“You don’t like to be touched, do you?”

The question made me recoil in suspicion, like when a street psychic knows something too personal to have guessed it.

“No, I don’t. How could you tell?”

She had sat across from my desk for five months, but I assumed most people in the office paid attention to the job, not each other. I had assumed they were like me.

“When Emily went to touch your necklace, you held it out for her, as far away from your body as you could get it so she wouldn’t come any closer.”

“Ha, yeah. Good observation.”

I averted my eyes, feeling naked and vulnerable.

This past week, two attempted kidnappings of young women were reported in Santa Monica, both in broad daylight, both on my walk to work. I haven’t had a car since I was a senior in high school. My parents sold…