Chapter 1

"Wake up, wake up! We´re gonna be late!"

I open my eyes to see my best friend hovering over me, dress and ready for the day.

"I´m up Alice! Just give 20 minutes and I´ll be ready, we still have three hours before the meeting, I said while rubbing my eyes and walking to the bathroom."

"I´m just too excited! I´ve been up since 6 am working on my outfit and on smart topics for a grown up conversation. I really, really want to impress this woman, so she gives us the deal. Should we tell her about our GPA´s, yours is better that mine, of course, but still 3.5 is pretty good considering. May be we should have told some teachers to write us recommendation letter, so she can see how responsible we are! Or maybe…. "

I could still listen her babbling at light speed but that´s Alice for you. I met Alice Brandon when I was 15, on the first day of high school. I was the new girl in town and you know what they say in Mexico, "Pueblo chico, infierno grande" (Small town, big hell). But the time I arrived to school everyone already knew who I was and the reasons for my moving there. I had been expelled from my private all girl catholic school unfairly, for defending a girl who supposedly was my best friend since we were 8, only for her to stab me in the back and sleep with my boyfriend.

After that, my mom thought we needed a fresh start, somewhere new, away from Pennsylvania. Lucky for us, my dad Charlie, whose been in the military since he graduate college, was send to a new base, somewhere in Washington, and we move to rainy Forks, WA. After, 15 years of living in a big city, moving to a small town was a huge change for me, but I had Alice who helped me with the transition.

We heard a loud horn coming from downstairs. "That must be Rose! Bella hurry up! I don´t wanna be late!"

-"I´m almost done" I said while walking to my closet. "I don´t understand how you can be wearing a suit with this weather! It´s almost 89°F degrees out there! "

"Bellaaa! This is the most important meeting of our lives! Of course I´m wearing a suit"

"Alice for god´s sake, it´s 8 AM in the morning, could you keep it down before your weird neighbors start complaining. " Rosalie said while walking into our small studio, "HI BELLA! Are you almost ready? Maybe we could stop by IHOP for some pancakes before we hit the road?"

"No one is stopping anywhere! We have to be there 11 AM sharp. If we are not on time, she´s gonna think we are some kind of irresponsible party girl who party all night long and that´s why we could be on time"

"Alice could you please stop being so overdramatic. It´s not as if it were an interview with you idol, Anna Wintour. It´s just a real estate agent, showing us some places for us to moving in together. She doesn´t need a resume or for you to were 5 inch heels."

"My dear darling Rose, the day I have an interview with Anna Wintour, I´ll start getting ready 10 hours before it! Wait… how do you know the real estate lady doesn´t need my resume?"

Rose just rolled her eyes at her as she start walking to the kitchen for some much needed coffee. We met Rosalie, freshmen year of college. She was a told 5´8 blue eyed blonde with a killer body and confident attitude. Pretty much every girl wanted to be her friend and every boy wanted to date her. But growing up in Hollywood taught Rose how to choose her friends, that how she asked us if she could share our table. Ever since then, it´s has been the three of us.

We graduated three years ago, and while Rose move in with her boyfriend Royce, Alice and I choose a small two bedroom apartment. Six months ago, two more live in boyfriends and some nasty neighbors; we decided it was time to start looking for a new place to live, this time the three of us. So we start contacting many real estate agents, but the places they show us were not worth the money they asked. You would think that with this economy you could find some nice places at reasonable prices, but that was far away from reality.

"Where is this place again?" I was walking into the kitchen to see Rose smiling while sipping her cup of coffee and Alice fixing her hair for the tenth time in the last 5 minutes using a spoon as her mirror.

"Somewhere close to Hollywood Hills, I think. I can´t believe it´s been six months and we still can´t find anywhere to live." Rosalie said while looking at her phone. "I think we should wait till 9:30 for the traffic jam to die a little bit, it´s like an hour from Huntington Beach to downtown LA anyway, so we should…"

"ARE YOU WEARING THAT! Alice almost shout as soon as she saw me "Bella you can´t go wearing jeans and a t shirt, please at least wear something nicer or some makeup"

"Alice I dress up and wear make-up five days a week for work. The last thing I want to do on a Sunday is wear high heels and blush. Besides, what´s wrong with what I´m wearing, I called it smart casual" I was wearing a pair of blue skinny jeans, a simple white t shirt and flats for god´s sake. "Alice, for the last time, you really need to relax, we go, we see if we like we buy/rent if not we keep looking, that´s how it works."

"Bella´s right Al and you better stop winning. Mom says that winning too much makes your skin wrinkle faster." Rose comments jokingly while Alice starts doing some weird movement with her face.

It was no secret to anyone who knew us that Mrs. Hale LOVED Alice. She liked me and Rose but she was seriously in love with Alice. Alice mom died of cancer when she was really young and she was raised by her father and her two older sisters. She was like a little princess for her dad, but she always missed not having a mom while growing up. Rosalie on the other hand grew up with her older brother in a successful Hollywood marriage. After 30 years, actor turned director/producer Colin Hale was still madly in love with Anna Lewis, supermodel turned actress. Differently from what you´ll expect, Rose was not interest in fashion, designers or girly stuff. Rose love sports and cars, just like her dad. As soon as, Rose mom find out about Alice´s mother she start pampering her with trips to the spa and first row fashion shows, which Rose was not interested in attending.

We catch up a little bit about this week´s work. Rosalie, true to herself found a way to work in both of her passions, sports journalist by day, and fancy car dealer by night. She knew many rich athletes who were interested in acquiring the most extravagant and unique cars, and Rose knew almost every mechanic engineer in the country. Alice in the other hand, just like expected, found a job doing what she likes the most, telling people what to wear. She is not a stylist quite yet, but she works with one of the best in town and even helped picked Julia Roberts Oscar dress.

-"Okay girls is 9:40, I think we should go. Who´s driving?" Rosalie asked while the wrinkles in her black sun dress.

-"I will, I don´t think Alice can drive with those traps she calls shoes. Could you please be shoot gun Rose? Last time Alice was shoot gun, we drive around the same block for half an hour before finding the house."

-"It´s not my fault I have blackouts, besides I thought I saw Orlando Bloom walking down the street. "

When we were exiting our building we could see our creepy neighbor spying on us from his window. "See! That´s why we need to move ASAP! So we can get far away from people like him and all those horny college guys go live in block C"

-"Hey don´t blame me. You were the one obsessed enough with The OC who wanted to leave in Newport Beach and this was as close as we got there." I said while driving into the I-605.


"Okay this is the master bedroom. As you can see, plenty of room, big walking-in closet and a nice and spacious bath, perfect for long bubble baths." Renata, our newest real estate, explained to us while showing us around.

Truth to be told, the apartment was okay it was a three bedrooms, 2 ½ bathrooms. Small living area and adequate kitchen. Enough for three young girls making it in crazy LA. The location was nice too, it was a half an hour drive to downtown where we work mostly, and close to Beverly Hills, well as close as you can get, where most of Alice´s clients lived. I tuned to look at Alice smiling like the Jocker and eating up everything Renata said, while Rose had a stern expression.

-"Before you keep talking about amenities and such, I think it´s best if you tells us first what´s the asking price?" Rose said going straight to the point, as always.

-"Well, you see Miss Hale, the apartment is almost new, it has a great location and your sister seems to love it, so does the price really matters at all, besides it´s not as if you could not afford it…" she stop when Rosalie give her a death look, fix herself and start again, "Well, the owners want to rent it actually and really fast, so they are not asking that much, only nine thousand a month plus utilities"

-"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR…" Rose started but I interrupt before she could say anything else, "We´ll think about it, but I don´t think this works for us. We were looking into something a little bit quieter and preferably a house, not an apartment. Besides the two extra rooms are way too small and it wouldn´t be fair for the other two. We´ll just keep looking, I guess"

-"Oh, that´s fine... I have some other houses as well. I have a file with a few pictures may be you could look through them and see if you find something you like" She turned to the living room and sit in the large sofa on display opening her briefcase and taking out a big white folder.

After a few minutes of looking through her choices we were getting a little cranky when Alice said "What about this one? It looks pretty" while a slim black folder.

Renata look at the folder with wide eyes for a splint second while Rose move close to Alice to look at the folder she was holding. "You are right Al, this place looks really nice. Could we make an appointment to look at it? Looked Bell, it says here that the house is near Calabasas. Five bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms.."

After a minute of silence, Renata finally respond Rosalie´s question "Well, mmm, actually that house does not belong to me per say. It´s from the company and any agent can offer it. I´ll have to call my boss and asked when we ca make an appointment. Just give me one sec." she said while grabbing her phone and walking out of the apartment

-"That was a little weird don´t you think?" Rosalie asked, "but anyways, Bell you have to see this. This place actually looks homey I wonder what´s the rent… "

-"May be on the last page?" I kept listening to them talking about the place while looking through the window at Renata who was on the phone with someone. She seems stressed and even a little… scared?

-"OH MY GOD! It says here rent if $4,500/month. Is that even possible?" That comment make me turned and look at my two friends.

-"WHAT?! Are you sure? $4,500 a month? In LA?"

-"Well, San Fernando Valley but still! That´s way too cheap for a place like this. May be the house is really small and just looks big in the pictures. What´s the area? ... 2,691 square foot."

-"There must a catch!"

-"Come on B, don´t be like that. Why can´t you just be positive and think the universe is sending us a nice and affordable place to live, which is close to the Kardashians, maybe I´ll meet one of them and start working with them DASH! And the…"

-"Okay girls, I talked with mi colleague and he will meet us after lunch at the house. I´ll give you the address so you can meet us there. Does 4:30 work for you?"

-"That is fine with us.

-"Okay then, let me show you, your way out. "She said opening the front door "I´ll see you at the house at 4:30 then. Please if you change your mind let me know so we don´t… drive up there for nothing" she said smiling while we enter our car and start driving away.


"Welcome to IN N OUT, what can I get you?"

"We´ll have three double cheese burgers, fries and three vanilla milkshakes, please" Rosalie said while give her AMEX to the young teenager at the counter. "I can´t believe we finally find something worth looking at and at a reasonable price"

"I know right! I don´t forget the fact that it is a house and not a small annoying apartment. It even has a pool and everything. Bella are you alright? You´ve been really quite since we left that awful apartment in Hollywood Hills. What´s the matter?"

"It´s nothing Ali. I just have a bad feeling about this and I don´t know why. It seems too good to be truth and I think there must be a catch or something"

"Like my dear mother likes to say, "Good things, happen to smart and beautiful people". Embrace it Bell, it seems like we found a place to live. The viewing is just a formality. "

After finishing our meal, we drive around LA for a while to kill some time until our appointment.

At exactly 4:30 PM we drove into Ensenada Drive. Big and beautiful houses line up to both sides of the road. "This neighborhood looks really nice. What´s the address again?"

"3966 Ensenada Drive." I answer while the GPS alert us that we had arrived at our destination. I could see Renata and some early forties man talking quietly at the front lawn of the house. Just like the pictures, the house was really big and beautiful. A two story red brick house, with large windows and vast green front lawn.

As soon as she saw us, Renata stopped talking with her partner and walk to greet us. She introduced us to her colleague, Max Marin. Apparently he has been in charge of the house for quite some time and does it pretty well. We start the tour, and the more the girls saw the more they like it. It had open space, a big kitchen and four decent size bedrooms, plus a big master bedroom. The final touch was the outside yard, a medium pool and Jacuzzi laid alongside of a BBQ set.

"The pool was built in the early forties but was renovated 10 years ago when the new owner built the Jacuzzi. The previous owners built the BBQ and change the plumbing of both, so you shouldn´t had any problems with it. So, what do you think?"

Before Alice or Rose could say anything I interjected, "Is the rent really $4,500 a month?"

"Plus utilities of course, but water is included in the rent"

"WE TAKE IT" Rose and Alice scream at the same time and start jumping up and down.

"Okay in that case we can start with the pap…"

"What´s the catch?" I asked. "What do you mean…" Max started

"There must be something you are not telling us. No way would a place like this, in this neighborhood rent for so low. So again, what´s the catch?"

Max and Renata exchange a look before he turned to look at me. "Okay, if you must know. The previous owners left rather abruptly because they claim that the house is haunted. The mother had an accident, she said she fell but everyone believes the husband was beating her. What is true is that the house has a history of weird occurrences but no one has die in here, well besides the original owner, but he died of decease. True to be told, most of that people just wanted either money or attention, this is Los Angeles after all. Ok so should we start with the paper work or has that story change your minds"

"Could you give us a minute please" they nodded and retrieve to their car. "Bella, come on, this place is amazing and is below what we hope to pay. You can´t let a silly ghost story scare us away."

"Rose is right. I mean, you have to admit it´s a bit freaky but they were probably lying, you heard him, abusive husband. They probably made it up, so he wouldn't have to go to jail. Come on, said yes"

I looked at both of them for a moment and then turned to look at the house. It was true it was pretty, and to be honest perfect for us. I still had a bad feeling but I guess we could try after all is just a rental and if it doesn´t work, we could always move somewhere else.

"So, have you reached a decision?" Max asked us with some documents in his hands with Renata smiling awkwardly behind him.

"Where do we sign?" I asked while Rose and Alice start jumping in happiness.


_AN:

Okay this is my first attempt at writing a fanfic. It probably has a lot of grammatical mistakes but I don´t have a beta.

It will mostly be Bella POV with some of the grils and the boys too. This fic is mostly mistery. I hope you like it.