Chapter Six
“Ithink I saw him.”
Dom Kincaid glanced at his daughter in the reflection of the rearview mirror as they drove home from the funeral that afternoon. New worry lines had carved their way into her father’s face over the past week, and his eyes were just as red and tired looking as Dani’s.
“Who?”
“Who do you think?” Dani swallowed. Saying the name Matt Vickers only left a bad taste in her mouth. “It was him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Mhmm.” Dani hugged her arms to her chest and stared out the window as they drove back toward home. “I saw someone hiding in the trees.”
“The place was surrounded by police.” Her mother turned to face her from the front seat. “Officer Owens said they set up a perimeter. If he showed his face at the funeral, they would have found him.”
“I’m afraid they’ll never find him,” Dani said. “It wasn’t just that I thought I saw him. I thought I … I thought I smelled him too.”
“You what?”
“His scent.” Dani puffed out an exasperated breath. “Whenever he came into the video store, he always had this overpowering cologne and sweat smell that made my stomach turn. I could swear I caught a whiff of it today.”
“A lot of people at the funeral were probably wearing cologne, sweetie,” her mother said.
“Besides,” her father said. “The medicine you're on makes you kinda loopy, doesn’t it?”
Dani rubbed her temple and stared at his squinty-eyed reflection in the rearview.
It was useless. Her parents didn’t believe her.
Her father had installed security cameras and an alarm system, but so long as her stalker was out there in the world, Dani would never feel safe.
And so long as her parents kept her medicated, she wouldn't have the energy or clarity to start living again.
“I don’t want to be all drugged up anymore. I can’t cry. I can’t think straight or even get out of bed.”
“That’s fine, honey,” her mother said. “But maybe we should talk to the psychologist at the hospital fir—”
“And I want to take some kind of self-defense training, too,” Dani interrupted. “I don’t know. Maybe even get something for protection to carry with me. A pocket knife or a gun, maybe. I dunno.”
Her mother frowned. “Do you really think carrying a weapon is a good idea? What about your mace?”
“I don’t usually like weapons either, but you weren’t there,” Dani said, sitting up a little straighter. “Mace isn’t enough protection. He was enormous. Unstoppable.”
“Well, I think self-defense classes are an excellent idea,” her father said, pulling into their driveway. “There’s that martial arts studio just outside of town. I’m sure we can get you a trial lesson or two.”
“Thanks, Dad.” She grabbed her backpack purse and scanned the neighborhood as she opened the car door.
Only one police car had followed them home from the funeral.
It wouldn’t be long until the Kincaid family was on their own again and without police protection.
Dani followed her parents inside and wiped a layer of sweat from her brow as the usually comforting scent of home greeted her.
Even though the police were right outside their door, Dani no longer had faith in the one place where she should have felt safest. She felt hot. Cagey. Trapped within herself.
“Hey, you got a letter,” her mother said.
Dani’s internal alarm system pinged. “From who?”
“Your Aunt Lisa.” Her mother sighed and handed her the envelope. “Probably sending you a check for graduation.”
Dani sighed. “Oh, thank goodness.”
“I don’t know if I would say it was good.” Her mother stuck her nose in the air. “I wouldn’t take that blood money if I were you.”
“Aw, Mom. She’s just trying to be nice.” Dani gave the envelope a half smile.
She hadn’t seen her Aunt Lisa in a long time, but she called often, mesmerizing her with tales about her adventures hiking around the world.
Aunt Lisa seemed like a cool lady, but it wasn’t a surprise that her conservative parents didn’t want anything to do with her.
“I’m going out back for a little while.”
“Okay, sweetie,” her mother called out. “Dinner’s at six.”
She hung her purse on a dining room chair and stared out into her back yard. Her home was surrounded by a fence, their sky blue swimming pool a haven against her father’s green, perfectly manicured lawn. A heat wave of shame flushed her skin. She needed to cool off.
The glass sliding door leading to their backyard was unlocked, as it usually was.
A sick feeling wormed into her gut as Dani realized how unsafe her home was.
Her entire life up to this point, she had many reasons to fear the world.
Even though her parents were anxious, they were also careless sometimes when it came to safety.
Some home security improvements were in order.
Dani stepped out onto the back porch and kicked off her shoes.
She stepped to the edge of their in-ground pool and stared into the sparkling water, her toes gripping the cement ledge.
The black dress her mother had gotten from Contempo Casuals was brand new, but she never intended to wear it again.
She needed a swim. She didn’t care about ruining her funeral dress or her hair or what her parents thought as she fell into the pool, face-first. Chlorinated water filled her eyes and nose and mouth as she sank into the bubbly blue.
She needed this baptism to wash away her sins.
Under the water, everything was finally silent. Weightless. Easy.
She could have floated in that blissful underwater cocoon forever, suspended and supported in the cool, cool blue, but her lungs began to scream.
Dani bobbed to the surface and floated on her back, trying to clear her mind.
She needed to find a way to live again without Matt Vickers haunting her every move, but whenever she closed her eyes, she saw his face.
He was waiting around every dark corner.
Hiding behind every tree. In the back seat of every car.
He could be watching her from behind the slats of her fence at that very moment, and she would never know.
Crunch.
The snap of a breaking twig pulled Dani out of her watery bliss.
She glanced around her perfect backyard, past the cushioned patio furniture, beyond her mother’s hibiscus hedge, her heart slamming in her chest as she searched for danger.
Her gaze landed on a shadowy corner behind the garden shed—the one she helped her father build when she was eleven.
Her pulse continued to speed at the thought of her stalker hiding out among the bags of potting soil and discarded plants.
He could be back there at that very moment, waiting to make his move.
Dani stepped out of the pool with all of her senses tingling, all cylinders firing in every nerve.
Rivers of water dripped from her hair and her funeral dress as she stepped out of the pool toward danger.
Soft blades of grass cushioned her footsteps as she made her way toward the shed.
She needed something to protect her. A weapon.
Her gaze landed on a shovel leaned up against the shed.
She grabbed the gardening tool and held tight to the rough wooden handle, forcing herself to move forward.
To face what was waiting for her in the shadows.
She held her breath and rounded the corner of the shed with the shovel held high.
A small brown squirrel skittered away from a pile of overturned broken pots. Dani let out a shuddered laugh as she lowered the shovel. It was nothing. Just her imagination.
“Dani! Dinner’s ready!”
She turned at the sound of her mother’s voice.
She wasn’t hungry, but it was time to go in anyway.
Dani placed the shovel back against the shed and took one last look at the darkened corner of her yard.
Her eyes caught a strange shape in the flowerbed near the shed. Was that a footprint in the dirt?
“Danielle, did you go swimming in your new dress?”
She turned her attention back to her mother.
“Yeah. Sorry. I was hot.”
“The chlorine will make it fade!” Her mother said in her disappointed voice.
Dani squeezed the water from her hair and shrugged her shoulders. “Everything fades in time.”
After changing out of her wet clothes and eating a tasteless dinner of chicken salad, Dani retreated to her bedroom.
Everything seemed to be perfunctory in the aftermath of the attack.
Eating. Bathing. Talking. It was impossible to care about anything, to feel anything but anger and fear.
There was no more comfort. No more hope. Just dread, agony, and sadness.
She flicked on her bedside table lamp and scrunched her nose in disgust. Her room stunk of dirty sheets and laundry.
All of the belongings she had intended to take with her to college were packed away in boxes, ready to be shipped.
All that remained was her library of books, her school awards, posters and the remnants of childhood things she had intended to leave behind.
Going away to school wouldn’t happen now.
Part of her wanted to go to college anyway, leave Santana Beach and start all over, but she was too afraid.
Dani knew that so long as he was at large, her life would be frozen in time with the walls of her family home as her sanctuary and her cell.
She would be a prisoner of her own mind.
No.
She had already lost so much. And for what?
Some delusional, murderous monster who had become fixated on her?
In that moment as she glanced around her childhood bedroom, Dani realized that she didn’t want to let this horrible thing that happened define the rest of her life.
She had a future planned out for herself that had nothing to do with her parents or Tommy or Matt Vickers or anyone.
She owed it to Tommy and Kyle and the fisherman to fight and carry on.
Nothing she could do would bring them back, but she owed it to them and herself to try and live the best way she knew how.
Her gaze flicked to the few items left on her bookshelf; a few trophies from elementary school, ceramic art class projects, and all four editions of her high school yearbooks.
She grabbed the large tome from her freshman year and turned to the graduating senior class of that year.
She flipped to Matt Vickers’ portrait and a sick feeling slithered into her gut.
His shark-like eyes stared back at her, dark and hungry.
His impossibly white teeth glowed against tan, freshly shaven skin.
His spiky blond hair glued stick-straight with gel, defying gravity.
She grabbed a permanent marker and slashed the felt-tipped pen across his face over and over again until he was nothing but a black smudge.
Dani blew a layer of dust from the other yearbooks and began to go through each one.
High school had been everything to her. Her clubs and academic accomplishments.
Friends and boyfriends, Tommy, most of all.
As she turned each page, Dani realized that her high school years had been artificial.
The girls linked arm-in-arm with her in candid photos began to drift away even before the attack.
Lisa. Tiffany. Ashley. Talisha. They had all whispered secrets, declared allegiance as friends or best friends.
Now that she had a target on her back, could she really blame them for staying away?
Finally, she flipped to the senior portraits section, immediately knowing where to locate Tommy’s page.
Her heart broke all over again as his face smiled up at her.
She hadn’t deserved his love and affection.
And he didn’t deserve to die. Dani ripped out his page, folded it, and stuck it in one of her packed boxes, then took the rest of the yearbooks to the living room.
She lit a fire in their hearth and fed the yearbooks to the flames, one by one.
She waited by the fireplace and watched as the edges of the yearbooks curled and turned to ash.
The past was done and she wasn’t going to look back.
Dani returned to her room, laid flat on her bedroom floor and envisioned herself taller.
Stronger. More confident. She was tired of being cooped up in the house and afraid all the time.
Self-defense classes were starting to sound more and more like a good idea.
Her thoughts were still a little fuzzy from the medication, but her next dose was due soon and she could feel the effects of the drugs wearing off.
Maybe a little bit of activity would sharpen her up again.
Still wearing her damp funeral dress, Dani engaged her core muscles and sat up with all her might.
One. Two. Three. Four …
Dani crunched and lunged and squatted. She pushed up on her bedroom floor until her biceps burned. She whipped herself into a frenzy of jumping jacks and aerobics. She pushed herself until her forehead glistened with sweat and she was too tired to fight anymore.