There was a big red stuffed bear that Josh had bought her for Valentine’s Day the year they got married. She always kept it next to the bed and there it was, next to the bed. Only it was on Josh’s side of the bed. Even her laptop was unplugged and sitting on top of the dresser instead of plugged in on the floor by the bed. And there were clean spots on the floor again. Places where the carpet was lighter, where it had obviously been scrubbed. Sarah knelt down and rubbed her hand over one large spot beside the bed that was almost three shades lighter than the rest of the carpet as if someone had used bleach on it. The carpet was wet.
“Yes. My name is Josh…Josh Lincoln. Someone has been in our house. I think they may have attacked my wife. Okay. Okay. How long before they get here? Okay. Thank you.”
“Josh.”
“They’re on their way.”
“The carpet is wet. It’s been cleaned.”
Sarah stood back as Josh knelt down and inspected the carpet. She already knew what he was going to say. There was just no denying the fact that the carpet had been cleaned. It looked as if all the color had been bleached out of it in spots. There was a cream-colored spot on the tan carpet that was nearly four feet wide. As they looked around they began to notice spots on the walls behind the bed that looked as if they had been cleaned or freshly painted.
“And, before you ask, no, I didn’t decide to get up and clean the carpet in the middle of the night.”
Josh just shook his head and rubbed his face with his palms. He was trying to figure out what to say, obviously wracking his brain for the right words, visibly distressed by his inability to explain what he was seeing. Sarah was almost hoping that Josh would have had some rational explanation for it all, even if the answer was that she was crazy. But fear and confusion was written clearly across his face.
“Do you really think someone’s been in the house? How could they sneak in here without waking you up? You think maybe somebody drugged you? Some sort of date-rape drug like rufinol?”
Sarah thought about it. If she had been drugged, then the gaps in her memory, the hazy dreamlike images that came back to her in brief flashes, would make a lot more sense. Even her memories of being murdered could be dismissed as drug-induced hallucinations.
“I don’t know. But maybe I should go to the hospital to get checked out.”
“Before the cops get here…” Josh paused. Sarah looked at him quizzically.
“What, Josh? What?”
“This is fucked up, but I have to ask you…”
“Ask me what?”
“The drugs…um…they aren’t going to find…I mean…someone drugged you, right? You’re not using…”
Sarah realized what he was getting at and something dark and mean spread inside of her, wanting to lash out at Josh and tear his face off his skull or at the least, slap the shit out of him. She knew that, given the circumstances, it was a perfectly reasonable question to ask. The whole thing looked and sounded insane. And if she wasn’t schizophrenic, then the only other possibility, besides someone breaking in and raping and drugging her without her being able to remember it, was that she was using drugs herself and doing all of this in some kind of drug-induced delirium. Given the choices, it was far more likely from his perspective that she had started using drugs. She had also confessed to Josh once that she had used methamphetamines in high school as a weight-loss aid, “The Meth Diet” she and her friends had jokingly called it. She’d started using it again in college to help her stay up late to study just before she and Josh had met. He had every right to be suspicious. But right now she needed him to be on her side and this question, right at this moment, felt like a horrible betrayal.
“No, Josh. I’m not a fucking drug addict. I’m not snorting meth or smoking crack while you’re at work.”
Sarah turned her back on Josh as the tears began to flow. She started to throw herself down onto the bed but just the sight of those clean white sheets halted her. She didn’t want to touch them. Whoever had broken in here and done things to her had also touched those sheets. Sarah stood in the middle of the room, with tears racing down her cheeks, and screamed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“So, you’re saying that your neighbor has been breaking into your house and drugging you and raping you?”
The cop looked like he’d just gotten out of high school but he already had that disinterested look of someone who was used to seeing the worst of humanity. He had that look of one who had grown bored with anything short of gunfights and fatal car accidents, that superior cop swagger as if everyone without a badge owed their existence to him. His prematurely thinning copse of blond hair, acne scars on his cheeks and forehead, and bulbous Adam’s apple were clear indications that he had probably been on the wrong end of many insults and ass-kickings during his school years.
“We’re not sure. That’s why we called you. Someone has been in the house though.”
“Someone came in and scrubbed your floors and walls and did the laundry but didn’t take anything?”
“Someone raped my wife and cleaned up to hide the evidence. I mean…someone might have. She just keeps having these dreams and then all this stuff in the house that’s out of place.”
“And why do you think it’s your neighbor?”
“My wife saw him. I mean…she thinks she did. She has these dreams and in them it’s him. He’s there and he’s raping her and killing her.”
The police officer, who looked like a young blond Anthony Perkins, stared at Josh. He was obviously suppressing a laugh. Sarah felt terrible for putting Josh through this.
“Look, I know this all sounds crazy. Can you just check the house and see if there’s any sign that someone has broken in?”
The cop sighed deeply.
“Okay, I’ll check the doors and windows.”
Sarah and Josh looked at each other. Sarah felt so foolish, she couldn’t hide her embarrassment. She was blushing and fidgeting. She wished they hadn’t called the police but she wanted to know. She had to know if someone had been breaking into their house.
The police officer checked the windows in the living room, the kitchen, and the den. He checked the front door and the rear sliding door.
“Sir? Ma’am?”
“Yes?” Josh walked over to the sliding-glass door where the cop was standing. Sarah came with him.
“How do you lock this door?”
“You just flip this latch at the bottom of the door.”
“Up or down?”
“You just push it down with your foot.”
“Uh huh. Go ahead. Flip the lock.”
Josh stepped on the latch.
“Now, open the door.”
Josh pulled on the sliding-door handle and the door slid open easily on its track.
“Try it again.”
This time Sarah pushed past her husband and stepped down firmly on the latch. She grabbed the door handle and once again the door slid easily open.
“You should get yourself a security bar for this door. With all these empty houses around it might not be a bad idea to get a security alarm too. Gangs and drug addicts sometimes squat in these abandoned houses. It’s a real problem. These foreclosures send the crime rate through the roof.”
“So, do you think someone has been breaking in here?” Sarah asked a little too anxiously.
“There’s no sign of forced entry but then an intruder wouldn’t really need to break anything to get in when he can just slide the door open.”
