When she glanced at him, he nodded, prompting her.
“I woke up from a dream and he was standing behind me.” Her breath caught in a little hitch that betrayed how genuinely scared she had been and, if her fluttering hands were any indicator, still was.
He looked at her, focused on keeping his expression neutral even as his entire body registered surprise. The burglar had robbed the studio while she’d been there, asleep?
“I didn’t turn over because I was petrified, but…I could hear him breathing. Quiet, deep breaths. Calm breaths.”
When she paused and looked at him, he didn’t tell her that the intruder could have been a woman because, well, people had a sense for these things, especially when it came to opposite genders. If she believed it was a man, then statistically, she would be right. Instead, he asked, “Did he touch you at any point? Or maybe rummage through your things?”
She nodded silently. “He…” Taking a deep breath, she forced her gaze back to meet his eyes, raised a hand to her neck. “He touched my neck…like…he was going to wake me up or…strangle me.”
He looked at her again, consciously forced his face to present a neutral expression, a mask to cover the fact that his mind was reeling with what she was telling him. A man had broken into her apartment to…what? Strangle her in her sleep?
“What happened after that?”
Roping her arms around her knees, she lowered her gaze to focus on a spot on the sofa. “The minute that he touched me, I screamed bloody murder. Kept screaming until he ran away. Once he’d left, I grabbed my cellphone and called 911. I checked everything. I,” her breath caught again, “I relocked the front door. I didn’t go outside and look around because I was too scared. I relocked the door,” she repeated.
When tears gathered in her eyes, he felt his entire body tense with the need to reach out a hand and touch her, just a small touch on the hand to comfort her.
Lola Michaels was not feigning her belief that someone had broken into her house, and the knowledge left him feeling uneasy. Needing something to do with his hands, he fisted one by his side and raked the other through his hair, undoubtedly sending it in every which direction.
McConnell, who had been standing in the corner listening, chose just then to clear his throat and ask, “Where’s the tea?”
Clearly needing to distract herself, Lola hurriedly got off the sofa and walked to the small kitchenette. She turned to face them. “Tea?”
McConnell shook his head no. Jacob nodded.
While she busied herself by pulling mugs from the small overhead cupboard and opening a box of Lipton tea, he stood and used the time to walk around the studio.
He started with the red brick wall, but only because he wanted to see her paintings. He glanced at a scene of the ocean on a stormy day at dawn, felt his eyes roam over the details in the work; a piece of seaweed washed ashore, lying limply where the last wave had left it; the white caps of the waves as they pummeled the rocks, sending small bursts of foam flying; the warped reflection of the white light of dawn reflected in the water. Amazing.
He moved on without studying any of the others because he knew that if he did, he’d be there all day. He liked art and although he wouldn’t call himself well-studied or particularly informed on the subject, he’d still occasionally take a full morning to go and ramble through the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art or one of the boutique galleries dotted around LA county.
He liked the deliberateness of art in general, liked the fact that an idea, either real or abstract, could be expressed a thousand different ways on canvas. For someone who was constantly trying to understand people and what made them tick, art was a fascination to him.
Glancing around the studio, he saw that nothing was upturned, scattered, or even in a normal state of human untidiness. Instead, everything seemed to be perfectly placed, as if Lola had set each item down deliberately. Because he was sure that she would know the answer, he asked, “Are you sure that nothing has been moved?”
She sighed and shook her head. “I have to keep everything organized in this space; otherwise, it becomes impossible to live and work here. It’s too small. But…”
“You know where everything is?”
“Everything.”
He moved to the front door again, opened it, and took a step outside. Pulling his cellphone from his pocket, he turned on the flashlight and shone the bright light on the lock of the door.
The lock was a typical medium-duty deadbolt with a single cylinder. But it was relatively new. He angled the light so that the beam slanted across the keyhole. There were some scratches around the entry, but those weren’t standalone evidence of a break-in, of someone having picked the lock. They could have been from Lola herself, small scars from repetitively locking and unlocking the door.
Stepping back inside, he turned off the torch and tucked his phone back into his pocket.
“Did you see anything?” she asked as she came towards him, a cup of tea in her outstretched hand.
He shook his head. “Is it possible that someone could have a key to your apartment? A friend? A boyfriend? A family member?”
“No.” She hugged her arms around her chest. “I mean I guess the landlord may have a spare, but I’ve never given my key out to anyone.”
“Would anyone you know do something like this as a practical joke? A way to scare you?”
She frowned at him and the look told him her answer before she said, “I don’t have any friends who’d do this, Lieutenant.”
“Have you given anybody a reason to hurt you? A bad date where you rejected someone who thought things were going well? A work colleague that may be disgruntled over a promotion? Anything?”
“No. I ended my last relationship amicably over six months ago and I’ve been working too hard to date since. I’m an artist,” she nodded to the brick wall, “so I work from home.”
The questioning seemed to be distracting her to the point where her eyes were losing their rabbit-in-the-headlights energy, and he sipped his tea. Jasmine. Ugh.
“A perv, maybe?” McConnell chimed in from where he’d sat back down on the sofa.
Jacob studied the younger man, took in his pitch-black hair and green eyes. He nodded at him. “It’s possible.”
“If he was a…a pervert,” Lola said, closing her eyes on the last word, “why me?”
“It’s hard to say without more information,” Jacob began, not wanting to scare her if he didn’t have to.
“You think he was going to…”
He hesitated for a moment as he tried to think about how much he should tell her. Eventually, he settled on, “Sexual desire isn’t always a primary motive. Sometimes it’s as simple as a p-”
“Power play,” McConnell said, nodding emphatically.
Wanting to change the subject before any of them jumped to erroneous conclusions, he replied. “Exactly. It could be the breaking and entering while you’re here alone that gets him off. Or…watching you sleep and imagining the things he could do to you. But even then…”
“You don’t think so?”
“Anything I’d say would be pure speculation.”
“But?”
He sighed. The woman was not going to give in. “If sexual desire wasn’t his primary motivation and he was running on the feeling of power….”