Someone Is Watching Read Online Free

Mr. Peterson had recently slipped back into the city, possibly to visit his old girlfriend.”
    “So you were watching the girlfriend’s apartment?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you think Roland Peterson is the man who attacked you?”
    “I don’t know. Are you going to arrest him?”
    “We’ll certainly check him out.”
    I suspected that Roland Peterson, whether he was the man who raped me or just a deadbeat dad, was probably halfway out of Florida by now.
    “Can you describe the man who attacked you?”
    I shook my head again, felt my brain slide toward my left ear.
    “Give yourself a few minutes,” the female officer urged. I noticed that she was in plain clothes, which probably made her a detective. Detective Marx, I think the other officer called her. “I know this isn’t easy, but if you could try to put yourself back in those bushes.”
    Is Detective Marx really so naïve?
I think now.
Does she not realize I’ll be in those bushes for the rest of my life?
    I remember thinking she looked too petite, too insubstantial, to be a police officer, her light gray eyes too soft, too caring. “It’s just that it all happened so fast. I know that’s such a cliché. I know I should have been more alert, more aware of my surroundings.…”
    “This wasn’t your fault,” she interrupted.
    “But I’ve studied judo and tae kwan do,” I argued. “It’s not as if I don’t know how to defend myself.”
    “Anyone can be caught off guard. You heard nothing at all?”
    “I don’t know,” I told her, trying to remember and not remember at the same time. “I
felt
something. A slight shift in the air. No, wait. I
did
hear something, maybe a footstep, maybe a twig breaking. I started to turn around, and then …” A tissue suddenly appeared in the officer’s outstretched hand. I grabbed it, tearing it into pieces before it reached my eyes. “He started hitting me. He was punching me in the stomach and face. I couldn’t get my bearings. He put a pillowcase over my head. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe. I was so scared.”
    “Before he hit you, were you able to make out anything? A shape? A size?”
    I tried to picture the man. I really did. But all I saw was the darkness of the night, followed by the suffocating whiteness of the pillowcase.
    “Could you see what he was wearing?”
    Yet another shake of my head. “He must have been wearing black. And jeans. He was wearing jeans.” I heard the man’s zipper and wanted to scream to block out the sound.
    “Good. That’s very good, Bailey. You
did
see things. You
can
remember.”
    I felt foolishly proud of myself and realized how eager I was to please this woman whose eyes were so soft and gray.
    “Could you tell what color the man was, if he was black or white or Hispanic?”
    “White,” I said. “Maybe Hispanic. I think he had brown hair.”
    “What else?”
    “He had big hands. He was wearing leather gloves.” Once again I tasted the stale leather and swallowed the urge to gag.
    “Can you estimate how tall he was?”
    “I think he was average.”
    “Could you tell if he was overweight, skinny, muscular …?”
    “Average,” I said again. Could I be any less informative? I’ve been trained to notice the smallest of details. Yet all my training evaporated with that first punch. “He was very strong.”
    “You struggled with him.”
    “Yes. But he kept hitting me, so I never got close enough to make any real contact. I never got a look at his face. It was all one big blur. And then he pulled that pillowcase over my head.…”
    “Did you notice his shoes?”
    “No. Yes!” I corrected myself, my mind flashing on the iconic Nike swoosh in the canvas of the man’s sneakers. “He was wearing black Nike sneakers.”
    “Can you estimate what size?”
    “No, damn it. I’m useless. Absolutely useless. I don’t know anything.”
    “You
do
know,” the officer said. “You remembered the sneakers.”
    “Half the population of Miami owns