A Mystery Novel

~ČĤÁPŤĔŔ 3~

Jacqueline

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The door bell rings continuously and immediately Xander opens the door, he is pushed aside by Miley who is followed by Jacob and Tyler.

"How you holding up?" Jacob asks Xander. "Not well"he replies.

"Do you want a hug?" Jacob spreads his arms wide and Xander gives him a weird look.

"Don't be so sentimental dude, its creepy."

"Blame Miley, she forces me to cry during sad moments in romantic movies."

"No one asked you to date her. How can you survive with her? She's a demon."

"Who's a demon?" Miley asks

"Why are you here again?" Xander asks, evading her question, "I read the message and I don't think its worth getting worked up for."

"No one cares what you think Xander," Miley says

"Hey guys,"Tyler, who's still sitting, points at the lit screen of his phone, "look at this". The screen displays the chatroom of the group chat they created years ago. Just above the message sent by the unknown person is 'My Crush<3 added 865-411-2479'

"You saved Xandra's name as 'my crush'?" Savannah asks.

"If she was still alive, we would have been a couple"Tyler says but they all disagree.

"I'm pretty sure Xandra liked older guys," Miley says.

While they continue arguing, Xander stares at me the message, 'Alex didn't commit suicide, she was murdered.'

"What if this guy's telling the truth?" Xander suddenly says, "he may know something, Alex's ghost added him to our chat"

"You believe in ghosts?" Jacob asks.

"I didn't until now, the evidence is right here, Alex is trying to contact us."

"Okay, obviously, the grief is still messing with your head so we're gonna leave now, Ty will do his nerd stuff to find whoever sent that message and we'll come back tomorrow to talk about how we're gonna get away with murder," Miley says, dragging Jacob and Tyler with her.

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After dinner, Xander walks towards the window to shut the curtains and notices Jacqueline, who's room window is opposite his, staring at him. When she realizes that he's seen her, she ducks but a few seconds later, stands up slowly

"Hey," she says tentatively, "I wasn't watching you or anything, I was just looking out the window and- nevermind," she sighs

"Why do you always look out the window?" Xander asks.

"As an only child, it gets really lonely when my parents are at work. When I was younger, I used to look out the window, waiting for my mum or dad's car. I guess I'm used to it now, its so boring here."

"I know what you mean."

"Right, now that Xandra's gone, you're basically the only child and I really need to stop talking so I'm just gonna go," Jacqueline says but still stands there.

"I'm scared," she says quietly.

"Of what?"

"Of her, Xandra. I've been seeing her around the neighborhood, in my dreams. She's haunting me, she wants me to pay for what I did to her, she's probably going to kill me and my parents aren't home to protect me."

"I'm pretty sure Alex wouldn't kill you, she's not the vengeful type but you can stay in here if it'll make you feel better."

"Yes! Thank you so much!" Jacqueline disappears from his point of view and a few seconds later is running across her lawn to his. Xander rushes downstairs to open the door.

"I hope your parents won't mind," she says.

"Nah," Xander replies. "My mum likes you, for some reason and my dad won't notice, too much work."

"Great, I mean..its not great that your dad works a lot but its kinda great since- I mean...I should probably just stop talking," Jacqueline says, turning red from embarrassment.

"You can sleep in Xandra's room or the guest bedroom downstairs or the one upstairs."

"I don't think staying in Xandra's room is a good idea. What if she gets mad and kills me?"

"Like I said, Xandra wouldn't do that but I guess you can stay in my room, I'll sleep on my couch." Xander leads her to his room upstairs.

"Well, if you don't mind," the red on Jacqueline's face deepens. "I'll feel a lot safer with you with me. Xandra won't hurt me if you're here," Jacqueline sits on the ridiculously soft bed.

"I miss her," Xander says, crashing on one of the couches in his large room. "I never liked to admit it but she's my best friend, don't tell Jake. It just breaks my heart to know that she was going through a lot and she couldn't even tell me. We're twins, we're supposed to know everything about each other," he sighs.

"She's really nice and funny and she always knew how to make anyone feel better."

Jacqueline doesn't bother to correct him, he keeps on mixing past and present tense together.

"Just forget about it," he says and lays back on the couch while Jacqueline snuggles into the king sized bed.

"Xander....." Jacqueline says a few hours later.

"Still awake," Xander replies, "are you okay?" He asks when she starts breathing heavily. He turns to look at her but she's sitting upright on the bed and looking out the window.

"Its her, she's staring at me," Jacqueline's voice is now shaky. Xander immediately goes to the window and looks around, everything seems normal.

"There's no one there," he sits beside her on the bed. "She was there, in my house....in my room, I saw her, I swear. She was looking at me."

"Did you see her face?"

"No."

"Then its probably just a burglar, nothing to worry about."

Jacqueline looks down at her hands as her face reddens from embarrassment. "Yeah, you're right."

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Yeah, it's just a burglar, nothing to worry about 🙄

💜 u lots 😘😘😘