When he noticed the bright blue door and the worn Garfield welcome mat, he felt a smile tugging at his lips. He wasn’t sure why, but Garfield knick-knacks seemed to speak to a very specific type of person. At least to him, the fat, orange comic cat said casual, fun, light-hearted even.
He raised his hand to knock, curled his fist, and was just about to give the colorful door a sharp tap when it burst open. Jumping back in surprise, he took a full step away as his heart thrummed double-time against his ribs.
If his heart had stumbled for a second then, it vacated his body entirely as he took in the woman standing in front of him. She stood, one hand on her hip, one hand on the doorknob as if she wanted—and was ready—to slam it shut. Her eyes were big and doe-brown, set in a heart-shaped face that made his breath catch in his throat, made him stand a little straighter. She had skin as pale as cream and chin-length, caramel hair that curled around angular cheekbones. She was an average height, maybe close to five-seven, with long, slender legs clad in faded jeans and a narrow torso contoured by a strappy, white camisole.
“May I help you?” she asked, her eyebrows raised haughtily, the pitch of her voice one modulation away from a song.
Fuck me. Realizing that he had been staring, he snapped his jaw shut and smiled at her. “Ma’am. I’m Lieutenant Jacob Simmone with the LAPD.” He showed her his badge.
“You’re here about the break-in?” she asked, not bothering with any niceties.
Maybe I was wrong about Garfield. He nodded anyway, not quite sure as to why she was so suspicious of him. She had made the call, hadn’t she?
“In here, Sir,” a voice piped up from behind her.
He stood silently, unmoving, as he waited for the woman to make up her mind about him. He had already noticed that she eyed him with open curiosity, and he had to consciously refrain from wriggling on the spot as she studied him.
Eventually, she gave an exaggerated sigh and took a step back so that he could come inside. He moved past her quickly, inhaled slightly when he caught her scent. Lilies and…alcohol? Not liquor. Alcohol. Spirits? He wasn’t sure, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered the smell.
The shock of color that assaulted him was the first thing that he noticed about her home; it was a kaleidoscope of purple, orange, and red that took him by surprise. Embroidered and tasseled orange throw pillows adorned a purple corduroy sofa immediately in front of him; a very large, very out-of-place LAPD officer sat on the sofa, his young face an open map of nerves.
Her big, wrought iron bed, spread with a midnight black comforter, sat squat in the middle of the room, accentuated only by a red strip of fabric that, at least from where he was standing, looked like a table runner. And the shelves…white floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that nestled in a V in the far corner of the room were weighed down by a cacophony of color-coordinated boxes, all with neatly printed labels.
But even then, the feature of the room, the focal point, was the red brick wall that ran the entire length of the eastern side of the apartment. Well, not the wall per se. It was the paintings leaning against the wall that screamed for attention and although he couldn’t see the details in them from where he stood, he knew that they were landscapes of wild, natural terrains.
He itched to walk over and imagine stories out of the vibrant canvases of color. Instead, he looked around for a second longer before making eye contact with the officer. He was young, maybe closer to twenty than thirty, with a long narrow face that matched his impossibly tall, thin frame. His blue eyes, surprisingly childlike, kept darting back to the woman and Jake got the distinct impression that he felt overwhelmed by her. No surprises there.
She was stunning.
When he caught the officer’s eye, the uniform pushed to his feet, clearly unsure as to what he was supposed to do. The woman, he knew, was standing behind him, her hands on her hips. He could feel her stare boring into the back of his head, pulling his skin tight in a way that wasn’t altogether unpleasant.
After taking a moment to calm his pounding heart, he turned to face her. Where before he had been too distracted by the shock of lust traveling through his system to recognize the expression in her eyes, now he saw that behind the come-at-me posture, the woman was downright terrified. Her pupils were slightly dilated. Her hands moved from her hips to clasp together in front of her, and then back to her hips again in a fidgeting movement that sent a single silver bracelet dancing erratically on her arm.
“Officer?”
“McConnell, Sir.”
“Officer McConnell, would you make Miss…?”
She raised her eyebrows again, and for some reason, Jacob found himself wanting to grin. He imagined that she could make a lot of men feel about as small as a midge fly just by raising those perfectly arched brows in exactly that way.
“Lola Michaels.”
“Would you make Miss Michaels some tea, please?”
“Yes, Sir,” the officer replied, his tone relieved. He moved over to the small electric stove in the corner where a tea kettle sat, patiently waiting.
The woman, Lola Michaels, frowned at him for a moment but when he didn’t say anything more, her posture slowly relaxed, her arms fell loose by her sides, and she rolled her neck, unconsciously relieving the tension that he was sure had been the reason for her defensive stance.
When she turned her head to look at him again, he could see that she had finally relaxed enough to talk; her brown eyes were wide and vulnerable instead of slit with suspicion, and he felt another small punch of…something in his stomach. “Would you like to sit down?”
“No. If it’s okay, I…” She twisted her hands in front of her. “I’m fine.” She glanced at McConnell nervously.
He wondered what that was about. Wondered if McConnell had said anything that would make her second guess herself—something that Jacob had learned to avoid. Victims, even of small crimes, lost the details of what had happened to them as their minds tried to recover from the trauma. Years on the job had taught him that appearing as if you didn’t believe them or as though their experiences were inconsequential made them lose those small details even faster. He had learned that even when you doubted a witness or victim’s account whole-heartedly, you should never show your spades.
When he nodded, he saw a flicker of relief flash in her eyes and felt his chest give a small thump when she smiled at him for the first time, her face brightening with the gesture.
She raked a slender hand through short, curly hair and the movement sent the silver bracelet on her wrist dancing down her arm again. Jacob wondered if it was the bracelet that kept bringing his attention back to the fact that her wrists were fine-boned and delicate underneath impossibly smooth, porcelain skin.
This time, when he motioned over to the sofa, she moved over and sat down, pulling her knees into her chest in a protective stance, as if she could cage her own body in. He filed the information away and sat on the other end before turning diagonally so that he was sitting on the edge of the couch, facing her fully. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
She was quiet for a moment and just when he thought she might need additional prompting, she said, “Someone broke in...”
“Okay,” he said quietly, deliberately keeping his tone calm, encouraging.
“I…”