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.”

“Did you lock both the sliding door and the front door this morning?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t see any evidence of a forced entry. So, if the doors were locked, how did someone get in?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Tell me you keep your windows locked.”

“I do. That is to say, I open them often when I’m at home. For fresh air. But then I close them and lock them.”

He began checking the windows. Locked, locked, locked.

When he reached the window nearest the kitchen table, it slid upward. Unlocked. Fury mounted in him like water flooding a room.

“Shoot,” she whispered. “I must have accidentally left that one unlocked.”

He shut it, locked it, and straightened to his full height. “Finley, we both know that someone else is after the treasure. Someone who might be willing to hurt you to get what they want.”

“Yes, and I didn’t consciously decide to be negligent. It was unintentional.”

“The intention doesn’t matter. All that matters is the result, which is that someone was in your house.”

“You’re right. I messed up.” She looked torn . . . as if she had another confession to make but didn’t want to make it.

His stomach turned to lead. “What are you not telling me?”

“When I came home from work the day we rescued Agatha, a strange feeling came over me.”

“What do you mean?”

“My animals’ behavior was a little . . . off. It worried me for a bit. But nothing had been disturbed.”

“How come you didn’t tell me that at the time?”

“Because it was pretty easy to write off. My animals do act oddly at times for harmless reasons.”