“And yet I stand by my statement. You could use company and a good meal. We all could.”
He pushed away from the counter. “I should go.”
“You don’t have to. You could stay and hang out.”
“So we can . . . what? Repot your cacti and talk about the sad fate of the whales?”
“We can also sip herbal tea, don’t forget.”
“And make dreadlocks in our hair.”
“I don’t think you make dreadlocks. I think you just stop brushing your hair and they naturally form.”
“Whatever. I’m not doing it.”
“Spoilsport.” She picked up the calendar page. “I’ll just stick this in the safe with the other clues, then walk you out.”
He stopped in the doorway of her office as she slid open a desk drawer.
She went completely still. “Wait.” She pulled the drawer out farther.
From his position, he could see the safe inside the drawer.
“This isn’t how I left it,” she said slowly. She looked up at him. “I keep the safe sideways, so that the keypad on top faces me when I’m sitting in my desk chair. Now the keypad is facing the front of the drawer.”
Cold spread through him like ice. “Are you sure you didn’t leave it this way?”
“I mean.. . I’m ninety percent sure.”
A warning of danger prickled the skin at the back of his neck. “Are the clues still inside?”
She typed in her code, and the door popped open. “Yes. But ... I really don’t think I left it this way, Luke.” She swallowed. “Do you think someone’s been in my house?”
Someone might still be in the house. His muscles tensed and his senses jumped to high alert. “I’m going to search the house. You stay here.”
“No. I—I’ve never had a burglar in my house, and I’m freaking out a little, which will only get worse if I’m in here alone. Also, this ismyhouse. You need me with you because I’m the one who’s familiar with all the places where a person could hide. And I’m the only one who’ll know if something’s out of place.”
“Fine.” He went to the door of the bathroom beneath the stairs. “Stand back.”
She did. He pulled the door open. The small room was empty.
He made his way to her bedroom, which held the scent of her. Orange blossoms. “Stay near the doorway, please.”
She did so. “Everything looks totally normal in here.” Her voice was thin, shaken. “I don’t store anything under the bed, so a person could fit under there. They could also fit in my closet.”
He looked under the bed. Then the closet.
They made their way through every square foot of the house, her talking him through it.
They finished in the backyard, where he searched under the deck and in the small garden shed on the side of the house. Nothing.
The sliding glass door made a rasping noise as they reentered the living room. They faced each other. The intruder was gone, but that only eased his mind slightly. “When we arrived here after the gold mine, I don’t remember you turning off the house alarm.”
“True.” She scratched her temple. “I’ve been very consistent about setting the house alarm every night before I go to bed, but I don’t always set it when I leave during the day.”
“Finley.”
“I know, I know. You asked me to set it, and I did a really good job of that at first. But sometimes when I hurry out the door, I forget.”
