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But she was home, and she needed to heal.
Weeks later, after she’d finally been released from doctor’s care, she woke up in the middle of the night, certain someone had been standing at the foot of her bed. After a frantic search of the apartment without finding any sign of an intruder, she tried to convince herself she could have been dreaming, even though every instinct she had knew she’d seen Tony Bing. And in that moment, she made a desperate decision.
She bought a gun.
She’d hunted with her father all her life. She knew how to use one.
And the day she picked up the gun, she came home with a plan. She began rearranging everything inside her walk-in closet, then made a bed on the floor inside with a pile of quilts.
Then she stuffed pillows beneath the covers of her actual bed to make it look as if she was in bed asleep. That night when it was time for bed, she went into her closet with her phone and gun, and slept on the floor. Tony Bing liked to play games, and Dani had just changed the rules in her favor.
Five nights came and went without issue, and then on the sixth night, it started to rain. Thunder crashed, followed by the occasional spike of lightning snaking across the sky, unloading a downpour drowning out the sounds of the city. That night when it was time to go to bed, the hair was standing up on the back of Dani’s neck. Call it intuition. Call it a sense of self-preservation. But she felt evil coming.
Just like every night, she crawled into her closet with her gun and her cell phone and closed the doors, but this night she didn’t lie down, and she had no intention of going to sleep. Instead, she sat within the silence, watching through the slats in the closet door, seeing the intermittent lightning flashes through the blinds on the windows, and the body shape she’d made of her pillows beneath the covers.
She sat in silence, heart pounding. Waiting. Knowing the devil was on his way, but not how or when he would appear.
It was just past 1:00 a.m. when Dani heard a muffled thump somewhere within her apartment. Her first thought wasHe’s here!Her second wasHow the hell is he getting into my apartment?
When she began hearing footsteps, and then that one squeaky board in the hall, she grabbed her phone and called 911.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”
“Someone is in my apartment,” Dani whispered.
The dispatcher quickly confirmed her address and apartment number and dispatched police. “Are you in a safe place?” the dispatcher asked.
“I’m in my bedroom, in my closet. He’s at the door now! I can hear him. I can’t talk anymore,” Dani whispered.
“The police are on the way. You don’t have to talk, but I’m still here, understand?”
“Yes,” Dani whispered, and then gasped, when she heard another squeak. Every time she opened the door to her bedroom, one of the hinges squeaked, and that was what she heard. “Oh God, oh God, oh God. He’s here,” she whispered into the phone, and went silent.
Even though she’d been expecting it, that squeak nearly stopped her heart. The gun was in her hand now, and she was on her knees, leaning forward, peering through the slats.
When the dark figure appeared beside her bed, her worst fears were realized.Tony! Oh my God, he has a gun!
Before she could think, he began firing. POP. POP. POP. And didn’t stop until he’d emptied the clip.
Tony felt an adrenaline kick when he began pulling the trigger. It was almost as good as coming inside her. Once he’d emptied the clip, he turned to run.And then the closet doors flew open, and he watched Dani emerge. In the dark, she was little more than a shadow, and for a heartbeat he thought he was seeing her ghost.
He saw the gun in her hand too late. Her first shot went into his right knee. Even before he felt the pain, she had a bullet in his other knee. He dropped into a spreading pool of his own blood, screaming and writhing in a pain unlike anything he’d ever known.
“Help me! Help me! I need an ambulance!” he shrieked.
Dani leaned over, pushed the barrel of her gun between his eyes, and in a voice devoid of emotion said, “You are a worthless piece of shit! Shut up now, or I’ll put the next one between your eyes.”
He passed out, saving his own life.
There was no misunderstanding about what had happened.
Dani’s neighbors had heard the succession of gunshots when Tony emptied his weapon into her bed.
A 911 dispatcher had heard every shot.
And more than a dozen calls were made to 911 by Dani’s neighbors on her behalf.
And there was no mistaking the sound of two other gunshots that came seconds later, or that Dani Owens had defended herself. She had stopped her stalker whenthe police could not, but her way of life had come to a grinding halt.
