featured women lying in coffins wearing pale makeup with black eye shadow. Sarah laughed and clicked on another link. For some reason, even the goth freaks who fucked fake corpses were making her uncomfortable.
She found a site for blood-play that showed men and women making love while cutting each other with razor blades and another site showing nude women hanging from nooses. Sarah shuddered and clicked off the website. It was just too much for her tonight.
But Sarah knew that normally she would have found even the most violent and perverse porn sites fascinating. That was before she dreamed about being murdered, then woke up the next morning on a blood-soaked mattress. Now she wanted something more vanilla. She clicked on a lesbian site and tried to amuse herself with pictures of women who looked like anything but lesbians fucking for the camera. She closed her laptop and lay back on the bed with the gun on her chest. There was no fighting it. She was tired as hell and, for once, she wasn’t the least bit horny. She felt like she’d never be horny again.
Sarah closed her eyes and clicked the safety off the pistol.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sarah woke up as Josh walked into the room.
“Sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Sarah wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, then sat up straight in bed. She looked around the room in a panic.
“Turn on the lights.”
“Go on back to sleep,” Josh whispered.
“Turn on the lights!”
The room filled with light and Sarah immediately looked down at the sheets. Her heart began a drum roll in her chest. The sheets were white. No flowers. No paisleys. No psychedelic colors. Just plain white. Sweat broke out on her brow and she began to hyperventilate.
“Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.”
Josh’s forehead wrinkled and he held his hands out helplessly. The gesture annoyed the hell out of Sarah and made her feel completely alone. He eyes began to tear up.
“Oh God. Oh shit.”
“What? What is it?”
“Where are the sheets? Where are the sheets, Josh?”
Josh shrugged.
“What sheets?”
“The ugly ones we bought from The Linen Store. The hippie sheets with the paisleys and the big ugly fucking flowers? I put them on the bed before I went to sleep. Where are they? Where the fuck are they, Josh?”
Josh looked down at the bed.
“Are you sure you put them on?”
“Of course I’m sure! That’s why I bought them. So I wouldn’t forget them. I know I put them on the bed.”
Sarah sprang from the bed and stomped into the closet. She rummaged through the laundry basket, tossing jeans, T-shirts, skirts, and bras onto the floor. She ran out of the closet and downstairs to the laundry room with Josh following close behind her. She opened up the laundry machine and there were her sheets, clean, wet, balled up at the bottom of the washer. A pair of her underwear were in there too. They were the same ones she’d been wearing when she’d fallen asleep. She looked at Josh. He stared back at her wide-eyed. Slowly he shook his head.
“I didn’t wash them.” Then she added, “Where’s my gun?”
Josh stared at her blankly.
“Where’s the fucking gun? I had it with me when I went to bed. Where is it? Where’s the fucking gun?”
“Um, I think I saw it upstairs.”
Sarah dashed back up the stairs. She found the Sig Sauer sitting on the dresser. Her hand shook as she reached for it. She paused, her hand hovering over the pistol as if she was afraid to touch it. She turned and looked at Josh who was watching her, holding his breath, as if she were about to pick up a poisonous snake. They were both breathing hard.
“Did you put this here, Josh?”
“No. It was there when I walked in.”
“It was lying on my chest when I went to sleep. I was holding it with both hands.”
She picked up the gun and ejected the clip. It was empty. She pulled the slide back. The bullet she’d placed in the chamber was gone. Josh sucked in a quick breath and began looking around the room for bullets.
Sarah knew that this must be hard on Josh, suddenly being forced to be the calm, steady one while she fell apart. It was a complete reversal from their normal roles. She could tell that he was having a hard time holding it together. Seeing the panic on her face was unnerving him but he was trying to remain calm for her sake. Staying calm was not one of his strong suits and the strain was showing on his face. She loved him for the effort he was making.
“Do you smell that?”
Josh’s expression was beginning to look as panicked as her own.
“What?” Sarah asked.
Josh took the gun from her and sniffed the barrel. He held it out to her. Sarah sniffed it as well. There was the unmistakable smell of burned carbon.
“It’s been fired.”
Sarah began looking around the room for bullet holes while Josh checked the floor for spent casings. It didn’t take her long to find one. There was a hole in the bedroom door. Josh closed the door and behind it was a nice, neat round hole in the drywall.
“You shot at something, someone maybe? The neighbor? Did you have another one of those dreams?”
“I don’t think they’re dreams, Josh. Do you think I changed the sheets and did a load of laundry in my dreams? I think someone was in here. I’m scared, Josh.”
“Should I go over to the neighbor’s house?”
“And do what? We have no proof he did anything. If you kill him or kick his ass, then you’ll just go to jail and I’ll be all alone.”
Sarah reached out and pulled her husband close. She wrapped herself in his big, thick arms, leaning her head on his muscular chest, searching desperately for some sense of security, wanting to believe that her husband could protect her from whatever this was.
“Well, then what happened? Do you really think he came in here and attacked you? Then stripped the sheets off the bed and washed them? That just sounds so crazy. This…this can’t be happening.”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I laid down with the gun on my chest and then I woke up when you came in the room.”
“Well, something happened. I’m calling the cops.”
“And telling them what?”
“I don’t know. But I’m calling them. Something is definitely going on.”
“B-but what if it’s just me? What if I’m going crazy or something? I don’t want them to put me away somewhere.”
“They won’t put you away. I don’t think it works that way. They don’t just lock you up for saying crazy shit. Half of Las Vegas would be in the loony bin if that’s how it was. But maybe they can test the place, see if someone has been in here?”
Sarah was confused, uncertain, but she was scared to death. Maybe she would feel better if the cops came. Josh stood next to the bed holding his cell phone, looking at her, waiting.
“Okay. Call them.”
Sarah looked around the room as Josh dialed the phone number for police emergencies. The more she looked the more things she noticed out of place. The light on the nightstand and the radio alarm clock had switched places.
