“I have a few more leads I want to check out,” he answered. “Stay here. You don’t have to clean anything at the abandoned house.” That, too, had been an excuse. He’d been justifying his actions in his own mind since meeting her that first night. He’d been doing that in other aspects of his life, too.
“Yes, I do,” she said. “My father may want to inspect my work.”
“So? Tell him he doesn’t need to inspect anything. It’s your work, not his.” He didn’t want to say more, about staying home due to Elkin because he didn’t want to scare her. “I’ll see you later.”
She opened her door and stepped out. “All right, but you be careful. I worry about you with such a dangerous job.” She shut the door.
He didn’t want her to worry. Not about him or anything else. He’d been after Elkin as an agent, still was, but it now was also personal.
Whether the house needed to be cleaned or not, that was where she went after Henry drove away, because it would give her time alone. Usually, she did some of her best thinking while cleaning, but hadn’t come to any conclusions, other than she would talk to her father about the building codes. She’d thought a lot about his gold mining, how he’d kept that from Mother for all these years.
It seemed so wrong, and she was truly trying to justify it, because it was too close. Too close to her own thoughts about lying to James about the baby. That was what it would amount to. A lifelong lie. She also realized what she would have to do in order to perpetuate that lie. Being here, in the house where the baby was conceived, made such thought nearly inconceivable.
She’d wanted to be with Henry. Still did. She doubted the desires she had for him would ever wane. Married or not, doing that same act with James made her sick to her stomach. One that wouldn’t go away by throwing up. It was an ugly, dark feeling that encompassed more than her stomach. It made her heart ache. Just like thinking about living a lie for the rest of her life did.
She couldn’t do it.
She would have to tell Henry.
Face whatever consequences that came about.
She’d stand her ground, too. With her father.
After all, she now had ammunition.
That didn’t make her feel any better, but she had to find a way to make this work.
Her heart jolted as the door flew open.
“Come on—we have to go!” Jane said.
“Go where?” Betty asked, with a hand pressed to her breastbone as she caught her breath.
Patsy stepped in the door behind Jane. “Henry called. Said we needed to meet him at the address.”
“Called who?”
“Me,” Patsy said. “At the newspaper office.”
Betty shook her head, tried to make sense of what she was being told. “Why would Henry call you?”
“He sure couldn’t call you,” Jane said, untying the back of Betty’s apron.
Accepting that answer for what it was, Betty removed the apron and set it on the floor by the mop and bucket. “Why? Why do we need to meet him there?”
“You know the address, don’t you?” Jane asked.
“Yes.” She had memorized it last night.
“Then let’s go,” Jane said, pushing her toward the door.
Reluctant because that was who she was, only Henry made her impulsive, she pointed at the car. “Whose car is that?”
“Mine,” Patsy said. “The one Lane gave me before we were married so I could drive back and forth to the newspaper office.”
Betty did recall that, but it had been during the time Henry had been missing, while he’d been shanghaied, so she hadn’t paid much attention to anything else.
“He didn’t like the idea of me sneaking out and taking the red line all the way to the newspaper office.”
“You took the red line all that way?” Betty asked. “When?”
Jane and Patsy shared a knowing look.
“Never mind,” Betty said. She obviously hadn’t been paying close attention at all during that time. Thank goodness nothing had happened to Patsy. She would never have forgiven herself.
Once they were in the car, driving away from the house, Betty’s concerns shifted. “Tell me what Henry said when he called.”
“I didn’t talk to him,” Patsy said. “The front secretary took the call, and she said that Henry called and told me to bring my sisters to the address.”
“He didn’t tell me he was going there,” Betty said aloud, while thinking that he had said he wanted to check out some leads.
“Did you tell him everything?” Jane asked pointedly.
Betty shot a glare into the backseat. “No.”
Jane shrugged and looked out the window.
“Where’s Lane?” Betty asked.
“He’s interviewing a new city councilman,” Patsy answered. “I left him a message. And I told Mother that I need the two of you to help me measure curtains.”
“Measure curtains?”
“Yes,” Patsy answered. “I needed an excuse, so I said I needed help measuring the windows in our apartment for new curtains. She knows how good you are at that. Jane and I can barely sew a seam without your help.” Patsy took the corner that would lead them to the main throughway. “What’s the address?”
Los Angeles had over a million people living within the city limits, and Henry swore nearly every one of them was on the roads near the railroad district this morning. Every corner he made, traffic was stopped. Horns were honking and people shouting.
There were every size, shape, and model of truck trying to back into places or trying to pull back out onto the roads. The shrill of train whistles was constant; so was the screeching of metal wheels grinding on the metal tracks.
Trains had the right-of-way, but more than one daring trucker shot across one of the many sets of tracks a moment before a train barreled past, blowing its horn.
Henry steered his way through the spiderweb of train tracks and dirt roads, searching for the street written on the slip of
