Ray stood loosely beside me, examining the lobby. I tried to see what he would see, through the eyes of a trained professional. Was he looking at the objects and their locations now, imagining the timeline of the week Brenae died? I could only picture what was missing: the students. An image of Brenae popped into my mind, plunked on one of the couches by the window, hunched over a laptop screen. And then in my mind’s eye, I saw Erik, sauntering in, spotting Brenae, then pivoting to avoid her.

Erik and Brenae. Mentor and student. Lovers. Hardly unusual in the history of art. Picasso and Gilot, Rivera and Kahlo, Pollock and Krasner, Rodin and Claudel, Stieglitz and O’Keeffe. The older ones gave the younger ones their knowledge and experience; the younger gave their inspiring energies. And usually their bodies. Their affairs, passionate at the outset, rarely ended well, yet such relationships happened in every generation, and sometimes the world benefited greatly.

I remember Erik’s deft hands piling and twisting shoes; I could see him focusing a camera on Brenae’s mouth as she lifted the dripping gun to it. What if she had inspired him? And what if he had given her the footage she needed?

As we waited for our LAAC guide, my mind played a romantic version of Brenae and Erik’s first meeting: Here was the dusty, dim classroom at USC, a cluster of students in flip-flops and battered T-shirts, and there was Erik pacing back and forth in front of a slideshow, asking questions. The students, mostly freshmen, hung in silence. Erik captivated them with his freewheeling commentary, his curly-headed boyishness.

Finally, one student raised her hand. Brenae’s voice was flat, declarative. She refuted the question he asked. Or she changed the question. She had barely outgrown her childhood body, but her face was burnished now by an intense lust—lust not for the young man directing them but for what he stood for: authority, skill, knowing. She wanted it so badly it sharpened her, making her profile cut the air. He softened to her interest. It was real interest, he realized, fresh and intelligent, an instructor’s dream. The air grew vivid between them, and the other students fell away. After class, Brenae stayed. She challenged him again, and he faltered. She left the room first, her walk awkward, as if she knew he was watching. And he was. The light in her made him blink as he thought over her questions, as he drove home later, imagining better answers.