Eddie couldn’t figure out this puzzle, but some things were obvious. Skip hadn’t been injured. He had been packing to leave when his uncle had reached home. He had apparently heard some sort of shooting inside the house where the dead woman lay. Could it have been possible that some other outfit had planned to get Stolz’s dough on the same night that they had?

Much confused, as well as relieved about Skip, Eddie set about the long chore of returning to Oxnard.

Anxious over the long delay in returning to Karen, he decided not to stop and see about the mechanic’s report on the jalopp. He had a hunch what the mechanic had to say, anyhow. Something about throwing good money after bad—if he was honest, and he’d looked honest. Eddie bought a ticket on a Greyhound bus and rode straight through. At Mrs. Mosby’s café he found the elderly woman working at a counter full of customers, Karen nowhere in sight. Mrs. Mosby jumped on him for leaving Karen so long, and between scurryings told him Karen was feeling poorly. She was in bed, on the cot in the storeroom.

When Eddie entered the storeroom, closing the door behind him, he could see Karen lying there on her back, face to the ceiling, eyes big and quiet, almost dreamy. She looked thinner, fine-downed. Mrs. Mosby had tacked some cotton material over the window, dimming the light, but Karen glanced over and saw Eddie at once. She said weakly, “I can’t really believe it’s you. I was sure the police had caught you.”

He sat down, put his arms under her, lifted her close. “Not a chance. It’s all over now.”

“It’s just beginning,” she whispered against his face.

“We’re just beginning,” he agreed.

“No, I don’t mean that. What I mean is, we’re going back. I thought of calling the police here, but it might make trouble for Mrs. Mosby. And she’s been kind. We’ll have to go back to L.A. and get hold of a policeman there.”

Eddie put her down slowly. His expression was one of stunned amazement. “You don’t mean it.”

“Yes, I do. As soon as I get over this chill, or whatever it is, I’m going to dress and leave.” She was looking up into his eyes with a steady, earnest gaze. “Don’t you see, what we were talking about in connection with Skip, that he wasn’t grown up, that there was something in him that would never develop; well, that would apply to us, too, if we didn’t go back and clear our consciences.”

Eddie pounded his shirt. “I don’t have a conscience! Chrissakes, a conscience to make you put your head in a noose, I wouldn’t want a thing like that!”