“I never slept with Nancy. Never. I don’t know who told you I did, but it doesn’t matter—a lot of people thought we were an item But it never happened. She was married. I was in love with her, yes, but we never slept together. We came close a few times, but one or the other of us always withdrew. She, because she still believed in her vows. Me, because I loved her. And she had to either make it with Brian or decide on a divorce without me being involved. She really was one of my best friends. I knew her like I’ve seldom known anyone in my life. I stick like glue to my conviction that something’s going on because I knew her—not because I slept with her. She didn’t commit suicide. And she didn’t decide to go out for a wild night of drinking and drugs because she was depressed. I don’t care what the police psychologist considers a plausible scenario. That’s not what happened.”
He stopped speaking. His eyes had such an intense quality. They could give away nothing, or, like now, they could blaze with vehemence and conviction.
“Do you know what?” she said.
He started, frowning slightly, expecting a different reaction.
“What?”
“I never slept with Stuart. He was my friend, my best friend.”
The fingers knotting in her hair eased. And he smiled slowly. “Hmm. I guess that means I’m supposed to be sorry again.”
“Yeah, you should be.”
“I am sorry. You were so passionate in his defense, but I should have realized that could have been because of friendship. We’re more alike than I’d ever begun to realize,” he said. She found herself released. “I’m going to lock up and set the timer on the coffee for the morning.”
“Okay.”
She stood still, letting the bra she had retrieved drop back to the floor.
A moment later, the houseboat was secured and the coffee had been set for the following morning. In the bedroom, Ashley found herself telling Jake about her friendship with Stuart, how she had adored his parents.
“So you two were that close but never high school sweeties?” he queried.
She laughed. “It was a big public school,” she reminded him. “We all hung in the same crowd. We weren’t the wild crowd, we weren’t quite nerds. I had a thing for a football player, though. Stu made this announcement about it. I was totally humiliated, but the guy liked it, and we went together for several years. I guess that was my big high school romance.”
“But it ended?”
“Oh, you bet. He wound up being the biggest, most insufferable jerk I’d ever met.”
“Including me?”
She smiled ruefully. “Well, you did remind me of him a bit. He wanted to get married right after school. Live at Nick’s with me, and let me work to put him through college. He had a football scholarship, but it didn’t pay for everything. He thought art was a hobby, not a career. And he thought he should be able to go to bars, hang out with the guys—and the college girls, of course—because he was a guy. I should have been grateful just to have a guy like him and turn a blind eye to whatever he did. Luckily for me, in those insane moments when I was ready to buy into his line, Stuart was there, telling me I was an idiot if I didn’t see my own value, that I’d be insane not to pursue art. So I did. But then…I don’t know. I really did feel the urge to become a cop. Because of my dad, I guess. Maybe I thought I could get closer to him, somehow. And I still want to go through and finish the academy, but I know the on-the-job training I can get from this position is going to be incredible.”
“It will be incredible,” he told her. “I think it was just hard for an old-timer like me to see such talent from an upstart.”
“Upstart?”
“You’re supposed to protest that I’m not an old-timer.”
“How old are you?”
“Nearly thirty-six. Thirteen years on the force.”
“You always knew what you wanted to be?”
“Nope. I was supposed to grow up to be a lawyer. In some ways, I was like that asshole football player you dated.”
“You are a chauvinist.”
“Not at all, not anymore. Except….”
“Except when it comes to me?”
He hesitated even longer then. Before he spoke, he gritted his teeth and shrugged. “There’s something about you that reminds me of Nancy.”
“She was a cop. A homicide cop. Your partner. And you loved her.”
“Right. But I know—I know—that she went off on her own, and that’s what got her killed. She made a mistake.”
“A male cop can make a mistake. You could make a mistake,” she reminded him.
He smiled. “Yeah, I could.”
“But you stay out there.”
“You bet.”
“So…?”
“You know what?” He turned to her, face bronze against his pillow. “Cops can be assholes. Male, female, gay, straight, you name it. Macho guys with big guns, women with chips on their shoulders…cops are human. Some guys have gone bad, really bad. But most cops really are the good guys. I met one when I was a kid. He straightened me out, and I saw that he could make a difference. That’s what this job is to me. Making a difference. I see guys doing it all the time, sometimes just in small ways. I know there are times when we won’t get the answers. Doesn’t mean we stop trying. If you’ll keep it a secret, I’ll even admit I’m obsessed with the Bordon case. And I know our Jane Doe is connected somehow. I’m sure I have the missing piece of the puzzle somewhere. I just don’t know what it is. Maybe that’s why I understand your conviction about Stuart, why I’ll ask some questions and do some investigating on my own. But when your drawing hits the papers tomorrow, I’m willing to bet we get an identification on Jane Doe, and that means I’m going to be busy as all hell, so you’ll have to understand if it takes me a little time.”