“Whatever I want. We’re divorcing, remember?” But she was already down the steps and heading toward the carriage house, Bo at her heels.

Freya’s voice followed after her. “I wonder about that,” she said.

Val wondered, too, but she didn’t let herself think about it too much as she left the dog on the back porch of her cottage. He was sloppily lapping water from his bowl when she stepped inside.

Cammie’s things were still strewn over the table, and Val picked up a long-forgotten brush. Something had to be here, right? Something important. Something she and Slade had missed. But the items were still the same: her baby shoes that had been bronzed, several report cards, old CDs, even some cassette tapes from the eighties, a set of mini-cassettes from the summer she’d spent learning Spanish, a boy’s class ring she’d never given back, and a Barbie doll, her first from the looks of it. Barbie’s hair was mussed and frayed, and her face had grayed with dirt. She could definitely use a scrubbing.

So what was it? What was it she was missing?

Val set the brush down, rocked back on her heels, and glanced at the items. She got nowhere. Even after looking them over for another ten minutes.

Her cell phone rang, and she swept it out of her pocket. “Hello?” she said, but no one was there. The only message left was labeled Missed Call, with no caller ID.

“Huh.” She thought the person might call back, but the phone didn’t ring again. Telling herself it was a wrong number, she silently perused Camille’s belongings one last time and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Calling herself a really poor excuse for a cop—check, make that ex-cop—she stripped off her jeans and T-shirt and headed for her phone booth of a shower tucked into a corner of a tiny bathroom.

The pipes groaned as she turned on the water, then pulled her hair into a small bun that she secured on the top of her head. She cranked the window open, as the steam from the shower was as thick as the fog in San Francisco Bay, then stepped through the opaque glass door.

Once under the spray, she washed off the sweat and grime of the day. Lathering up, she rubbed the kinks from her neck, letting the hot needles of water massage her muscles as she wondered why in the hell she’d agreed to go to dinner with Slade.

It wasn’t really a date; Freya had gotten that part wrong.

But . . . it might be more intimate than was a good idea.

And what’s the problem with that? she asked herself. Slade has been nothing but supportive since he rolled into town and blocked your car in the driveway. And face it, Val, you’re still attracted to him.

God, it was complicated.