The evidence had been confiscated.

She’d broken the rules of the game.

She was helped to her feet by a small crowd of passers-by. Several of them offered to come with her to the Police Station to report the attack. She shook her head, squirmed awkwardly out from beneath the grip of their anxious, hot hands. Blood dripped out of her nose and splattered onto the pavement. Concerned faces crowded in all around her. She pushed them away, swearing, and hobbled home, keeping her head back and pinching her nose to stem the blood flow. People called out behind her. She picked up her pace and ran, away from the voices, away from her blood on the pavement, away from her shame.

A day later, before she could fix the broken window in her bathroom, her letters, and her handbag, were returned. Not left outside her door, not this time.

No. He left the bag at the foot of her bed, with a note, while she slept.

As expected, the photographs were gone.

The note read:

No Police.

Yours respectfully

X.

18.

She was certain her nose was broken, but she didn’t go to the Doctor. Her fear of the outside world, where X lurked in the shadows, held her prisoner. The memory of the photos filed every space in her brain, and the idea that X had been inside her house, this time, walked into her bedroom while she slept, spurred her into a frenzy of activity. She pulled every curtain shut, stacked furniture against every window and door, stripped all the bedding, pulled all her clothes from her hangars, and slammed them into the washing machine, hoping to get rid of every single last particle of him. She pulled her mattress from the bed, and used it to block the bathroom door off, hoping that if X decided to break in again through the broken window, the temporary barrier would give her enough time to escape out the front door.

As the bundled clothes and sheets spun around in the washer, she found a hand held-mirror, and carefully stuffed a tampon up each nostril, watching, aghast, as two black eyes bloomed in her swollen face.

And then, another letter came. It slid under her front door like a snake, and Laura watched it, whimpering.

Dear Laura,

Now you know that I’m not lying, don’t you? I’m sorry about your face. I couldn’t let you take my photo to the Police. I thought we were building trust, Laura. Now it feels like we’ve gone back a step.

I was upset by your letter, Laura. The one you wrote when you moved out. Did you think I wouldn’t follow you? That is not how this works. You don’t get to write the letters, because I’m the one that has what you want. You don’t get to tell me what to do. Only I get to make the rules.

I’ve decided to forgive you for not trusting me, but in exchange for the next clue, and as a way of proving to me how sorry you are, I need something special.