After a long moment, he shrugged. “Nick keeps one.”
She felt her spine stiffen, her jaw start to lock. “Nick would never, ever come aboard your boat without your permission. And if you think he’s careless with your key, you’d better take the damned thing back. I’m sure the only reason he has your key is so he can help you out, let workmen in when you’re not here, or—”
“I have complete and absolute faith in Nick,” he interrupted.
She fell silent for a moment. “Then?”
He shrugged. “Years ago…I had another key.” His lashes fell over his eyes for a minute. “My partner had one. A long time ago. Not Marty…a different partner.”
“The woman who died?” Ashley said softly.
His eyes pinned hers. “Yes.” He looked back to the lights that softly illuminated the area around the bar. Then he shrugged again. “I didn’t even think about it then. I didn’t think about it at all…until recently. I thought her husband might have it…but he denies it.”
“Maybe he’s not telling the truth.”
“Maybe he’s not.”
“Why don’t you get a fingerprint team out here, see if they can find anything?”
He nodded, but he didn’t seem convinced.
His eyes touched hers. “I’m willing to bet whoever’s been aboard the Gwendolyn won’t have left any prints. Whoever it is was wearing gloves.”
Ashley was silent for a minute. “Nothing was missing when you came in, but you’re certain someone has been aboard. Wearing gloves. I really don’t want to doubt you, but do you think you could be feeling a little paranoid because…well, because an old case that most people considered over and done has arisen again?”
He smiled, a little ruefully, and said, “No, I’m not paranoid, though I may be a little obsessive/compulsive. I live alone. I know where things are. And I know when they’ve shifted…just a little. You know, things have moved. The papers on my desk are at more of an angle. The rug at the bottom of the stairs is off a fraction of an inch. Stuff like that.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. Someone must think I have something. But I don’t have the least idea what.”
He turned and started back inside the houseboat. She frowned, watching him. He paused and turned back. “Are you coming?”
“I, well, I just came because—”
He’d already gone back into the cabin. She slowly followed him.
“Are you staying?” he asked her.
She was startled by the bluntness of the question. She didn’t know whether to be indignant that he had tackled her, concerned that he seemed so convinced his living space had been invaded, or simply angry that they could be so intimate that they should, at the very least, be friends—and that he had treated her like garbage at the morgue.
“Why did you want to talk to me?” she asked, forcing a certain sharpness into her voice.
He arched a brow. “To apologize, of course.”
Her outrage melted like ice on a summer’s day. She shouldn’t have been so quick to forgive.
“Are you staying?” he repeated.
She found herself nodding.
CHAPTER 14