. Is he okay? I mean, is he…”

“Harry? He’s harmless. I know he’s a bit unconventional with that whole Columbo act of his and he can be a bit of a know-it-all and that will get on your damn nerves, but that’s it.”

“It just seems a bit weird that he shows up at our doorstep in the middle of the night and practically moves in.”

“Yeah, he has a tendency to get a bit obsessed with a case. He has one of the best closure rates in the department though. He may not always get his man but he gets more than most.”

“Okay.”

“Look. My shift begins at eight. I’ll stop by your house and check on you. Harry wants to talk to me some more about your case anyway.”

“Yeah, he said that my situation reminds him of another case he had a few years ago. He thinks they might be related.”

“Really? He didn’t mention it to me.”

“Oh, shit!”

“What?”

Sarah heard a noise in the backyard and she and Josh both rushed into the kitchen to retrieve their weapons. Sarah reached her Sig Sauer first and already had it cocked when Harry knocked on the sliding door.

“What happened? What’s going on? Are you okay? Sarah?” Detective Lassiter asked.

“It’s just Harry. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay. Good night. Everything will be fine.”

Sarah hung up the phone and put it in her pocket; then she uncocked her weapon and opened the door for the detective.

“Sorry about the noise. Your back fence was a little higher than I thought. I fell on my ass trying to climb it. I think I might have smashed one of your sage bushes.”

“That’s okay. Come on in.”

Harry dusted himself off and stepped into the kitchen.

“So, I guess we’d better all get some sleep. There’s no way he’s going to come in with all these lights on.”

“I wish it was that simple. He doesn’t seem to care if the lights are on or not. He doesn’t care if it’s day or night. The only thing that seems to matter to him is that we’re sleeping. He won’t attack while we’re awake.”

“But how does he know you’re sleeping if all the lights are on?”

“That’s what we’ve been trying to figure out. We think he might be sneaking into the house when we’re not at home and waiting until we fall asleep. Either that or he’s got some kind of monitoring device set up in here somewhere.”

“You mean like a camera or a listening device?”

“I don’t know. But he always seems to know when we’re sleeping.”

“We checked the whole house tonight to see if he was hiding in here somewhere,” Josh said.

“That would be pretty ballsy of him,” Detective Malcovich said.

“He’s doing it somehow.”

“Maybe he’s psychic? We are saying that he can bring people back from the dead, right? Precognition wouldn’t be too much of a stretch from that,” Sarah said.

“Or maybe he’s got some kind of a connection with you both now? Maybe he’s psychically linked to you somehow now that he’s resurrected you both?”

“I’m sure there’s probably something a little less supernatural at work than that,” Josh said.

“I don’t think we can rule anything out right now. What we’re dealing with here is something completely extraordinary.”

“Maybe. I’m too tired to think about it right now. I’m going to bed. Good night, Detective.”

“Just call me Harry.”

“Okay, Harry. Good night.” Sarah turned and walked upstairs. She heard Josh downstairs saying good night to Harry and showing him where the bathroom and the refrigerator was. “Josh? Make sure you bring our guns up with you. I don’t think I can sleep without mine.”

“Okay, I’ll bring it. Good night, Harry.”

Sarah was about to get in the bed. She had just pulled back the covers when the rancid smell of curdled blood assaulted her nose. She had almost forgotten about the blood in the mattress. The technicians from the crimescene unit had cut three huge two-foot- by-two-foot squares out of the mattress for evidence but had left the rest of it. They had taken the fitted sheets but left the comforter and had even pulled the covers back up like they were trying to make the bed. It didn’t make any sense. There was something almost gruesome about it. Sarah looked down and only then did she notice that they had done the same with the carpet. The big clean spots were gone. Where they had been there was now just bare wood. It was time for a new mattress and a new carpet. There was no way she could sleep on that thing. Sarah collected her pillow and left the room. Josh was coming up the steps when she passed him in the hallway.

“I can’t sleep in there. It smells like rot. All the blood in that mattress is starting to reek and the police technicians cut it all up. I don’t know why they didn’t just take the whole thing. There ain’t shit we can do with what’s left of it. The whole thing smells like blood.”

Goose bumps raced across her flesh as she realized that she was talking about her own blood and remembered how it had been bled out of her. She went into the guest room and crawled into the queen-size bed wondering how Josh was going to fit in there with her. Josh tucked the Sig Sauer under her pillow and put his own weapon on the nightstand.

“Good night, baby. I guess we don’t need to get that Rottweiler now.”

“Let’s just hope that Harry still has some bite left in him,” Sarah said, then kissed Josh on the lips and rolled over to go to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Dale could hear the detective snoring in the next room. He’d panicked when Sarah and her husband had come home and begun searching the house for him. When the detective had arrived, he was certain that he’d be discovered. But they had missed him. The detective had talked about killing him if he found him in the house and so Dale had decided to slip out as soon as he was able. He’d been waiting ever since for the detective to finally go to sleep. It had taken longer than he had expected.

At some point Dale had fallen asleep and, as usual, he had dreamed of his mother. This dream was different than the rest, however. This one felt more like a latent memory, a recollection of something long-suppressed. He felt the emotions almost immediately, before anything had happened, a crushing fear and sadness came down on him along with the taste of metal and the smell of blood and his mother’s tea leaf-scented perfume and perspiration.

“Why are you killing me, Mom?”

Tears raced down his cheeks as Dale watched his mother standing above him, clubbing him in the head with the hammer. He could feel each concussive impact. He could see the world fading into darkness and taste the coppery twang of blood on his tongue, feel it leaking from his ears and plugging his nostrils. He was awakened by the sound of his own sobs.

Dale sat in the dark, worried that he’d given himself away with his crying, expecting to be dragged out from beneath the sink at any moment by Sarah’s Neanderthal husband and the detective and murdered right there on the laundry room floor. His face was still wet with tears, the dream still vivid in his mind. But Dale knew that it had been more than just a dream. He knew it with near certainty. His mother had tried to kill him. Somehow, his mother had beat him with a hammer, had nearly murdered him, and he had no memory of it until now. His mother had hated him. She had tried to kill him and then she had burned herself alive and tried to take him with her. No one loved him. No one ever had. The only way he had ever gotten anyone to show him any love was when they were dead or dying, when he had them at his mercy.

So be it. He wiped the tears from his eyes and yawned silently. The past was the past. There were more immediate issues to contend with rather than whining over his dead mother.

She didn’t love me, then fuck her. That hateful bitch!

Above him, everything was quiet. He had no way of knowing if Sarah and her big apelike husband were really asleep but he knew they were completely aware of him now. They had caught him on film. They even suspected he had been hiding out in their home. And they had guns. And now there were three of them. He would have to very careful.

Dale’s arms and legs were beginning to tingle from the loss of circulation. His limbs had started to go to sleep and now he didn’t trust them to hold him when he stood. He had been folded up in the cabinet beneath the laundry sink for hours, waiting for his chance to slip out quietly. Now he was thinking that he might not go so quietly after all.

Dale slowly pushed open the cabinet door. He had folded himself into the small cabinet like a contortionist. He pulled his leg from where it had been bent beneath him and slowly unfurled himself from beneath the sink. His legs tingled maddeningly with pins and needles shooting up and down his limbs. They felt as if they were made of wet tissue, and Dale had to steady himself by holding on to the sink while he waited for the blood to flow back into his extremities.

He thought about Sarah and her perfect body, those big tits with the big swollen nipples, that tight wet pussy, and that gorgeous face. He wanted her so badly every muscle in his body was tensed, sinews pulled tight, trembling with the force of his desire. He could feel the erection surging in his boxers. He didn’t care anymore about the detective, about getting caught, or even getting killed. He had to fuck Sarah Lincoln again. He needed her, wanted her more than his next breath, his next heartbeat. He didn’t think it was possible for him to live without her. She was perfection.

Dale reached into his pants and began to stroke himself as he remembered fucking Sarah in her sweet little ass, between those big lovely breasts, ejaculating his seed on her perfect porcelain doll face. Dale knew he was not a well-endowed man. The one time a woman had given herself to him willingly it had ended with her laughing at him, ridiculing him for his diminutive size. Well, it hadn’t completely ended that way. The real end had come when he’d plunged a knife into her neck and gave her a tracheotomy, carving a hole in her esophagus just big enough for him to stick his little cock in and rape her throat. Then he had brought her back to life and driven her home smiling and grinning the entire time. He had even shaken her father’s hand when he dropped her off. That had been the last time he’d allowed himself to try to date a woman the “normal” way. He now saw his talent as what it was, a gift from God. It had been given to him to make up for all the other things God had failed to give him. It was his compensation for being born to parents who were meth addicts, for being so frail and sickly, skinny and pale, for having such a tiny penis. He could fuck anyone he wanted now, no matter what he looked like. All he had to do was sneak up on them…and kill them. Then he could bring them back to life just like Jesus did.

Dale took a few steps away from the sink to test his shaky legs. His feet still felt numb but it no longer felt like his legs were going to collapse underneath him. He stretched his arms and wiggled his fingers until all the tingling sensations went away; then he pulled out his hammer and slowly cracked open the laundry room door.

The old, fat detective with the ponytail was sitting on the couch in his wrinkled suit with a pillow behind his head and his face pointed up to the ceiling, mouth open, snoring like a grizzly bear. He was clutching a fleece blanket in his lap. His Glock was still tucked under his arm in a shoulder holster. Dale calculated his chances of creeping out of the laundry room, across the great room and into the living room without waking the detective and then killing him before he could pull out that gun. The chances weren’t good. But Dale knew that he was going to try it. There was never a question. He would do anything for one more night with Sarah.

The first floor in the Lincolns’ house was all stained concrete with a glossy polyurethane coating. The floor was slippery but at least it didn’t squeak like a wooden floor or make that tapping noise that tile floors made when you walked on them in your shoes. But they weren’t completely silent. Dale slipped off his shoes and began tiptoeing across the hard floor in his socks. His heartbeat was thundering in his chest and sweat drenched the handle of the claw hammer in his left hand, as well as the curved and serrated diver’s knife in his right. The saliva in his mouth had dried up and his eyes felt watery. He stared intently at the detective’s face, prepared to bolt for the front door if the man woke and knowing he would never make it.

Halfway across the floor, only three or four yards from the detective, Dale decided that if the man woke up he would rush him with the knife. He was fairly confident that he could gut him like a fish before he could pull that gun from its holster. But Dale had never taken on a grown man before unless he was ambushing him in his sleep. Men intimidated Dale and a guy as big as this detective would probably put up a good fight. He might even wrestle the knife away from Dale and use it on him.

Dale swallowed hard and his legs began to tremble. Perspiration soaked his T-shirt and ran down his forehead into his eyes. He wiped away the sweat with the back of his hand and crept closer. Now he was so close he could have been on top of the detective in three quick steps if he needed to. He was sizing up the big man, trying to decide where to plunge the knife in first if he had to defend himself or where to cut him when he reached him to silence him and take him out before he could fight or make a sound that might wake up the rest of the house. The last thing Dale wanted was a fight.

Two more steps and the detective’s eyes opened. Dale almost screamed. He plunged the knife into the side of the detective’s neck so hard the blade completely submerged in his flesh up to the hilt. Blood sprayed from the wound and the detective’s eyes bulged. Both of his hands flew up to the knife in his throat and a gurgling and wheezing sound came from his mouth. He started to rise up from the couch, groping for his weapon with one hand while holding his throat with the other. Dale clubbed him with the hammer and the detective fell back onto the couch. Dale hit him again and one of the detective’s eyes spilled out of the socket and drooled down his cheek like an oyster shucked from its shell. The next blow caved in the left side of his head and the next one dislodged a piece of his skull, flinging it across the room and revealing a patch of the detective’s gray matter.

The detective’s remaining eye had rolled up into his skull and his body began to convulse. Dale placed a pillow under the detective’s feet so his spasmodic fit wouldn’t make too much noise and wake Sarah or her husband. The big man was still making that wet, asthmatic wheezing sound. Dale grabbed the knife protruding from the detective’s throat and began to saw through his windpipe, cutting his esophagus in half and nearly decapitating him. The corpse finally ceased its Saint Vitus’s dance and lay still. Dale put his foot on the man’s chest for leverage and then yanked the knife out of his throat. He wiped the blade off in the detective’s graying hair and turned toward the stairs.

This was the tricky part. There were two stair treads that squeaked and Dale could never remember which ones they were. He tried to walk on the edge of each stair instead of stepping in the middle to eliminate the potential for a squeak that would alert Sarah and her husband. If he had to flee the house, he wouldn’t be able to bring the detective back to life. That would be murder and Dale knew that murderers went to hell. Worse was the fear that if he murdered someone and defied God’s law, then God might take away his gift. He had to make sure that didn’t happen.

Dale took another step and felt the stair flex under his weight. He slowly released his weight off his foot and used the railings to lift himself up over the stair, supporting himself on his arms. He took the next few steps without a sound and was soon standing in the upstairs hallway outside the master bedroom.

Dale knew that there was a strong possibility that Sarah and her husband were on the other side of the door with their guns cocked, waiting for him to enter so they could empty their pistols into his face. His pulse had been over a 160 beats per minute since he’d woken under the sink. Now it felt like it was closer to 200. He put his hand on the doorknob and slowly turned the handle. The door crept open slowly and Dale slipped inside.

The room was dark except for the dim illumination from the streetlight outside leaking through the blinds. It was just enough light for Dale to see that the room was empty. The bedsheets had been pulled back revealing a mattress stained with blood. Dale could smell blood in the air, rancid blood. He stood in the doorway for a while trying to figure out where they could be. He spun around and looked in back of him to make sure they hadn’t set some sort of trap and weren’t sneaking up on him from behind. Then he checked the closet and under the bed. They weren’t there. Dale was about to scream when he remembered the other two bedrooms. They had probably slept in one of those.

But why? Was it some kind of trick?

The longer Dale stood in the bedroom, the more overwhelming the smell of fetid blood became. Slowly it dawned on him that the smell was probably the reason why they had not slept in their own bed. He turned around and crept quietly out of the room, closing the bedroom door behind him.

In his socks, still tiptoeing as softly as possible, Dale made his way to the first bedroom and pushed open the door. His heart lightened and an overwhelming feeling of joy rose inside him as he spotted Sarah lying beside her husband, eyes closed, sleeping soundly. Her big husband was making whining and whimpering sounds in his sleep and tossing and turning fitfully. Seeing that videotape of what Dale had done to him had obviously disturbed him greatly.

Dale didn’t know what had possessed him that day. He had just wanted to punish the big man. He wanted to emasculate him, humiliate him. Seeing Josh’s big cock and knowing that he was fucking Sarah with it every night, that she willingly gave herself to him, that she enjoyed it, loved it, loved him, imagining her sucking it, letting him fuck her in the ass with it, had enraged him. All he could think of was how much he wanted to break Josh down and show him, show her, that Josh was not a better man than Dale just because his penis was twice as big. He wanted Sarah to see her big, strong husband with his porn-star cock, humbled. He wanted to show her who the real man was. Thinking about it had made Dale’s cock hard and so he had gone with it and used it as an instrument of torture. It had even surprised Dale when he had managed to ejaculate. He wondered if they had done a rape kit on Josh. He wondered how humiliated the big man must have felt when they swabbed his rectum and found Dale’s semen inside of him.

Dale took a moment to delight in the big man’s misery, watching as the big man moaned and grimaced in his sleep, reliving his violation; then Dale stepped inside the room and lifted the hammer over his head. He brought it down with all of his might and blinked when the blood spattered his face. Sarah began to scream almost immediately. She always screamed. Dale had come to love that sound as much as he loved her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Sarah woke up when she heard the detective moving around downstairs. She could hear Josh’s voice down there too. The two men were talking about something with obvious excitement. Sarah sat up in bed, yawning and stretching, and tried to hear what they were talking about.

“I already called Trina. We’ve got a CSU team headed over here right now.”

Something had happened. Last night. Even with the detective standing guard. Somehow, Dale had gotten into the house again. Sarah swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. She felt her feet squish into the carpet and pink foam squeeze up from the carpet padding in between her toes. She ran to the window and opened the blinds. There was a clean spot on the carpet so light that it was almost white. The spot was huge. It surrounded the entire bed. Where she had stepped, pink footsteps trailed all the way to the window. Where Josh had stepped, the footsteps were almost red. Even the sheets on the bed were no longer the white ones that had been on the bed almost since they’d moved into this house. They were a pale blue set she’d had since college and hadn’t seen in several years. Sarah began to tremble. This was too much. This was all just way too much.

The room began to tilt and spin and Sarah knew she was about to faint. She began to hyperventilate and her heart felt like it was going to pound its way through her rib cage. She wanted to scream but could not find the voice. Sarah tried to focus, to slow her breathing, slow her heartbeat, do something to fend off the panic attack before it took complete control over her. Now that she knew that this was all real, that it was not some figment of her imagination, it was just too much to deal with.

Sarah took several steps toward the door. When she felt the bloody water squish out of the carpet between her toes again, she could not help herself. Sarah screamed and collapsed onto the floor.

Detective Lassiter, Harry, and her husband were all hovering over, looking down at her with worried expressions on their faces when she woke. She was downstairs in the living room, lying on the couch with a pillow beneath her head.

“Are you okay?” Josh asked. He looked so worried and frightened.

“What happened?”

“He got in again. We’ve got him on tape walking into our bedroom. But he’s disappeared. The police can’t find him anywhere.”

Sarah looked up and there was a huge reddish brown stain on the ceiling above their heads. She looked down at the floor where there was a similar stain on the concrete.

“He wasn’t quite so neat this time,” Harry said, wincing in disgust.

That was when Sarah noticed a similar stain in the detective’s hair. The whole side of his head was caked with blood. His gray hair was almost completely red on one side. His neck and shirt were stained red-brown as well. Harry was right. Dale had been messy this time.

“What happened?”

“You must have fainted.”

“No. I mean what the hell happened? How did he get in? You were supposed to protect us.”

“I don’t know. I must have fallen asleep. But don’t worry. He really fucked up this time. We’ve got more than enough to arrest him now and this time we can make it stick. We’ve got him for breaking and entering, felony stalking, trespassing, attacking a police officer, and whatever else the DA can come up with.”

Everything but murder and rape. Sarah looked over at Detective Lassiter.

“But you can’t find him. Can you? You don’t know where he is, do you?”

“We’ll find him. In the meantime we’re going to move you into protective custody.”

“What if you never find him?”

“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.