Footsteps clop in the hall, and Little enters the room, a tidal wave of a man, Norelli trailing in his wake.
They see Ethan first.
“What’s going on here?” Norelli asks, her eyes swerving hard from him to me.
“You said that someone had been in your house,” says Little.
Ethan looks at me, slides a glance toward the door. “You stay here,” I say.
“You can go,” Norelli tells him.
“Stay,” I bark, and he doesn’t move.
“Have you checked the house?” Little asks. I shake my head.
He nods at Norelli, who walks across the kitchen, pausing by the basement door. She eyes the stepladder, eyes me. “Tenant,” I say.
She proceeds to the stairwell without a word.
I turn back to Little. His hands are plunged into his pockets; his eyes are locked on mine. I take a breath.
“So much—so much has happened,” I say. “First I got this . . .” My fingers dip into the pocket of the robe and dig out my phone. “. . . this message.” The robe lands on the floor with a splat.
I click on the email, expand the picture. Little takes the phone from me, holds it in his massive hand.
As he inspects the screen, I shiver—it’s chilly in here, and I’m barely dressed. My hair, I know, is snarly, bed-headed. I feel self-conscious.
So does Ethan, it seems, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Next to Little, he looks impossibly delicate, almost breakable. I want to hold him.
The detective thumbs the phone screen. “Jane Russell.”
“But it’s not,” I tell him. “Look at the email address.”
Little squints. “Guesswhoannagmail,” he recites carefully.
I nod.
“Taken at two oh two in the morning.” He looks at me. “And this was sent at twelve eleven this afternoon.”
I nod again.
“Have you ever received a message from this address before?”
“No. But can’t you . . . track it?”
Behind me, Ethan speaks. “What is it?”
“It’s a picture,” I start to say, but Little continues: “How would someone get into your house? Don’t you have an alarm?”
“No. I’m always here. Why would I need . . .” I trail off. The answer is in Little’s hand. “No,” I repeat.
“What’s it a picture of?” Ethan asks.
This time Little looks at him, pins him with a stare. “Enough questions,” he says, and Ethan flinches. “You go over there.” Ethan moves to the sofa, sits beside Punch.
Little steps into the kitchen, toward the side door. “So someone could have come in here.” He sounds sharp. He flips the lock, opens the door, shuts it. A puff of cold air wafts across the room.
“Someone did come in here,” I point out.
“Without setting off an alarm, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Has anything been taken from the house?”
This hadn’t occurred to me. “I don’t know,” I admit. “My desktop and my phone are still here, but maybe—I don’t know. I haven’t looked. I was scared,” I add.
His expression thaws. “I bet.” Softer now. “Do you have any idea who could have photographed you?”
I pause. “The only person with a key—the only person who might have a key is my tenant. David.”
“And where is he?”
“I don’t know. He said he was going out of town, but—”
“So he has a key, or he might have a key?”
I cross my arms. “Might. His apartment—the apartment has a different key, but he could have . . . stolen mine.”
Little nods. “You having any problems with David?”
“No. I mean—no.”
Little nods again. “Anything else?”
“There—he—there was a razor that he borrowed. A box cutter, I mean. And then he put it back without telling me.”
“And no one else could have come in?”
“No one.”
“Just thinking out loud.” Now he gulps a mouthful of air, bellows so loud my nerves throb: “Hey, Val?”
“Still upstairs,” Norelli calls.
“Anything to see up there?”
Quiet. We wait.
“Nothing,” she shouts.
“Any mess?”
“No mess.”
“Anyone in the closet?”
“No one in the closet.” I hear her footsteps on the stairs. “Coming down.”
Little returns to me. “So we’ve got someone coming in—we don’t know how—and taking a picture of you, but not taking anything else.”
“Yes.” Is he doubting me? I point to the phone in his hand again, as though it can answer his questions. It can answer his questions.
“Sorry,” he says, and passes it back to me.
Norelli walks into the kitchen, coat whipping behind her. “We good?” asks Little.
“We’re all good.”
He smiles at me. “Coast is clear,” he says. I don’t respond.
Norelli steps toward us. “What’s the story with our B&E?”
I extend the phone to her. She doesn’t take it, but looks at the screen.