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I stood there naked for a second before slamming the door, then running back to my bedroom, grabbing my phone, and rushing into the bathroom that I closed and locked.
The bathroom window was a safety hazard that hadn’t opened since I moved in. He couldn’t get in that way. So I pressed my back into the door, and spread my legs to slam into the sink cabinet and the storage closet, making it hard to push the door open as I called the police with shaking fingers.
“That’s it,” I said.
From there, I waited until I both heard the police and heard the operator confirm that they were there, before I got up, dropping the knife on the counter, wrapping a towel around myself, and moving out to talk to the police.
“Was there anything else about the man you noted?” he asked, nodding his chin toward the forensics crew as they moved into my home, heading right to the bedroom.
They would collect the gun, the zip ties, my clothes, and look for footprints, since there would be no fingerprints.
I fought back a wave of nausea and forced my mind to go back there, to be in my body, looking at my attacker.
“He had a spot in his eye,” I said.
“A spot?” Detective Vaughn asked.
“Right here,” I explained, pointing to my left eye where I’d seen it.
“What do you mean by a spot, hon?” he asked, shaking his head, not understanding.
“I don’t know. A dark spot.”
“Like he had somethinginhis eye?”
“No. No, it was part of his eye,” I insisted.
“Okay,” Detective Vaughn said, underlining the note and putting question marks next to it. “Thank you for this. This is really valuable information,” he told me, reaching into his pocket to produce a card that he started to pass to me, then thought better of it, putting it down on his pad, and scribbling on it. “This is my card. It has my number at the station, but I put my personal number on there too. If there is anything else at all you remember, please reach out.”
“Okay,” I agreed, looking down at the card and his horrendous chicken scratch writing. Was that a seven or a one?
“After you go to the hospital to get checked out, and get some sleep, I might ask if you would be willing to come to the station to sit down with me again.”
“I can do that,” I agreed, knowing how important witnesses were in cases. Sometimes it was all the cops had to go on.
“Do you have any questions for me?” he asked.
“Do you think he will come back?” I asked, looking at him, watching for any slight changes in his face that would give away a lie.
To that, Detective Vaughn took a deep breath.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” he said, and I was grateful for the truth. “We will have a uniform stationed outside—“
“I’m not coming back here tonight,” I cut him off, shaking my head.
Did I have any friends or family in town?
No.
Could I really afford to stay in a hotel more than a night or two?
Also no.
But I wasn’t going to be a sitting duck in my house with a rapist who might want to come back to finish the job.
One officer in his cruiser parked on the street was all but useless. I’d seen and heard those stories a dozen or more times.
“Okay, I understand,” he agreed. “But when you are ready to come back, let me know, and I will get a detail assigned to you.”
