Chapter Twenty-One
“We found you, Dani Kincaid! The world is going to know about you!”
The man with the camcorder was shorter than her with a slight frame, young enough to be one of her college students and old enough to know better.
It had been a long time since she had heard her real name.
He stared at her, triumphant with a shitty grin, pleased to have found a chink in her armor.
Deep down, Dani always knew it would be a matter of time before she got doxxed.
“Who sent you!” She demanded, her voice wavering.
“Patriot Truths with Tyler,” he said. “We track down lying bitches like you and show the world who you really are.”
“Jesus.” She shook her head and pulled her phone from her pocket. “Well, Tyler, I hope your YouTube channel was worth going to jail for.”
“Good,” he said. “Call the cops. It’s about time you were behind bars for putting an innocent man in jail.”
Dani kept one hand on her keychain mace canister and both eyes on the cameraman as she dialed campus security.
“Here she is folks,” he laughed, the camera still pointed at her. “This is what your tax dollars are paying for. For criminals like her to walk free, while an innocent man wastes away in prison.”
“Who still uses VHS anyway?” she shouted at him.
Dani maintained her cool as a cucumber facade and dialed campus security.
What she wanted to do was charge him; to put her fist through his teeth and smash his video footage to ribbons.
Even though she was thirsty for revenge, taking it out on this man wasn’t the answer, and would likely just land her behind bars.
That’s what he wanted anyway. A reaction from her.
Another reason to demonize her. Well, she wasn’t going to let him have it.
She called in the complaint and within minutes, two armed officers were on the scene.
Dani expected the man to run away as soon as security arrived, but he stood his ground, letting the vintage camera equipment roll and capture the whole scene.
His shitty, self-righteous expression melted into one of shock and surprise as they placed him in the back of their cruiser.
As they closed the door, locking him in, her adrenaline reserves gave out, and the sense of panic she had pushed down threatened to surface.
This wouldn’t be the end of it. There would be others. There were always others.
“Did he hurt you at all, Professor Spencer?” Officer Leeland gave her a reassuring smile and placed a hand on Dani’s shoulder.
She shook her head. She had only spoken to the broad-shouldered campus security guard a few times in passing, nodding polite “hello’s”.
She didn’t even know that he knew her name.
The other officer stood by the cruiser interviewing the man with the camera.
“No,” Dani said. “I think he’s been stalking me though.”
“Tell me what happened.” Officer Leeland gave her another good-guy smile. Dani flinched and glanced at the man in the back of the cruiser. He glared at her as she gave her report.
“I’ve been getting some threats, and just an overall uneasy feeling like I was being watched.”
“What kind of threats?”
Dani bit her lip and thought about Officer Owens. How much should she tell this officer about her past? About who she really is? Who could she really trust? Before she could respond, the other officer approached and tapped Officer Leeland on the shoulder.
“I ran the ID on this guy,” she said. “Tyler Evans. He’s got an outstanding warrant, so we’re gonna take him in.”
Officer Leeland nodded. “Well, Professor, looks like you helped us catch a bad guy.”
Dani’s gaze flicked to the cruiser. Tyler wasn’t looking at her anymore. “Wow. Okay.”
“We’ll be in touch if we need anything else from you,” Officer Leeland said.
“So that’s it?”
The officers exchanged glances. “Yep. Take care now.”
Dani dusted herself off, unsurprised. Of course that’s all that they would do.
She spied the scrunchie in the dirt, picked it up and pocketed it as the officers drove away.
She was invigorated once more by her desire for revenge.
Her sleepless haze had broken, her mind fully alert as pure, unfiltered anger tapped against her skull.
The VHS tape. The scrunchie. He had been trying to intimidate her, but she won.
She was smart enough to know that this was only the beginning, though.
There would be more armchair conspiracy theorists and podcast gods coming after her.
More accusations. More stalkers. It was time for her to move on again.
She kept one eye on her rearview as she drove, and the nerve in the center of her forehead began to tick. She massaged the tense areas of her face with her fingertips, but the nerve spasms wouldn’t stop.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
With every anxious pulse that throbbed between her eyes, her anger at the man who had ruined her life only grew.
Why did these internet randos feel the need to torture her?
Why bring up the past again? Maybe this was really the end of it, and Vickers and the other inmates were dead at the bottom of some ravine.
Even though the police weren’t doing jack shit to protect her, Dani had once again taken care of the problem on her own. Why didn’t she feel at ease though?
She needed to calm down. It was only normal; after being in an altercation like that, anyone would feel nervous.
She needed sugar, fat, and salt; something delicious to help her feel better and boost her serotonin levels, and she needed to do it before night fell.
But what if Tyler wasn’t working alone? What if he had already doxed her online, and an army of angry men were on their way to expose her, to harass her, or worse?
Dani knew if she was out after dark, her safety would be even more compromised than normal.
She considered the possibility of leaving town right then and there, but she was in no state to make the twelve hour drive across state lines.
She needed one last night of rest to clear her head and think.
It would be easy enough for Dani to say goodbye to this false life she had created.
She never wanted to be a self-contained, neurotic loner.
This hard, closed-off persona wasn’t really her; it was who Matt Vickers shaped her to be.
Her real life, the one she was always meant to live, waited for her on the other side of the state line, high up in the north Georgia mountains.
She would put in her notice at the school, put her house up on the market and fall off the grid, just as she had always planned.
She had managed to cosplay as Danielle Spencer all these years, but she knew when to call it quits.
It was time for a new beginning somewhere far, far away.
Dani pulled into the grocery store parking lot near her college and parked, every cell in her body buzzing.
She rarely visited this shopping plaza, especially during the school year.
It was best not to patronize restaurants or businesses near campus unless she was on her lunch break so she could avoid the awkwardness of running into a student.
That night, she didn’t care about the store’s proximity to the college.
Even if she did run into a student, it wouldn’t matter; Dani doubted she would ever set foot back on campus ever again.
She scanned the shopping plaza parking lot as she exited her car, on the lookout as always for figures lurking in the shadows.
Dani gripped her keys in her hand like makeshift Wolverine claws and walked through the automatic double doors.
She was greeted with a blast of arctic air conditioning as Phil Collins crooned over the intercom and her shoulders tensed.
Phil was right. She could feel something in the air that night.
Dani grabbed a basket with a trembling hand and made a beeline for the potato chip aisle.
She mindlessly reached for a bag of extra crunchy sour cream and onion chips, her body on autopilot as she wandered toward the bakery for her next score; two dozen chocolate chip cookies and an entire key lime pie.
She loaded the treats into her basket and paused at the wall of wine on her way to the checkout line.
She picked up a bottle of pinot noir and then put it back.
Even though Dani wanted to properly celebrate her decision to leave her job and blow up her entire life, she still needed to stay sober and sharp.
“Looks like somebody is having a party.”
Dani gasped and turned at the voice. She placed a hand on her chest, and her alarm instantly melted into pure embarrassment.
“Oh my gosh. Ethan. Hi.”
“Sorry if I startled you,” he said, pushing a pair of dark-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose. The glasses must have been a new back to school addition. The thick frames made him look even more adorable and professor-like somehow.
She blushed despite herself. “It’s okay, I’m just beat. First day back is always tough.”
“Yeah, no kidding. I was just about to drown my sorrows too.” Ethan plucked a bottle of chianti from the wall. An expensive bottle.
She glanced in his basket and spied a package with two steaks and a bagged salad. “Looks like you’ve got a date, too.”
“Nah, just me. Apparently a guy can’t just buy a single steak around here.” Ethan scoffed. “I guess chianti would pair well. What were you going to get?”
“Oh, I changed my mind.” Dani let out a nervous laugh. “I mean, I was going to, but I figured it would be better if I didn’t drink alone.”
“Maybe you just need some company then.” Ethan held up his basket. “You like steak?”
“Oh! Oh no, I couldn’t.” Heat rose to her cheeks. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
Ethan glanced down at her over the top of his glasses, his lips curled into a playful smile. “It’s not an imposition. Come on, you can help catch me up on all of the office gossip.”
“Thank you. I want to, but …”
“But what?”