Chapter 7: Rachel
Rachel picked up on the first ring.
"Tell me everything," she said.
"Start from the app."
I was sitting at my kitchen table with a coffee I had barely touched and a folder Daniel had dropped off the night before — printed card records, the reservation slip, screenshots of the Reddit thread, and the two messages Marcus had sent.
I had organized them in the order they happened.
Old habit from a job that required me to present things clearly.
I told her everything.
The profile.
The texts.
The restaurant.
The dinner.
The check.
The card.
Carrie.
The thread.
The threat.
Rachel didn't interrupt.
She made small sounds that told me she was still there and still listening.
When I finished, there was a pause.
"How many women total?" she asked.
"Six confirmed so far.
Carrie is still reaching out.
There may be more."
"And the chargeback — your brother has documentation?"
"He sent it to me last night.
It's in the folder."
"The threat message — you screenshotted it before replying?"
"Yes."
"Good.
Don't reply again." A pause.
"The reply you sent — what did it say?"
"Two words.
'Too late.'"
A short silence.
"Okay.
That's fine.
Not ideal, but fine." I could hear her clicking through something on her end.
"Here's where we are.
The chargeback filing, if it was submitted falsely — meaning he claimed a service failure that didn't occur — that's potentially wire fraud.
Small dollar amount, but if it's a pattern, the pattern is what matters.
The fake name on a dating profile isn't a crime by itself.
But using a false identity to obtain something of value — meals, in this case, through a scheme — starts to look like fraud by deception depending on the state."
"He's operating across multiple states," I said.
"The Reddit thread has women from six cities."
"That changes the jurisdictional picture." More clicking.
"The threat to the restaurant — that's the most immediately actionable piece.
That's potentially extortion.
Do you know if he followed through on anything?"
"Not yet."
"Keep monitoring.
If anything happens to the restaurant — a false health complaint, a fake review campaign, anything — document it immediately." She paused.
"I want to be honest with you.
A single case of a bad date and a disputed check is hard to move on.
But six women, documented incidents across multiple states, a false identity, a chargeback fraud filing, and a threat?
That's a different conversation."
"What kind of conversation?"
"The kind where I make a phone call to a colleague at the FTC and another one to someone I know at the FBI's consumer fraud unit." She said it the way someone says something they have been thinking since the third sentence of your story.
"This sounds like it's been running long enough to have a real paper trail.
We just need to find it."
"Petra," I said.
"The woman from the Reddit thread.
She found a civil case.
A former business partner.
Three years ago."
"Send me her post.
Send me everything you have." A pause.
"And the women who confirmed — are they willing to give formal statements?"
"I'll ask today."
"Ask today," Rachel said.
"Before he figures out what's moving and tries to get ahead of it."
I looked at the folder on my table.
The reservation slip on top, booked under Daniel's name.
Marcus Teller sitting across from me in a restaurant he had researched, under a name he had invented, running a script he had rehearsed enough times that he delivered it without a single hesitation.
"Rachel," I said.
"How long do you think he's been doing this?"
May you like
She didn't answer immediately.
"Long enough," she said, "that he stopped thinking anyone would ever push back."
