didn’t realize how angry she was at him for not warning her. He’d grown so used to the constant harassment that it was no longer a big deal to him. While they remained in touch, their friendship cooled, and their rendezvous during Omaha’s coldest days of 2014 was to be their last romantic encounter.
A few months later, Dave invited Liz along to keep him company when he drove to Sioux Falls to see family and friends. It was a casual visit, he remembers, stressing that it was not a special trip to introduce his girlfriend to his parents. He still had no desire for a commitment. After Heather’s unfortunate visit, some of his friends snidely referred to Liz as “Dave’s Wednesday Girl,” though most weeks she managed to see him on additional days not allotted to her.
Dave and Liz stopped by Tayandy’s house. They’d first met as children, when Tay was best friends with Dave’s older cousin. One day, when the girls were playing together, they were asked to sit on the porch and keep an eye on Dave. “Dave was in diapers,” Tay remembers. She would know him forever, and they would grow up to be good friends, but her first impression of him was forever tattooed upon her memory banks. He was an adorable tyke with sunrays highlighting the ginger tones of his hair as he toddled around the yard. She would always think of him as a little brother.
Tay warmly welcomed Dave and Liz and would have been surprised to realize that Liz was jealous of her. An attractive blonde, Tay is a mother of two and has been married to her husband, David, since 1998. The walls of her home are adorned with photos of her kids and pets, and it should have been obvious to anyone visiting that her life was grounded in her family. After a pleasant visit, Tay walked them to the door and casually mentioned to Liz that she should come back sometime. It wasn’t an actual invitation, just something polite that hostesses say without expecting to be taken seriously. Tay would come to regret her good manners.
Not long after the visit, Tay received an email from Dave, and when she opened the attachment, she was shocked to find herself watching a sex video starring Dave and a dark-haired woman whose face was not visible. Annoyed, Tay called Dave and demanded, “Why did you send me that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied.
She sent the video back to him, and he recognized the images. He was aware that Liz had used her phone to record a few seconds of intimacy between them, but he wasn’t thrilled to learn that the X-rated flick was being sent to his friends. He figured that the stalker had hacked into Liz’s phone and accessed the naughty movie. A few weeks later, Tay was looking forward to relaxing at home with her husband in the upcoming weekend when she got an unexpected call from Liz, who asked, “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Not much,” Tay answered honestly. “Just hanging out here.” Before Tay realized what was happening, her polite “invitation” from weeks earlier had come back to haunt her. Liz had taken the invitation literally and announced she wanted to visit for the entire weekend. Though disappointed that her plans were ruined, Tay always put other people’s feelings first. She told Liz she was welcome to come, explaining now, “I didn’t want to be rude.”
Liz soon arrived with her packed bags but seemed surprised to find a house full of people. “I think she thought I was going to be alone here, because my husband often works away from home overnight. Also, she didn’t realize that my father-in-law had moved in with us. I went around and introduced Liz to everyone, and she did not seem at all impressed. She asked, ‘So, where are we going to go spend girl time?’ I said, ‘Here!’ I had no intentions of going anywhere else. Where did she think we should go? To a bar? I’m not a big drinker, and I didn’t want to go to a bar.”
“Girl time” would just have to take place at Tay’s kitchen table. Tay poured coffee as Liz launched into a monologue about “Crazy Cari.”
“She said she was frustrated because Dave wouldn’t do anything to stop Cari from stalking them, and she had to get out of town for a while because the whole thing was stressing her out.” She told