Story code: ST-001274
Part 2: The Ghost in the Gallery
The hallway gallery was dimly lit, but the overhead track lighting fell directly on the framed family photo from the summer of 2018. It had been taken in late August, just days before I left for college. In the photo, the four of us stood in the backyard. I looked anxious and thin, but Chloe was beaming, her skin deeply tanned, her arm draped casually over the wooden fence. I stepped closer, the muffled sound of Sandra and Chloe arguing in the dining room still vibrating through the drywall. For six years, the story of that summer had been set in stone. Chloe had claimed she spent every single week of June, July, and August working double shifts at the greasy diner in town, coming home too exhausted to speak, saving every penny to keep the family from losing the house. She had claimed she couldn’t even afford new clothes, let alone a vacation. I squinted at the photo. The glare of the glass made it hard to see, so I reached up and carefully tilted the frame downward to catch the light. In the photo, Chloe was wearing a sleeveless white top, her right arm extended toward the camera. Her wrist was partially obscured by a stack of cheap beaded bracelets, but beneath them, a thick strip of plastic caught my eye. It was a bright, neon-teal band. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, opened my digital photo library, and scrolled back to the album of old family pictures. I found the original high-resolution file of the same photo. Using my fingers, I pinched the screen, zooming in on Chloe’s right wrist. The image pixelated slightly, then cleared. The neon-teal band was not a friendship bracelet. It was a resort wristband, the waterproof plastic kind that hotels clip onto guests at check-in. Printed in white lettering across the band were the words: Royal Bahamian Resort & Spa. I stared at the screen. The Royal Bahamian was an ultra-luxury, all-inclusive resort. A one-week stay there cost thousands of dollars. I zoomed in further, looking at Chloe’s tan lines and her manicured nails. The photo was dated August 18, 2018. According to Chloe’s narrative, that was the week our family’s financial crisis peaked, the week she supposedly handed her entire savings over to our parents to cover the mortgage and my tuition deposit. A cold realization settled over me. While I had been packing my cheap suitcases, plagued by the guilt that my education was destroying my stepsister’s life, Chloe hadn’t been scrubbing floors at a diner. I looked back toward the dining room doorway. I could hear Chloe’s voice rising, accusing me of coldness, demanding Sandra support her claim to my grandfather’s trust. My hands were steady now. The guilt that had dictated my relationship with my stepfamily for six years was suddenly gone, replaced by a sharp, clear focus. But I needed to know the rest of the truth before I made my next move. How had a girl with a supposedly drained bank account ended up at a luxury tropical resort?