Keegan smiled. For him, getting away might mean a summer boat ride to Catalina or a winter’s drive to Palm Springs, the kind of thing you could do with twenty bucks and an overnight bag. He doubted that was what she had in mind. “Sure, we can,” he said.

She sunk a little lower, so she could look up at his face. “Promise?”

Keegan nodded. “We’ll drive down to Julian for some apple pie,” he said. “We’ll make a day of it.”

“Don’t make fun, Jim,” she said, pulling his arm against her. “I’m serious.”

“What’s this about?” he said, looking down at her. Those wide eyes. That broad smooth brow. It would be so easy to let himself fall for her.

“I just want to get to know you,” she said. “Normally.” She shook her head as if the words weren’t coming out right. “Not like this,” she said, waving a hand around the room. He knew what she meant: not with a gun and a corpse and cars in the rearview mirror. It was hard to get your footing in a situation like this.

“Sure,” he told her, with little conviction but with a glimmer of hope, nonetheless. “Sure, we can.”

FROM BEHIND THE kitchen’s screen door, he watched her leave. He stood well back, so he wouldn’t be seen. He watched until a new light came on downstairs in Ormsby’s place. Eve was home. She was safe. And if anyone were watching, they’d at least know she hadn’t spent the night with him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sunday, August 19, 1962

THAT NIGHT, HE slept a fitful hour or two while it was dark, and with sunrise he’d pulled himself up from the settee to let Nora out before she scratched away the white paint on the inside of the kitchen door. Still groggy from the limited amount of sleep he did manage to get, he stood on the top back step with a hand on the doorknob to steady himself. The dog did her business over by the rosemary bushes, which seemed to be her preferred spot, and then jogged around in a big circle inspecting the garden’s perimeter. She took up sniffing at the far corner of the picket fence. A rabbit maybe, or a coyote that had come by in the night.

Once again, Keegan saw the cars before he heard them. On the road below Ormsby’s place, an unmarked black sedan came around the bend, followed by a squad car. Both cars passed the turn to Ormsby’s place and kept coming. The only place left to go was his cottage. At least the squad car didn’t have its lights flashing—perhaps a small good omen. Then, a hundred yards behind the two cars, a large green truck lumbered slowly around the bend, laboring in low gear to climb the steep grade.