The end credits rolled and Dani rose from the couch and shuffled toward her old bedroom. She flipped off the TV and covered her aunt with a blanket, trying not to disturb her. Her aunt rarely got restful sleep, so Dani was mindful to let her doze. Lisa’s head rolled to the side, exposing the prominent “X” tattooed on her neck. She never asked her aunt what the tattoo meant, if it meant anything at all. Aunt Lisa had her secrets too, and Dani tried to respect that.
Even though she hadn’t lived with her aunt since college, she still kept the spare bedroom ready for her so she always had a soft space to land. In a world where she didn’t have anyone else to depend on but herself, Dani was still happy to have the safety net of her aunt’s familiar home.
Dani flopped down on the twin bed with a belly full of pizza and her heart full of anxiety. She ran away from her old life all those years ago to the other side of the country to escape the horrific truth about her past, yet, it never really left her. She could have moved to Antarctica and it still wouldn’t have felt far enough away from the person she used to be. She still looked for her attacker in every dark parking lot, around every shadowy corner. Dani closed her eyes and let her thoughts drift back to better times, when life was carefree and the future still had so much promise.
“Whatcha got planned for today?” Lisa slid a fried egg on to a plate and passed it across the counter to Dani the following morning.
Dani sat opposite of her, a cup of steaming black coffee in hand. “I’ve got that screenplay I’ve been working on. Probably do a little work in the garden.”
“That sounds nice.” Lisa served herself an egg and took a seat next to Dani. “Are we still on for Thanksgiving at the cabin?”
“Mhmm. I’ve got the whole week off. We should be able to make some headway clearing out the front of the property.”
“Good,” Lisa said. “I should have the driveway patched up by then. It was all full of potholes at the beginning of summer. Spring rains washed out all the gravel.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Dani cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking of leaving at the end of this semester.”
“Oh?”
“I would have to break my contract with the school,” Dani said. “But I don’t want to wait any longer. I’m ready to get out of here.”
“Well you let me know when you’re ready. Where you go, I go. Sandy Jenkins next door has been itching to get her hands on my unit. Her sister will move in here in a heartbeat, you just say the word.”
“Christmas would be nice at the cabin,” Dani mused. “Think they get snow there?”
Lisa nodded. “The man who sold me the plot said they see a few inches every year.”
“I’ll think about it some more,” Dani said. “I still have so much to get in order, and I hate to leave people hanging. Something is telling me to get out of here though.”
“Always trust your gut, girl.” Lisa lowered her voice and rubbed at the smooth, pink scar that ran along the length of her forearm. “Your gut never lies.”
Dani nodded in agreement, her heart clenching. Her aunt rarely showed any hint of vulnerability, and never talked about the source of her angry-looking scar. Dani knew not to pry too much when it came to her aunt’s past. Lisa Spencer was tough on the outside, but soft inside, and it took a lot to crack through that shell. Dani looked up to her and knew that if her aunt could walk through hell and come out the other side, she could too.
She ate the last bite of her eggs, took one last sip of coffee and rinsed her plate in the sink. “Well, I won’t keep you. Thanks for letting me stay last night.”
“Any time.”
Dani leaned in and gave her aunt a side hug, grabbed her bag and headed toward the door. Normally, she would have been happy to spend the weekend with her aunt chatting and drinking too much coffee, but watching Ethan’s film lit a fire under her again. After two decades of teaching, writing screenplays under apen name, she had begun to lose steam. The screenplay she was currently working on was her most personal work yet, her last shot at making it before she officially retired into the woods with Lisa. She was determined to finish this last story—herstory—for no one else but herself.
Dani lived in a gated community with a 24-hour security guard, a fact that she didn’t exactly love, but felt was necessary just the same. Her newer model three bedroom, two bathroom home was clean and efficient and outfitted with a security system straight out of a sci-fi movie. She lived alone, never with roommates, and even though she wanted to have a companion pet of some kind, Dani knew that she couldn’t. The possibility of Matt somehow returning to torture her always tapped at the back of her mind, and she couldn’t bear to put anyone including a beloved pet in his path.
She drove up to her mailbox and checked her mail, something she hadn’t done in a few days. Dani tossed the stack of bills, junk mail, and a small yellow envelope on the passenger seat as she entered through the garage. When she was certain that the garage door was closed, Dani grabbed the metal baseball bat she kept mounted on the garage wall and slowly entered her kitchen. Even though she regularly monitored her interior and exterior security footage, Dani always took precautions when it came to entering her home. She padded quietly through the kitchen, toward the living room, then gave her bedrooms and bathrooms a once-over before she could allow herself to relax.
When Dani moved in over a decade ago, she had ensured that her home was intruder-proofed to the max. Every inch of her house and home decor had been thoughtfully considered, from clear plastic shower curtains to a bed frame that sat on the floor, leaving no hiding space underneath. She even removed all of the closet doors in all of the bedrooms and kept them stored in the garage. No curtains on windows, only blinds. No furniture thatwould be large enough to obstruct her view. She made sure that there would be nowhere for an intruder to hide if they happened to somehow bypass her security system. No place for her mind to wander and worry if someone was lurking in the shadows.
She changed into a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers and made a pot of coffee to prepare for her writing session. Dani grabbed a granola bar and her biggest mug full of black coffee and settled down in her office. All summer break she had been working on this screenplay and the first draft was finally almost complete. This particular story was a departure from her usual work, and she had to drag every last word out of her soul.
For the last decade, Dani had spent her summers writing fun and fluffy romcom screenplays under a pseudonym for a cable television network. She counted herself lucky to have broken into the entertainment business at all, and she didn’t expect to win any big accolades or make a name for herself from her work. The money from those screenplays helped pay for her home (and her therapy), and while Dani loved all genres of film, her real passion had become horror. There was something therapeutic about watching the real horrors of her life play out on the big screen.
As it turned out, getting words on the page from her own made-for-TV movie wasn’t as easy as she thought. Every time she tried to dive into the story inspired by her own real-life events, her hands locked up and refused to type. Now as the twenty-fifth anniversary of her attack neared, Dani knew that she had to get it out there. Her story needed to be told.
The sunlight through her office window danced along the floor, creeping along as one hour became two and then three. Finally, when her stomach began to complain around noon, Dani stood to stretch and admire the nearly ninety pages she had completed. Her cell phone buzzed on the desk and she glanced at it, surprised to see an unknown number. Like all ofthe other precautions she took, Dani made sure that her phone number was unlisted. She watched her phone ring and waited as it went to voicemail. She picked up the phone, punched in her passcode, and held it to her ear. The fine hairs on the back of her neck bristled as a voice she hadn’t heard in a long time echoed through the phone.
“Dani, Detective Owens here. I need you to call me at this number as soon as you can. Something has happened, and I can’t explain it on my official business line. Please call me back.”
Click.
Dani held the phone away from her face and stared at the black screen, unable to breathe. There was only one reason that Janet Owens would be calling her now—the one reason that she always feared would come true. She selected the unknown number from her list of calls and pushed the green phone icon. It only rang once before Detective Owens picked up.
