In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

Ula Nova sat down like a sleepwalker. Penny, uncomfortable
with physical closeness, grit her teeth and squeezed the woman's
shoulder reassuringly.
Penny poured water into the cup and threw in a bag of green
tea and a spoonful of the only luxury she allowed herself, Italian orange
blossom honey, and brought it over to the hunched figure at the edge
of the futon.
"Here, have a sip of this. It'll help warm you up. Then you can
tell me what happened. Here's a Kleenex."
Miss Nova took the tissue and sniffled into it. She said into the
cup, "Someone broke into my space. They want to kill me. I came back
from Pilates and the door was wide open. The lock, I mean, viciously
ripped out! Nobody inside. Oh my god, I feel so violated! They're going
to kill me, I know it." She shuddered into her hands.
"Who's going to kill you?"
The woman shrugged, staring into empty space.
"Did they take anything?"
"I don't know, I haven't really looked." She glanced at Penny
with her washed out bleary raccoon eyes, and squinted at the wall of
blinking lights, twisting her soggy Kleenex.
"Well, have you gotten any threatening calls or letters? Are you
worried about your work getting ripped off? Do you have any enemies?
You know, ex-boyfriends, stalkers, crazy fans, people who might want
to give you a good scare? How about the police? Want me to call, Miss
Nova?"
No reaction, eyes wide on the machines.
"Do you want me to call the police? They should be alerted,
don't you think? Have you told Ramón? Miss Nova?"
She just shook her head, mesmerized by the green and red
blinking synth lights that were the only source of illumination except
for the forty watt appliance bulb in the crusty kitchen unit.
"Miss Nova!"
"It's Ula," she whispered.
"Well, uh, Ula, I'm Penny, and, uh… tell you what, you can
crash here until Ramón puts in a new lock. And we'd better call him,
now, okay?"
Penny switched on the bank of industrial fluorescent tubes,
figuring the glare, like a bucket of ice water, might do them both good.
Penny speed dialed the super. "Hi, Bobby, is your dad home? It's kind
of important. Okay. Hi, Ramón, it's Penny. I've got Miss Nova here
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