I’m Being Charged With Threatening A Coworker In The Office. I’ve Been On Medical Leave In Another

The Shadow in the Garage

The third incident was dated December 19th. Olivia claimed I’d been waiting by her car in the parking garage when she left work at 6:15 p.m.

She said I’d approached her and asked why she was ignoring me, that I’d stepped closer when she tried to leave, and that she’d felt threatened enough to report it to her supervisor. Security footage was included.

I watched the timestamp: December 19th, 6:12 p.m. The video showed a figure in a dark jacket and baseball cap approaching Olivia’s car.

The quality was grainy, the lighting poor, but the person’s build and height were similar to mine. The figure waited for 3 minutes before Olivia appeared.

There was a brief interaction: Olivia backing away, the figure stepping forward, and then Olivia hurrying to her car and driving off. I couldn’t see the person’s face clearly.

The cap obscured most of their features, but the body language, the way they moved—it was disturbingly similar to how I carried myself.

The fourth incident escalated on December 23rd. Olivia reported receiving a series of text messages from an unknown number. The messages were included in the evidence:

“I saw you with your boyfriend yesterday. He doesn’t deserve you. You’re making a mistake ignoring me. I could make you happy. Why won’t you give me a chance? I’m not giving up on us.”

The texts had been sent from a burner phone, untraceable. Olivia had blocked the number, but more messages came from different numbers over the next week.

On January 6th, Olivia claimed she’d found a note on her car windshield. The note, photographed and included in evidence, was typed and printed:

“I think about you constantly. I know where you live. I know your routine. Stop pretending you don’t feel this connection too. We’re meant to be together.”

The final incident, the one that had triggered the restraining order and criminal charges, allegedly occurred on January 18th. Olivia claimed I’d confronted her in the parking garage again, this time at 7:45 p.m. when she was leaving late after a project deadline.

She said I’d blocked her path to her car, grabbed her arm when she tried to walk past, and told her:

“If you don’t stop playing games you’re going to regret this. I know where you live. I know everything about you. This ends when I say it ends.”

She’d screamed and a security guard had come running. By the time the guard arrived, the figure had fled.

Olivia had been hysterical. According to the guard’s statement, she’d filed a police report that night and obtained the restraining order the next day.

I read through everything twice, feeling sicker each time. Someone had orchestrated an elaborate campaign of harassment using my identity.

They’d sent emails from my account. They’d physically appeared at the office resembling me enough to be convincing on security footage.

They’d escalated the behavior over 6 weeks in a pattern that looked like classic stalking. And they’d done it all while I was 1500 miles away, immobilized with a broken leg.

Tracking the Imposter

Lang called me that evening.

“Nathan, I’ve reviewed the evidence. This is sophisticated identity theft combined with stalking. Someone went to significant effort to make this look like you. The question is, who and why?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know Olivia. I don’t have any enemies at work. I’ve been a software developer at Cascade for 6 years. I’m boring. I go to work, I code, I go home. This doesn’t make sense.”

“The emails are key. If they were sent from your work account, that means someone either hacked your credentials or had physical access to your computer. I’ve requested IT logs from Cascade showing all login activity on your account. We should be able to prove the emails weren’t sent by you.”

“What about the person in the parking garage—the one who looks like me?”

“That’s harder. The footage is too grainy for facial recognition, but we can use your medical records to show you couldn’t have been there. The dates of these alleged in-person confrontations correspond with documented physical therapy appointments in Phoenix. We have timestamped proof you were in another state.”

Over the next 3 days, Lang built our defense. She compiled medical records, witness statements, credit card transactions, and phone location data from my cell provider showing my phone had been in Arizona continuously since October.

The evidence was overwhelming. I couldn’t have been in Seattle, but someone had been there using my name and reputation to terrorize Olivia Kent.

On February 3rd, 5 days before the preliminary hearing, Lang received the IT logs from Cascade Analytics. She called me immediately, her voice tight with excitement.

“Nathan, we’ve got something. The IT logs show your email account was accessed from two locations during the period Olivia claims you were harassing her. One location was Phoenix, Arizona. That’s you checking your disability status updates. The other location was Seattle, but the IP address doesn’t match your home network or any device registered to you.”

“So someone else was logging into my account?”

“Yes. And the Seattle logins correlate exactly with the dates and times of the harassing emails. Whoever did this was using your credentials but from a different computer. This proves you didn’t send those emails.”

“Can it track whose computer it was?”

“They’re working on it. The IP address is registered to Cascade’s internal network, which means the person was logging in from inside the office. IT is cross-referencing the IP with device assignments to identify which computer was used.”

I felt hope for the first time in days. We were close to identifying who’d done this.

A Ghost from the Past

On February 5th, 3 days before the hearing, Lang called with an update.

“The IT department identified the computer. The harassing emails were sent from a workstation in the data analytics department. The computer is assigned to someone named Keith Brennan.”

My stomach dropped. Keith Brennan—I knew that name.

Keith had been my roommate in college almost 10 years ago. We’d been close friends our sophomore and junior years, living together in an off-campus apartment near the university.

But something had happened our senior year that had ended the friendship abruptly. There had been a woman, Stephanie, who I’d been dating casually.

Keith had been interested in her too, but she’d chosen to date me instead. Keith had taken it badly.

He’d become distant and resentful, making passive-aggressive comments about how I always got the girl and he was always the backup choice. The friendship had deteriorated over several months.

After graduation, we’d lost touch completely. I hadn’t spoken to Keith in almost 8 years. I explained this to Lang, my voice shaking.

“Keith works at Cascade? In the same company?”

“According to HR records, he was hired 7 months ago. Data analyst position, same department as Olivia Kent.”

The timeline clicked into place. Keith had been hired in June. Olivia had started in May. They’d have been working in the same department, possibly on the same team.

And Keith had access to my old college photos, knew my mannerisms, and could have studied how I moved and talked. He’d have known enough to impersonate me convincingly on grainy security footage.

“Why would he do this?”

I asked, though I already knew.