Chapter 66
I’ve read all that I can take. I slam the notebook closed.
Then I sit and stare at it on my lap for the longest time.
The notebook stares back at me, too, taunting me with its disturbing contents.
Eventually, my curiosity will get the better of me, and I’m sure I’ll start reading again.
But not now. It’s too much, too soon. Those pages have left me with an uneasy knot in the pit of my stomach.
But even as I tell myself that it’s okay, that whoever wrote this was unstable, and possibly delusional, I don’t entirely believe it.
Because after all the strange things I’ve experienced at the Glendale, it could just as easily have been me writing in that notebook.
Which makes me wonder about Jackie, and who she was.
I also wonder how long ago she lived here, and where she is now.
I need to find out, if only because I sense in this woman a kindred spirit. Maybe she’s still local and I can contact her, ask about the notebook and what she wrote in it.
My laptop is sitting on my desk in the office.
I jump up and fetch it, then hurry into the living room, turning on all the lights as I go because it’s getting dark outside, and I’ve freaked myself out.
I put the laptop and the notebook down on the coffee table, then head into the kitchen and grab a bottle of water before sitting back down and turning my attention to finding the author of the notebook.
There’s very little to go on. I only have a first name. Jackie.
I start by typing that into my search browser, along with the address of her apartment—my apartment—but come up empty.
All I can find are a couple of vague references to the Glendale, but none of them are helpful.
A public notice about the renovations of the building when they turned it into a co-op ten years ago.
Another notice about a temporary road closure outside the building because of a broken water main from a couple of years later.
But seriously, what did I expect?
I almost close the laptop and give up, but the alternative is sitting here and thinking about Sam and how he cheated on me.
Instead, I try a long shot. Jackie is short for Jacqueline, so I type that name in, along with the apartment address.
And that’s when I score a hit. A newspaper article from eight years ago, and when I read it, I gasp.
Local Woman Still Missing
Concern is growing about a Back Bay woman who was reported missing ten days ago after she failed to show up for her shift at work.
Twenty-seven-year-old Jacqueline Burke, an assistant manager at Carol’s Crystals, a local New Age store, went out for drinks with a friend on the evening of June 5.
She didn’t arrive at work the next morning and has not been seen in the week since.
Burke was an active member of Boston’s New Age community, and her sudden disappearance has left family, friends, and customers at the store where she worked deeply concerned.
According to the Boston Police Department, Burke was last seen returning on foot to her apartment around midnight.
Security footage from a camera at the entrance of a nearby T station showed her walking past at 12:08 a.m. It is not known if she ever arrived home because a camera at the entrance to the Glendale—the building where she lived—was inoperable at the time of her disappearance.
That camera still has not been repaired.
Detective Neil Meadows, leading the investigation for Boston PD, stated, “We are pursuing all avenues to find out what happened to Jacqueline and bring her home safely. Every lead will be thoroughly investigated. We urge anyone with information regarding Jacqueline’s whereabouts, or who saw Jacqueline on the night she went missing, to come forward. ”
Residents of the Back Bay community where Burke lives have come together to put up flyers in the hopes that someone will provide information about her whereabouts.
“I know that Jackie has been having some problems lately,” remarked Jennifer Barnes, who lives in the same building as the missing woman. “She’s had some issues in her personal life, but I hope she makes contact with her family and friends and lets us know that she’s safe.”
For now, all the community can do is wait and support each other until Burke is found. In the meantime, the search continues. Anyone with information regarding Jacqueline Burke’s disappearance is encouraged to call the Boston Police Department Crime-Stoppers toll-free tip line.
Wow. The woman who wrote all that stuff in the notebook went missing.
I hit the back button and scroll through the remaining search results with a growing sense of dread, praying that Jacqueline didn’t just vanish into thin air, but even though I come across a few more mentions of her disappearance, I find nothing to suggest that she was ever found, alive or otherwise.
What the heck?
Now I’m freaking out. This woman lived right here—in my apartment.
I go back to the first article and read it again, hoping to see something I missed the first time around . . . because I have to know. What happened to Jackie?
But the article provides no more information than it did the first time.
Which leaves one place to look. The notebook, which I had put aside because it was too unsettling. Whether I want to or not, I can’t ignore it. Not after what I’ve discovered about its author. With my heart in my mouth, I pick it up and flip to the last page with writing . . .
They are watching me all hours of the day and night. They come into the apartment when I’m asleep.
I don’t know what to do.
I’m so scared.
I think they want to hurt me. I wish there was someone I could talk to who would take me seriously, but I don’t have any evidence except this notebook, and it proves nothing. I’m going to hide it anyway, because I don’t want them to take it from me. It’s the only record of what has been happening.
There’s a break in the writing, and then it continues in a different color pen as if Jackie wrote it on a different day.
I’m meeting a friend tonight to see if I can stay with them for a while. Tomorrow, I’m telling Catherine that I’m moving out and I don’t care about the contract. I can’t live like this. I haven’t slept in days. I’m so tired. I just want this nightmare to end.
After that, it’s all blank pages. Did she write her last entry on the evening she went missing?
Did someone get to her before she could move out of the Glendale?
It sure looks that way. Or maybe life simply got to be too much, and she decided to .
. . No, I don’t believe she took matters into her own hands.
Not like that. From what she wrote, Jackie sounds scared and exhausted, not depressed and suicidal.
I paw through the rest of the pages, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything; then I set the notebook aside and sit there, wondering what to do next.
I should take it to the police first thing in the morning, show them what I’ve found.
It’s been a long time, but maybe it will help them figure out what happened to her.
Assuming Jackie is still missing, of course.
I couldn’t find anything online about her being found, but that doesn’t mean anything.
It was a long time ago. But there is one person who might know.
Jennifer. And now seems like as good a time as any to ask her.