His hair was thick and sandy, graying slightly at the temples, giving him a dignified look that was only exaggerated by the square shape of his jaw. His charcoal suit was tailored and molded his well-muscled physique in that way that seemed to always carry a very precious price tag. When he smiled, his even white teeth flashed back at her, sending a tendril of unease from the base of her spine to the top of her head.
“Ah, thank you.” Casting another look back at the line, she sighed. She was bursting.
He moved to walk past her, paused, and turned to face her again. He didn’t smile, but his voice was calm, quiet when he said, “I’m heading to my office if you need me to show you?”
With one last look at the line, she smiled and followed him to the elevator bay, cleared her throat awkwardly when he pressed the up arrow, and tucked his hands into the pockets of his slacks. An uncomfortable silence fell between them, and he glanced at her out the corner of his eye.
Finally, he asked, “Here for the press conference?”
Smiling in relief, she looked up into his blue eyes. “I am. My friend is the Lieutenant in charge of the investigation.”
“Oh, you know Jake Simmone?”
“Yeah! He’s my f-” fiancé. That’s what she’d been about to say. Instead, and for some reason she didn’t understand, she added, “friend,” again, and cringed at how disingenuous the label sounded.
“He’s a good policeman.” The elevator doors pinged open, and the man held his arm out in an after-you gesture. She stepped in, moved to the side so that he could come in too. The doors started closing them in, and Lola thought she heard a woman say, ‘James?’ right before the elevator shut out the sound and began its slow ascent to the third floor.
The golden crowning in the elevator boasted how old the building was, and Lola found herself focusing on the intricate detailing in the décor. With her head tilted back, her eyes narrowed on the roof of the elevator, she studied the alternating gold, metal crowning, and reflective mirroring above her. Although he was standing silently beside her, Lola caught the way the man kept glancing at her in his reflected image on the ceiling of the elevator.
Suddenly feeling irrationally off-balanced, maybe even a little scared, she shifted her gaze forward, cast him an awkward smile just as a nervous flutter started in her throat.
Stop.
She tried to calm herself, tried to remind herself that she was just alone with a strange man for the first time since her break-in. A perfectly rational reason to be paranoid.
She could hear her heartbeat in her chest, the thick tapping of it against her ribs felt almost painful, and she tried to redirect her thoughts. She opened her mouth to re-start the small talk, but another sound caught her ear, forced her jaw shut with an audible click.
She hadn’t been looking at the man, she had been staring at the gold elevator doors. But the sound of his deep, even breathing in the confined space struck her, traveled up her spine slowly, like a whisper-light touch from somebody she knew to be dangerous.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
For a moment, she just stood there, unmoving, unwilling to blink in case he sensed that something was wrong. Her palms started to sweat, and she gripped them together in front of her to avoid wiping them on her jeans.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
His breathing echoed in the confines of the small elevator.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
Lola felt her breath catch in her chest, felt her legs start to tremble beneath her.
Just keep calm.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
You just have PTSD.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
I have to get out of here.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
Oh, God! Nobody knows where I am.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
Her breathing hitched in a small gasp that reverberated through the small room. Beside her, the man turned to look at her at the exact moment that the elevator doors pinged on the third floor.
“Thanks for showing me where it is,” she said in a rush. “I think I can find it from here.”
“It’s just to the right at the end of the hall.” He nodded his head politely, but this time he did not smile. His eyes focused on her face with a hungry curiosity that made her skin awaken, made the hair on her arms pull to attention.
She stepped out of the elevator first, turned right, and began to walk slowly on the hunter green carpeting towards the big, walnut door at the end of the hallway. There was nobody around. Not a single person. The sensored lights flickered on with a small zapping sound that made her jump, casting the room in a garish glare that burned her eyes.
“Looks like everybody is still at the press conference.”
She did not need to hear him speak to know that he was still behind her. She had felt his presence as surely as if he were touching her, and had known that he’d turned right out of the elevator too, had known that he was following close behind her.
“I don’t think I ne-”
Before she could finish her sentence, he gripped her arm from her side and twisted it up behind her, causing her to release a little gasp of pained surprise. He pressed his chest up against her back, and she knew that he was disguising his grip on her from any security cameras or anyone who might be on the third floor.
“I’d suggest that you keep quiet.” He jerked her bent arm further up with a sharp yank that tore a single sob from her lips.
“What…what do you want?”
He chuckled.
No!
She felt the scream building in her lungs as they moved closer to the heavy, wooden door, felt the muscles in her legs shorten as if in preparation for a hundred-yard sprint.
The man propelled her forward, his painful grip on her arm only increasing until they were right in front of the door. He reached for the handle, pushed it open. Before she could scream, he shouldered his way into the room behind her, pushing her back onto the floor in his haste to get inside. Lola landed in a pile on top of her right arm, which gave a loud crack before an excruciating pain shot from her palm to her elbow. She gasped aloud, more in shock than from the pain, although somewhere through her panic she knew that it hurt like hell.
“Shut the fuck up!” Although he kept his tone quiet, she could see the cold fury in his eyes.
“Wh-…who are you?” she stammered. Hating the weakness in her voice, she added, “What do you want?”
“Oh, you know what I’m here for,” he said, his voice dead calm as he raised his hands and moved towards her. “You deceitful, conniving bitch. You think that you can just walk into my life and decimate it with your lies?”
Where his voice was calm, quiet even, his eyes were filled with a rage that had Lola scrambling backward, her heels kicking at the hardwood floor in her attempt to get as far away from him as possible. How had no one seen it before? The rage and anger, the pure madness sitting there in cold, blue eyes? Waiting.
Fear lanced her belly as she crawled to where his desk sat in front of a big, glass window that looked out over the city. “I know that you killed those girls,” she said, her breath coming short and fast. Breathe. Keep him talking. Just wait for Jake. He’s coming. He has to be.
“You don’t know anything,” he spat as he marched to where she was trying to pull herself up off the floor.