During the days, he tried to let her out of the ropes more and more, but doing so worried him more than he could say. He knew that after what had happened in the clearing, when he took the girl and made her his wife, he would really get in a lot of trouble if she got away and told on him. It wasn't that Roger thought he was doing anything wrong—he told himself that anyway—but he knew people just wouldn't understand. They never understood him. The girl didn't understand him, so she called him names sometimes, and sometimes he had to hit her. Only three people really understood him. His mom and dad, of course. And the last girl. He missed the last girl. He missed their routine. He hoped that the new girl would come around, would become as comfortable to be around as the last girl had been. There were signs that she was moving that way, and at night, when Roger drifted off to sleep with the new girl breathing by his side, he almost felt as though things were becoming normal again.
Although when he really thought about it, sitting down in the woods or while sitting on the throne taking a dump, he wasn't so sure the girl was really settling in. Sometimes, when he looked at her and he thought she didn't know he was looking, he wondered if maybe she wasn't planning something like another escape. Or maybe even something more. At times like those, Roger rubbed the spot above his eye where she had speared him with the toilet plunger. The cut had healed, but it left behind a narrow strip of a scar. It was pink and soft and still a little tender to the touch. Touching it reminded him of what the girl was capable of.
So he kept a close eye on her at all times, and he was doing so on the morning the cop arrived at the front door.
No one had knocked on the door of the house since his parents died. No one ever came there. In fact, Roger couldn't remember having company since his dad's funeral, and that had been over twenty-five years ago. They just lived too far out in the middle of nowhere, and Roger didn't have any friends or even acquaintances. So for someone to show up and knock on their door out of the blue was an occurrence along the lines of having a UFO land in the back yard. It just didn't happen.
When the knocking, a rat-a-tat-tat like gunshots firing, sounded against the front door, Roger couldn't process exactly what the sound was. He thought it might have been someone throwing rocks against the front of the house or hail falling from the sky and pocking against the roof. He sat up.
The girl lay next to him, tied to the bed. He checked the clock on the bedside table. 8:38 a.m. He and the girl liked to sleep late, sometimes almost until noon. The girl hadn't moved. She breathed steadily, her eyes closed, and Roger thought maybe he had dreamed the noise. He let his head fall back against his pillow and closed his eyes when the knocking came again, harder and faster.
He sat up straight. He wasn't dreaming. Someone was at the house.
The girl stirred, making sniffling sounds like she was about to wake up. Roger clamped his hand over her mouth.
"Shhhhhh," he said.
The girl only moaned louder.
"Someone's at the door," he said.
"Mmmmmph," she said.
"Shhhhhhh."
He kept a roll of duct tape by the side of the bed, and with his free hand, he grabbed it. He used his index finger to pick the end of the tape loose, and leaning against the girl for leverage while still keeping her mouth covered, he managed to pull a strip of tape free from the roll. He brought it to his mouth and used his teeth to work on cutting it loose, and after a few long moments of trying, managed to do so.
Whoever was at the door knocked again.
Maybe it's just a salesperson, Roger thought. Or someone whose car broke down on the highway. Maybe it's a Jehovah's Witness or a kid selling candy bars and if we pretend like we're not home, they'll just go away. But Roger began to suspect that was wishful thinking. Pie in the sky, as his mom used to say. No Jehovah's Witness or kid selling candy had ever come to his door, and their house was too far from the highway for someone with a breakdown to show up there. If someone knocked on his door, they meant to be knocking on that door. It wasn't an accident.
Moving quickly, Roger stuck the strip of tape across the girl's mouth. She tried to turn her head away, and she was almost fast enough, but Roger managed to slap the tape down before she turned all the way, and so it landed at a crooked angle across her mouth. But it did the job. The girl couldn't talk. She couldn't yell or scream. She made little grunting noises behind the tape, so Roger held a warning finger up in front of her face.
"Be quiet," he said, his voice low. "Just stay quiet."
The girl stopped making noise, but her wide eyes showed a kind of excitement that Roger hadn't seen in them before. She thought she was being saved by whoever was knocking. She thought this was her chance to get out. She'd tell them everything, whoever it was, and get Roger in all sorts of trouble.
"Just stay quiet," he said again.