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after about a week. The doctor recommended against it, but I couldn’t stand just sitting there doing nothing. So I went back to work. And, of course, every customer I faced usually had a barrage of questions for me because of the massive bruising, swelling, and stitches. I would explain the situation every time. I had no problem talking about it. Again, it was surprising that I was talking, but somehow I was. I had learned to talk without moving my jaw, kind of enunciating my words.

    After a few weeks of working and answering what became countless questions from customers and friends regarding what had happened, Melissa realized she couldn’t stay in Indiana. She needed to get the hell out; that scene was weighing heavily on her. She’d have to go somewhere else to recover and truly pick up her life again. Part of this was, obviously, an unconscious desire to get away from the memories of where her attack had taken place and the fear of this guy still walking the streets, roaming around. Melissa did not have a good picture of what he looked like, so he actually could be stalking her still and she would never know.
    For all intents and purposes, he could be a customer. Or a coworker? Maybe the guy at the local drugstore she saw from time to time? Perhaps the guy standing next to her at the supermarket? The mailman? The clerk at the dry cleaner’s counter? A former boyfriend? A former roommate?
    Mr. Anybody.
    â€œI wanted to go home,” Melissa said.
    Originally from Florida, she decided to head south and stay with her father, at least for a while. Her parents had Melissa later in life. Her brother had been eighteen, her sister sixteen, and both her parents in their forties when Melissa came along.
    â€œSo at this point they are already in their sixties and my grandmother is almost ninety,” Melissa explained. “I went. But my dad became even more overprotective than usual under the circumstances, which made it hard to go to the beach or mall.” These were two normal things Melissa looked forward to doing while back home in the Sunshine State.
    As Melissa figured out her place in Florida, under the watchful eye of her father, something was happening back in Indiana that would change everything eventually.

CHAPTER 15
    LUCKY TO BE ALIVE
    Becky Buttram had been with the MCSD for over a dozen years by the time Melissa’s case came in. For Buttram, the case was personal. She’d been involved with the sex crimes division of the department for years and had seen the worst of the worst with regard to sex crimes. Yet, with Melissa’s case, it was such a rare thing to happen in this part of Indianapolis. Buttram was understandably concerned about the possible serial nature to it all. Someone who was that brazen to go in through a sliding glass door, not knowing what was beyond the door—if he didn’t know, that is—meant the guy had definitely done it before and was going to do it again. There was no doubt about this in Buttram’s mind. And it scared the detective.
    When Becky Buttram walked into Melissa’s apartment a few days after the crime, she was overwhelmed by the amount of blood inside the place.
    â€œI thought, ‘She’s lucky to be alive,’ ” the detective said later. “There was so much evidence left over there inside her apartment. I think because Melissa said to him, ‘Excuse me, I’m bleeding very badly,’ that [it] startled him. He didn’t expect that. It scared him.”
    Buttram ran a laser light around the apartment with a colleague to see if they could find any additional evidence, but nothing turned up. It was okay. They didn’t really need it, anyway. They had so much blood, fingerprints, and a few palm prints. There was enough to get started.
    â€œWe believe Melissa actually hit him and caused him to bleed, so we believed we had his blood.”
    Problem was, that sort of evidence was only as good as