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She whispers to the camera. “It’s just past midnight, and I swear I heard a noise. I think—I think something’s inside the apartment.”
I let out a gasp. I know the noise she’s talking about. I’ve heard it as well. That ethereal sound, like the whisper of fabric.
On-screen, Erica looks over her shoulder. My gaze drifts there, too, searching the shadows, expecting to see someone waiting there, watching. When Erica turns back to the phone, she locks eyes with her own image on the screen. She seems unnerved by what she sees.
“I don’t know what’s going on here. This whole building. It’s not right. We’re being watched. I don’t know why, but we are.” She exhales. “I’m scared. I’m really fucking scared.”
A noise rises in the background.
A single knock on the door.
Erica jumps at the sound. Her eyes become as wide as silver dollars. Fear sizzles through them.
“Fuck,” she whispers. “It’shim.”
The screen suddenly goes black.
The video’s abrupt end is jarring. Like a slap to the face. Yanked back to reality, I realize I’m holding my breath and have been since the video started. When I do breathe again, it’s a slow exhalation. Beside me, Dylan leans forward, practically doubled over, as if he’s about to be sick. He takes a series of quick, shallow breaths.
“Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?” I say.
Dylan gulps before answering. “None. If she was feeling threatened by someone, she never told me about it.”
That word—threatened—makes me think of Ingrid. She definitely felt that way. For proof, one need look no further than the gun in a shoe box under my kitchen sink. I wonder if she grew to feel that way on her own or if Erica warned her. If so, I now understand why Ingrid was so afraid of the Bartholomew. Watching that video hasshaken me to my core. It’s not just what Erica said that disturbs me. It’s the way she looked. Like someone frightened beyond all reason.
“Dylan, I think we’re in real danger here,” I say. “Especially if we’re right and Ingrid vanished because she knew what happened to Erica.”
Dylan stays silent, his face pensive, almost passive. Finally, he says, “I think you should stop looking for them.”
“Me? What about you?”
“I know how to defend myself.”
Of that, I have no doubt. Dylan’s got the build of a bodyguard. Big enough to give anyone second thoughts about attacking.
“But I need to know what happened to them,” I say.
We have too much in common. Me, Ingrid, Erica, and Megan. All of us adrift, without parents or nearby relatives, somehow finding our way here. Now three of us are gone.
Unless I learn what happened to them, I fear that I might be next.
“This is serious shit we’re now dealing with,” Dylan says. “You heard what Erica said. Something weird is going on in that building. Maybe we should go back to the police.”
“Do you really think they’ll help? We have nothing to go on but a vague suspicion that something bad happened to Megan, Erica, and Ingrid.”
“I’d say it’s more than a suspicion,” Dylan says.
“Fine,” I concede. “But until we know for certain what’s going on, the police aren’t going to get involved.”
“Then we keep looking.” Dylan sighs, almost as if he regrets the words that have just come out of his mouth. “But we need to be careful. And smart. And quiet. We can’t risk having what happened to Ingrid happen to one of us.”
Dylan steps out of the Ladies Pavilion and turns toward the Bartholomew, staring at what can be glimpsed of it above the treetops. I join him and look up at my own personal section of the Bartholomew. George sits on the corner of the roof, keeping watch. The windowsof 12A reflect the white-gray sky. They remind me of eyes. Similar to the ones in the wallpaper.
Wide.
Unblinking.
Staring right back at us.