The Resurrectionist

“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