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Chloe grimaced as she glanced around the small apartment.
She wasn't the most organized person, but even she could admit to what a disaster the living room had become over the past few hours. Crumpled napkins and discarded takeout containers littered the coffee table. Files and papers covered every other surface. It didn't help that she had haphazardly transferred the clothes that had been on the chair to the kitchen table.
Chloe took another sip of her margarita, savoring the sweet tartness. It might not make sense to others, but she lived a healthy lifestyle so that could indulge in cocktails like the one in her hand. Unfortunately, the tequila was doing little to dull the unease that had settled over her. Phoebe seeing the ghost of a random woman had never happened before.
Phoebe suddenly shifted in her seat, causing Chloe to spill some of her drink.
"Sorry," Phoebe murmured as she returned to the present. Chloe groaned before she pushed herself off the couch to change sweaters yet again. "I just remembered something. Jenna got in trouble the weekend before she died."
Chloe set what was left of her margarita on the coffee table.
"What kind of trouble? At school? With your parents?" Chloe began to walk down the short hallway to her bedroom. "Keep talking. I'm just going to grab a sweatshirt."
"Jenna told my parents that she was going to the movies with Olivia. That cover story got blown to pieces when Olivia and her mother walked into the yarn shop."
Chloe grabbed the hem of her oversized sweater as she walked into her bedroom. She pulled the thick material over her head before dropping the garment on top of her hamper on her way to her closet.
"If Jenna wasn't with Olivia, where was she?" Chloe called out loud enough so that Phoebe could hear the question. Chloe couldn't find her favorite sweatshirt. She had no choice but to settle on a long-sleeved shirt instead. "FYI, I would have been grounded for a month if I had pulled a stunt like that."
Chloe walked over to her jewelry box. She slid off her bracelets and tucked them inside one of the drawers. Just as she went to turn to walk out of her bedroom, something caught her eye out the window. Unlike the curtains in the living room, the ones in the bedroom weren't sheer. The only reason that she had even noticed the dark silhouette standing across the street was that she hadn't closed the curtains all the way.
"Mom and Dad's anniversary is in April. Jenna and I had taken a picture of their first date to one of the local artists at the waterfront. We were having a painting made for them. Jenna had gone to pick it up, but she hadn't wanted Mom and Dad to know where she was going. At least, that is the excuse she used at the time. It doesn't make sense, though. She was gone for hours that day. It shouldn’t have taken more than thirty minutes."
Chloe shivered as a chill of fear shot her.
Someone was watching them.
Seeing as she wasn't the one who had visions of apparitions, she was confident the individual across the street was real. She remained standing near her jewelry box, thinking over her options. It would be so much easier to identify the male subject if he would simply step underneath the streetlamp. She doubted he would do so, but that didn't mean Phoebe wouldn't recognize his frame. Phoebe had been born and raised in Bar Harbor. Maybe there was something about the man that stood out.
Hoping that he didn't catch the fact that she had noticed him, Chloe began to slowly walk away from the window until she reached her bedroom door. She then sprinted down the hallway before stopping short of the living room. She waved frantically to capture Phoebe's attention.
"Pheebs!" Chloe whispered, waving her hands above her head. She stopped mid-wave. The man outside couldn't hear her. "Phoebe!"
"What?" Phoebe asked as she turned around with her hand over her heart. She had been walking toward the kitchen. "Why are you yelling?"
"There is someone..." Chloe held up a hand, recalling the last time she told Phoebe not to look at someone. "Listen, don’t move. Not a muscle. Clear?”
Chloe waited for Phoebe to slowly nod her understanding.
“Someone is standing across the street, staring into my windows. We need to play it cool so that he doesn't realize that we know he is out there."
Phoebe's gaze darted in the direction of the window, but she remained standing in front of the refrigerator. It wasn’t long before she gave a directive.
"Grab the camcorder."
"Now who is the genius," Chloe muttered as she straightened her shoulders and finally moved from her position. She did her best to casually walk over to the coffee table where she had placed the camcorder. "I don't think he can see this far into my apartment, but just in case, pretend you're writing something on the whiteboard."
While Chloe made sure the camcorder was on and recording, Phoebe had set her empty beer bottle on the counter. She closed the short distance to the whiteboard and picked up the dry-erase marker. She was in the perfect position to peer through the sheer curtains.
"Ready?" Chloe asked as she turned around. "I'll pretend that something is wrong with the camcorder while I—Pheebs! What are you doing?"
"No one is there," Phoebe murmured as she closed the distance to the window. She parted the sheer curtains for clearer vision. "See? Are you sure you didn't just see someone walking down the sidewalk?
"No, there was someone definitely looking up at my windows." Chloe stood shoulder to shoulder with Phoebe as they scanned the area, but there was no one to be found. "He was facing this direction and standing completely still."
"I believe you." Phoebe bit her lip before fessing up to something earlier in the day. "I thought I saw someone watching us when we were at Derek's house today."
"Thought?"
