Suddenly, my 2-year roommate left. Bright and joyful, she was. Despite police searches, her parents gave up.
5 years later, I decluttered her room to sell the house. I discovered a wall hole when moving the furniture. I put my hand in and found a stack of journals tied with a red ribbon and a dusty but intact disposable camera.
I froze. My fingers trembled as I removed everything and sat on the floor. My heart hammered in my ears.
The journals smelled musty and the ribbon was frayed from years of use. No idea whether to feel terrified, hopeful, or angry. She was Lina.
She had curly auburn hair, wore big sweaters, and hummed while cooking. She made you feel warm just being near her. She left her phone, wallet, and keys when she disappeared.
Nothing made sense. I opened the first journal. Her looping, precise purple ink script was instantly recognizable.
First, grocery lists, song lyrics, odd musings. After a few pages, things changed drastically. “I think someone is watching me,” one entry said.
I sat up upright. I paged faster. He was outside the café again today.
Simply standing. Coat and scarf match. He disappears whenever I glance up.”
My stomach twisted.
Nothing like this was spoken by Lina. Not to me. Not to anyone I know.
I always knew she was open and funny. These entries were loaded with fear. “They were home last night.
Outside my door, I heard footsteps. Emma, it’s not you. My goal was not to terrify you.
So I feigned to sleep.”
Covered my mouth. I recall those nights. Once or twice, I woke up to creaks and bumps, thinking the home was settling.
Now it felt different. Wrong. Last night’s journal entry was before she disappeared.
“I’ll confront him. The alley behind our house had him. This may help someone understand if something happens to me.”
I grabbed the camera with shaking hands.
About 15 photographs remained on the roll. I didn’t know what was on them, but I needed them developed. Right away.
I drove across town to the only film-developing store. In his fifties, the counterman with worn eyes looked at the camera and nodded like he’d seen worse. He answered, “Give me a couple of days.”
Two days felt like years.
I barely slept. I read the other four journals. A picture emerged as I dug deeper.
Lina thought someone stalked her. She wrote timings, locations, and sketched a face from memory to gather proof. It always came back to a late-30s man with a limp and a scar above his eyebrow.
But what shocked me most was that she felt he had been inside the residence multiple times. That he stole from her room. He left signs like shifted books or lights on when she was alone.
Never told anyone. Not even I. I tried not to take it personally, but it hurt.
I finally heard from the photo shop. Raced over. No smile from the counterman.
He gave me the envelope discreetly. “Those photos are strange,” he said. “I’d think twice before showing them to anyone.”
The envelope was opened in my automobile.
First few photographs were blurry—Lina’s face in a mirror, diary edge, streetlight. Then it changed. A photo shows a man half-hidden behind a tree at our backyard’s edge.
