Chapter Sixteen
“And so then I said ‘Get lost, asshole!’ And I threw the entire drink in his face!”
It was the following morning, and Dani sat across from Missy at Le Petit Dejeuner, their favorite brunch restaurant.
Missy forked a triumphant bite of eggs benedict into her mouth and chewed as Dani twisted her sweat-dampened hair up into a bun.
She and Missy had a standing brunch date once a month after their Sunday morning jog on the beach, and Dani was full and utterly exhausted.
She had stayed up way too late writing the night before and nearly canceled their brunch date.
Plus, she was still very much on edge after her phone call from Detective Owens.
It might have been a bad move to be out in public, but Dani was determined to keep living her life.
Matt had taken so much from her. He wasn’t going to take away bottomless mimosas too.
“Wow. So then what happened?” Dani asked, trying to sound interested.
“The guy got even more angry and the bouncer kicked him out.” Missy’s eyes narrowed as she finished her third mimosa. “What’s up with you today? You’re a million miles away.”
Dani sighed and scratched the back of her neck. “It’s nothing. I’m just dealing with some personal stuff.”
“Spill it,” Missy said, waving down their server. “S’cuse me, sir? Can I get another mimosa?”
“I don’t really want to …”
“Come on. We’re friends! You can tell me.” Missy held her glass up for a refill as a server walked past their table.
The server turned to Dani’s cup, but she waved it away. “No thank you. I’m all set.”
“Only one mimosa,” Missy said, shaking her head. “Something is definitely wrong.”
“It’s just … something from my past is kind of coming back to haunt me, and there’s nothing I can really do about it but wait.”
“Oooh, what is it? A scandal?” she asked. “Did you embezzle a bunch of money or something?”
“No.” Dani frowned. “Nothing like that.”
“Well, don’t leave me in suspense. What happened?”
“I’ve only ever talked about this to my therapist and my aunt,” Dani said.
“I’m listening.”
Dani let out a long, slow sigh. She didn’t tell this story often.
The only way she had been able to survive all these years was to leave Dani Kincaid in the past, soaked in blood and trauma.
She had to leave that terrified teenager behind in order to become Danielle Spencer, college professor and functional adult.
She had to move on from her past in order to just fucking live.
But if Vickers was really back, then she would have to confront all of that again.
She took a deep breath. When it came to the true story of her life, Dani wanted to choose her words wisely.
“The summer after I graduated high school, I was working at this video rental store. There was this guy that would come in and he was a total creep. His name was Matt—Matt Vickers. He became fixated on me and, unbeknownst to me, had been stalking me for months.” Dani cleared her throat and took a sip of water.
“Well, he came into the store one night and asked me out on a date. I turned him down, and then he killed my coworker and my boyfriend.”
“What?” Missy put down her glass, her mouth open slack into a wide O.
“Then he chased me. I tried to get help from a man who was fishing, but Matt killed him too.”
Dani’s throat closed. It was always difficult for her to discuss that time in her life, even all these years later. She could usually discuss the details of her own assault, but talking about the loss of her parents nearly broke her.
“You don’t have to keep going.” Missy slid her hand along the table and gave her wrist a squeeze.
“No, it’s okay.” Dani wiped at her eyes. “He jumped into the ocean that night and got away. Well, he didn’t jump, he attacked me and I sort of dodged him and he fell.”
Missy shook her head. “That’s so awful!”
Dani sighed. “He was on the run for a while. I had to delay college, and I spent months learning self-defense, just waiting for him to come back. And then, one day when I finally got the courage to go out and try to do something like a normal teenager again, he killed another one of my friends. And then he killed my parents and attacked me.”
“Oh my god,” Missy said. “Dani, I had no idea.”
“It’s really painful to talk about,” she said. “I changed my name and moved across the country to live here with my aunt after it happened. I put him in the hospital the night that he killed my mom and dad, but really, I wished I killed him. The cops stopped me before I had the chance.”
“That’s heavy. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Dani said. “It’s not really something you want everyone to know about, you know?”
“So no one knows that this happened to you?” Missy asked.
“My aunt knows. Everyone back home knows. No one here knows about it, though.” Dani shrugged. “I had a counselor that I talked to for a while, but it didn’t help. Even before all this happened, I didn’t exactly like to discuss my feelings with people.”
“So did the guy get the death sentence? He’s in solitary confinement at least, right?”
Dani shook her head. “No. Um … I really shouldn’t say.”
“It’s okay! You can tell me,” Missy said. “You clearly need someone to talk to about this.”
A shuddering sob threatened to burst forth from Dani’s throat. She’d held in her tears for twenty-five years. Surely she could get through this brunch. She swallowed down a ball of grief and regret and struggled to regain her composure.
“I heard from a reputable source that my attacker might have escaped. I’m worried that he’s going to try and find me.”
Missy sat up straight and glanced out onto the crowd of dining brunchers.
They were seated outside the restaurant on a paved patio area overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.
A soft, warm breeze blew in salt-kissed air from the sea as hungry gulls cackled overhead.
By all accounts, it was a beautiful day in paradise where nothing could go wrong.
“Won’t the police give you extra protection then?” Missy’s face was pinched in an expression of worry.
Dani shook her head. “It’s all being covered up. I’m not even supposed to know about it. My source says I shouldn’t worry, but I can’t help it.”
“Well, there must be something you can do.”
“I don’t know. I locked down my house, but I’m due back to work tomorrow. Even though there are security guards, I don’t feel like the college is entirely safe. I might end up taking a leave of absence and heading to the mountains with my aunt until this all blows over.”
“Wow. Well you should definitely do what you feel is best. Let me know if I can help,” Missy said.
“Actually, I probably shouldn’t hang out with you again until I know he’s back in state custody. On the off chance that he does find out where I live, he’ll stop at nothing to get to me. Anyone that gets in his way is in danger.”
“Oh.” Missy’s eyes grew wide as she glanced around the patio. “Do you think I’m in danger?”
“No. Not now, anyway. But I think we should probably hold off on meeting up for runs for the time being.”
“Bummer.” Missy sighed. “Well, I wish I could do something to help. This whole thing sounds like a nightmare.”
“It is. But I’ve lived through this nightmare before. I just have to be smart about my next steps.”
The server came, and they paid for their brunch bill and said their goodbyes.
Dani knew in her heart as they embraced that it was probably going to be the last time she would see Missy, not because she didn’t like her, but for her own good.
It made her sad to know that she was going to have to let go of one of the only friends she had made in her adult life.
It was a price she had to pay for starting over.
She already did it once before, only this time, she was glad to do it again.
Dani drove down Gulf Shore Boulevard with the windows closed, wishing her life wasn’t so fucked up.
Tourists still flocked to her town that time of year, flooding the sidewalks that lined the beachfront restaurants as though it were Times Square.
She should have been breathing in the salty sea air and enjoying the beautiful scenery, not mentally prepping for war.
So long as there was a chance that He could show up, she would never be able to relax.
Dani scanned the sea of bodies as she crawled through the congested traffic, her pulse quickening as she saw her attacker in the face of every man.
What would Matt Vickers look like now, nearly fifty years old and hardened by two and half decades behind bars? Part of her knew deep down that soon, she would likely find out. The only questions were where he would show his face and when.
The Gulf of Mexico sparkled on the horizon as she steered back toward town, but the promise of relaxing in paradise was long gone.
She couldn’t escape the sand and water, whether she was in California or Florida, just like she couldn’t escape the memory of that summer so many years ago.
Everything had changed, and nothing had changed at all.
She was smarter, stronger, and faster. But deep inside, she was still afraid.
And Dani knew if she didn’t put her fear to bed, then it would do her in for good.