“Okay, baby. We’ll make it work somehow. We’ll figure something out.”
They walked into the bedroom and that overpowering smell made Sarah’s stomach churn. The odor of death and decay had gotten worse since the night before. There was a fly in the room. Sarah didn’t know how it had gotten in but she knew that it was just a matter of time now before the bed would be full of maggots. Josh pinched his nose and turned to look at her with a grimace on his face.
“You sure you still want to live here?”
“We need to get rid of that mattress. It will be okay. This is our home.”
“Okay. If you’re sure, then I’m sure.”
They pulled two suitcases out of the closet and began to pack. Sarah threw in her running shoes and some workout gear along with four changes of clothes. She didn’t know how long they would be at the hotel but if it was longer than four days, then she’d have to come back and get more clothes. She looked at Josh’s ice skates tucked in the corner and his hockey jersey hanging above it. She had been upset at not being able to run and here Josh hadn’t been on the ice in over two weeks and he hadn’t said a word. Sarah looked over at Josh and felt a pang of guilt. When all of this was over she had to make sure to give him more time for himself. Brawling with some bartender on the ice was just the sort of thing Josh needed to restore his manhood. Though murdering Dale with his bare hands would have probably been more effective. Sarah really hoped that could be arranged.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Sarah, her husband, and Detective Harry Malcovich sat in the waiting room of the hospital. Waiting for someone to swab their orifices for traces of semen and check them for tearing and bruising. Sarah studied Harry’s face. He looked more than embarrassed. He looked enraged.
One by one they were called into the room to see the nurse. Detective Lassiter was there, along with a rape crisis counselor. They walked Sarah into the examination room. Sarah disrobed and the detective helped her into her hospital gown.
The nurse busied herself preparing the rape kit while Trina Lassiter and the counselor tried their best to keep Sarah calm and relaxed. Sarah did not feel anxious at all. She felt numb. This was her second rape kit in a matter of days and she had no idea how many times Dale had actually raped her. At least three times that she knew about and probably closer to five or more. Sarah wondered if the numbness she was feeling was what sex slaves felt like after being raped by one john after another, day after day after day. Thinking about herself in terms of a sex slave made her feel even worse.
“My name is Karen Burns. I’m going to give you my card so we can talk later. Right now I’m just here to answer any questions you might have and to help the detective and the nurse guide you through this process. I know you’ve been through a terrible ordeal but we are here to help.”
The rape counselor was a young blonde woman in her twenties who looked like she was fresh out of college and dressed very conservatively in a plain white shirt and a long blue skirt that came almost to her ankles. Her hair was pulled back in a bun. Sarah guessed that the woman was probably Mormon. There were a lot of Mormons who worked in the hospitals in Las Vegas for some reason. Most of them were volunteers but an almost equal number were health-care professionals.
The counselor spoke calmly to Sarah, explaining everything that was about to happen. Sarah wondered if this woman had ever been raped. She doubted it but it wouldn’t have surprised her either. There had to be some reason a woman like her went into a profession like this.
“Just relax. The nurse needs to take a couple samples from your rectum and your uterus. It might be a little uncomfortable but it will be over quickly. Detective Lassiter and I will be right here holding your hands.”
“This ain’t my first rodeo,” Sarah said, borrowing a phrase from Harry. “I was just here last week.”
“Oh,” the counselor said and looked over at Detective Lassiter. She looked back over at Sarah with a different, somewhat less sympathetic expression on her face.
“She’s not a prostitute, Counselor. She’s just had one very tough week,” the detective offered by way of an explanation.
The woman was clearly confused and more than a little shocked. Sarah supposed it was shocking. But given everything else she’d seen in the last couple of days, being raped more than once in less than a week no longer felt quite so shocking, though no less degrading and humiliating. She felt no less violated than she had the first time she was here. The only difference was that now she knew what they were going to do and what they would find and she’d had time to prepare herself mentally for it. She was not going to allow herself to break down in tears again, though now would have probably been the appropriate time to do so and she certainly felt like crying, like screaming, and punching the walls. She just didn’t know if she’d ever be able to pull herself back together again if she allowed herself to fall apart now. The counselor was still looking at Sarah skeptically and somewhat judgmentally. Sarah could see all the questions on the woman’s face. She felt like telling the young counselor that she’d been murdered perhaps half a dozen times as well.
“How many rape victims do you see in here every day?”
“It’s hard to say. We see a lot of prostitutes and victims of domestic violence who we would classify as date rapes. Often, those are even more violent than the assaults from strangers. But on average I see about two or three a day.”
“Two or three a day?”
The woman nodded.
“And I’m just one counselor.”
Sarah didn’t know why she found that so surprising. Rape was one of those things she had never thought much about until she’d woken up screaming a week ago. Sarah wondered why the counselor was even there and where she’d been last week when it was just Detective Lassiter and the nurse.
“Aren’t you a rape counselor, Trina?” Sarah asked the detective.
“I’m a victims’ advocate. It’s slightly different. A lot less training.”
“So where was the counselor last week?”
“NASCAR was in town last week along with about a hundred thousand fans. It was a busy week for rape counselors.”
She said it so matter-of-factly, as if it should have been common knowledge that the incidents of rapes increased during sporting events. Sarah supposed that it should have been obvious. But that was just not ordinarily something you thought about.
The nurse busied herself lubing her rubbergloved fingers so that she could slide them more easily into Sarah’s vagina to get the sample. Detective Lassiter sprayed her with something she called luminol and scanned her with a UV light. There were glowing splotches all over Sarah’s breasts. She didn’t bother to ask what the splotches were. She was pretty certain she knew.
After the nurse had finished taking her swabs and Trina was done photographing every square inch of her, Sarah wiped herself with wet disposable towels that reminded her of baby wipes, then dressed and walked out into the waiting room. She met her husband’s eyes as he was called into the room. He was a wreck. She reached out for his hand and squeezed it. Then she pulled him close and kissed him.