I nodded. There didn’t seem like there was anything else to say. I leaned over and kissed her, this time just on the cheek.

“I’ll call you tomorrow or the next day, okay?”

“Okay, Harry. Be careful. Good-bye.”

“I will. Good-bye, Eleanor.”

I got out and watched her drive off. I wished I had been able to spend more time with her and wondered if she would have let me if I’d had the time. I then put those thoughts away and went inside. I showed my driver’s license and credit card and picked up the key to my rental. It was a Ford Taurus and I had to get used to being low to the ground again. On my way out of rent-a-car row I saw a sign with an arrow pointing the way to Paradise Road. I thought that everybody needed a sign like that. I wished that it was that easy.

23

Four hours and a nonstop drive across the desert later I was in the tech lab at Biggar & Biggar. I took the memory card from my pocket and handed it to Andre. He held it up and looked at it and then looked at me as though I had just put used gum in his hand.

“Where’s the case?”

“The case? You mean the clock? It’s still on the wall.”

I hadn’t figured out yet how to tell him that the clock was broken and probably the camera as well.

“No, the plastic case for the card. You put the spare card I gave you into the clock when you took this one out, right?”

I nodded.

“Right.”

“Well, you should have put this one into the spare card’s case. This is a delicate instrument. Carrying it around with your pocket change and lint is not the proper way of —”

“Andre,” Burnett Biggar interrupted, “let’s just see if it’s going to work. It was my mistake for not schooling Harry on the finer points of care and maintenance. I forgot he’s such a throwback.”

Andre shook his head and walked over to a workbench with a computer set up on it. I looked at Burnett and nodded my thanks for the rescue. He winked at me and we followed Andre.

The son used a pneumatic air gun that looked like it was from a dentist’s office to blast dust and debris off the memory card I had mishandled and then plugged it into a receptacle that was attached to the computer. He typed in a few commands and soon the images from Lawton Cross’s sitting room were playing on the computer screen.

“Remember,” Andre said, “we were using the motion sensor so it’s going to be a bit jerky. Watch the clock in the corner and you’ll be able to keep track.”

The first image on the screen was my own face. I was staring right at the camera as I adjusted the time on the clock. I then backed away, revealing Lawton Cross in his chair behind me.