The Ghost

A month later, I learned, over the cell phone, that Shayne had returned safely from her trip. I have only viewed her about one half hour, since her disappearance last September. It is impossible to reach her on her cell phone and there is no real sign of life at her address. In fact the whole neighborhood is deceptively unused. At night, when her father and I drove by to see if we might catch her in, we noticed that the surrounding buildings and apartments are mostly unlit and apparently unoccupied. It's a neighborhood consisting of mostly time-share housing, and second or secondary homes.
I have visited her a total of about 12 times since seeing her briefly last June (?), and only twice did she answer the door, standing in it for a second, then closing it. For all these months, there has been no sign of real activity or life at her address. Quite a contrast to previously, when she could always be found at her address or someone there knew where she was.
I find the new neighborhood where she lives distinctly "hostile" This is because, whenever I ring her bell, various persons seem to have to come out and start talking real loud right beside me, even making comments about me, which I can overhear, such as: "Oh, the doorbell doesn't work. That's why she is tapping and calling." Once I had to worm my way through a chair party with a couple of barking and wrestling dogs. Then again, once at night, as her father let me out on the empty street, while he looked for a parking space, 4 men suddenly came up and stood beside me. "See, " I told her father, as he appeared around the corner and the 4 men dispersed into the gloom. "See how people gather around, when I'm ringing her bell?" Someone had turned a bare ceiling light on in Shayne's living room (the chandelier and her large table were apparently missing), we could determine this through the slight opening at the side of the closed curtain, but there was no sign of life inside the apartment.
Another time, recently, we tried to visit her again and I was depressed when I saw that the curtains had been closed in such a way that not even crack of light could shine through. I looked through the square of class at the top of her door and was disturbed when I saw that a pair of shoes had been placed deliberately and neatly in the front of the door but facing the inside of the house. It was very unnatural and deliberate-looking, as if someone had arranged them that way to give a sign to viewers peeking through her window.
Later, I knew why I had become so heavy and depressed. When they threw me into the airless cell with the video camera and (I have learned since) with the electromagnetic instrumentation built into the ceiling, I had had to walk across the concrete floor in my bare feet, as my boots were deposited in front of the door of the cell in just the same way as Shayne's shoes were poised in front of her door.