She started from the beginning of the album once more. The first pictures were like a photo record of her day, unconcerned with lighting or her facial expression, just documentation of her daily activities. Midway through the pictures took on a personal quality.

Mira stopped at one showing her about to get into her car. She'd drawn her coat around her against the frigid day, the cold, bright sun shining high above her head. Her car was in the middle of the badly plowed street in front of the diner. There was not one other vehicle on the entire stretch of road, not one other person. She didn't know how she'd never noticed someone watching her. The road itself was shot so that it looked as though it stretched into infinity.

And she was on it alone, wearing a forlorn expression on her face.

Another showed her at a coffee shop down the street where she went sometimes for her lunch to get a change of scenery. He'd been in the crowded restaurant that day with her, sitting in the corner, judging by the angle of the shot. The place had been filled, but she'd been alone in her booth, staring out the window. He'd focused in on her, blurring the people around her. Her reflection in the window appeared bleak.

Did she really wear that expression on her face so often?

Mira closed the album, swallowed hard, and stepped away from it. The first shots were businesslike, but toward the end Jack had used her as a subject for his art. He'd seemed to capture things about her that no one else saw. Feelings and emotions she'd never shared with anyone. He'd captured her intimate moments without ever having spoken to her.

She turned, flipped off the light, and locked the door.

Her mind a jumble of confused thoughts, Mira headed back downstairs.

She understood why he'd originally begun taking the photos. Those were for surveillance purposes. She should feel creeped out, since he'd followed her around snapping photos of her like some stalker. That fact pissed her off, but the other, later photos muffled that response. Why had his focus shifted to such an intimate angle toward the end? What had made him view her through a more personal lens?

For now she wouldn't tell Jack that she'd seen the photos. She had enough on her plate dealing with everything else. Not to mention she'd have to admit she broke into a locked room in his residence. Although in light of things, that seemed hardly to compare as far as intrusions went.

Still distracted, she wandered over to the bookshelves, which seemed to house every classic title ever written, along with a few political thrillers and a mishmash of horror novels.