She had on a black silk T-shirt and black jeans, and over that a purple and red kimono-type shirt tied around her waist. The jeans were tucked into black boots with tooled silver toes. Her hair was loose and longer than ever—well past her shoulder blades, the auburn curls bronzed by the light from the baggage claim area. Her skin gleamed and her dark eyes were clear and peaceful. It had been five days since I'd seen her, but it seemed like a long separation.

She touched my cheek and smiled. I leaned in for a longer kiss.

“Whoa,” she said, when we stopped, “I'll go away more often.”

“Not necessary,” I said. “Sometimes there is gain without pain.”

She laughed and hugged me and put her arm around my waist. I held the door open as she got in the car. The man in the Hawaiian shirt had turned his back on us.

As I drove away she put her hand on my knee and looked over at the back seat. “Where's the dog?”

“Guarding hearth and home. How was your talk?”

“Fine. Plus I may have sold that archtop guitar I did last summer—the one Joey Shah defaulted on. I met a jazz musician from Dublin who wants it.”

“Great,” I said. “You put a lot of time into that one.”

“Five hundred hours, but who's counting.”

She stifled a yawn and put her head on my shoulder. I drove all the way to Sunset before she woke up, shaking her curls. “Boy . . . must have hit me all of a sudden.” Sitting up, she blinked at the streets of Bel Air.

“Home sweet home,” she said softly.

I waited until she'd roused herself before telling her the bad news.

She took it well.

“Okay,” she said, “I guess it goes with the territory. Maybe we should move out for a while and stay at the shop.”

“Move out?”

“At least till you know what's going on.”

I thought of her studio, separated from the mean streets of Venice by a thin veneer of white windows and locks. Saws and drills and wood shavings on the ground floor. The sleeping loft in which we'd made love so many times . . .

“Thanks,” I said, “but I can't stay away indefinitely—the house needs maintenance. Not to mention the fish that're left.”

That sounded trivial, but she said, “That poor fish. And you worked so hard to keep them alive.”

She touched my cheek.

“Welcome home,” I said glumly.

“Don't worry about that, Alex. Let's just figure out how to deal with this stupidity until it's resolved.”

“I don't want to put you in any danger. Maybe you should move to the shop—”

“And leave you alone in the middle of this?”

“I just want to make sure you're okay.”