The table by the kitchen door was wrought iron with curled-up feet, meeting and melding at knee height and then separating out to grip the edges of dark-tinted glass top. There were some bills on top, unopened. A mirror with a wrought-iron frame loomed ominously above the table.

I really hoped the mirror was fastened securely, because it had to weigh fifty pounds with all the iron curls and thorns, and the tinted glass below it would not survive an impact.

The kitchen had a similar theme, but the appliances were red, and the clear glass electric kettle, table, and stool were glass with a red tint. There wasn’t much wall space, and narrow scroll-like strips of cloth ran down the available spaces between cabinets. Calligraphy-like strokes of red paint suggested a male’s head, broad shoulders and buttocks, and the woman standing in profile. A flick of the brush suggested the nipple for the woman and a knot-like flourish indicated that which was visible between his legs. The electric kettle was on, burbling.

The dining room was the most conventional of the rooms, with dark, stately furniture, a rug, and an ornate gold-painted picture frame behind the head of the table. A massive brown horse with the whites of its eyes showing had its teeth around a man’s head, while its hoof held the man’s body down. It was partway through tearing the man’s head off, ribbons of gory flesh still connecting the head and neck, and the man’s fingers were slipping from the horse’s reins.

It was such an odd thing to see that I paused mid-stride to confirm it wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me. Had she found it or commissioned it? If it was the former, who painted that kind of work and put it out into the world? If it was the latter, why that, specifically?

I glanced at the candlesticks without candles, and an empty picture frame on the wall behind the length of the dining table, just as ornate as the horse one. There were boxes in the corner, too.

The apartment was narrow, and it looked like sets of stairs allowed what I assumed were the bathroom and bedroom to be right above the living room.