Clair found me practising.
I pulled her down on the bed beside me.
“I think I’ll send you away,” I said. “If Bat’s going to start anything, he’ll get at me through you. We’ll have to think where you can go.”
She shook her head. “It’s no use running away, darling,” she said. “They may never come after us, and we’d be separated for months, waiting. Besides, they want me at the trial and things could happen then if they’re going to happen at all. Let’s stick together. I’d never have a moment’s peace without you.” She flung her arms around my neck. “I don’t care what you say. I’m not going to leave you.”
I thought for a moment, decided she was right.
“We’ll wait for them,” I said.
I was expecting something pretty bad from the newspapers, but nothing as bad as the front page of the Clarion, the paper my friend the photographer worked on. They had dug up the whole story of Paradise Palms and had smeared it all over the front page with photographs of myself, Clair, the service station, Killeano and even Clairbold, the boy wonder.
I took one look, cursed.
5
As the weeks went by and nothing happened, we gradually relaxed. But we still took precautions. I carried a gun, I continued to practice, and I regained my speed. We had a couple of fierce police dogs around the house, but no one can continue to be keyed up all the time waiting for trouble if trouble doesn’t come.