The Night Crew

also afraid of it. Afraid that it would end; afraid that it wouldn’t end. Afraid that she could lose control. Harper got up in the morning. Anna made a few noises at him as he crept out of the bedroom, then went back to sleep. The phone rang just after one, and she crawled across the bed to pick it up.
    Creek. ‘‘How’d it go last night?’’
    ‘‘Okay,’’ she said. ‘‘You don’t have to hurry and heal up anymore. This cop is a great cameraman.’’ There was a second of silence and she said, ‘‘Jesus, Creek, that was a joke.’’
    ‘‘Pretty fuckin’ funny,’’ he said.
    ‘‘God, you get shot a little and people start having to be sensitive around you . . . what’re you doing?’’
    Another second of silence. ‘‘I was thinking about Clark again. And if you say he’s not the guy, then I believe you ninety-nine percent: I’m serious. But since we’ve got people being killed, you’ve gotta check the other one percent.’’
    ‘‘I’m not talking to the cops about Clark,’’ she said.
    ‘‘I understand that,’’ he said. ‘‘You’ve got to get Harper to check—Pam will help. She’s got a badge, Harper’s a lawyer, they could find out all kinds of stuff. And it’d all be in the family that way.’’
    She thought about it for a few seconds, then said, ‘‘He didn’t do it.’’
    ‘‘I believe you,’’ he said. ‘‘But.’’
    ‘‘I’ll talk to Jake,’’ she said.
    • • •
    270 john sandford
    Harper was on the tiny strip of canal-side lawn with a golf club, making slow-motion swings. Anna looked out over the sink, saw him, and when he turned, waved, and he twirled the club like a baton and headed for the door.
    ‘‘Morning,’’ he said. ‘‘Or good afternoon.’’
    ‘‘Want to run?’’ she asked.
    ‘‘Love to, but I’d probably have a heart attack,’’ he said.
    ‘‘Well, I’m gonna go down to the beach and run.’’
    ‘‘No, you’re not,’’ he said.
    ‘‘I am, too.’’
    ‘‘No.’’ He shook his head. ‘‘If I’ve got to run you down— and I could—and carry you back to the house, I will. You’re not going to run on the beach. I couldn’t keep up with you, and that’s something he may have been watching you do. If you want to run someplace else, I’ll take you there.’’
    She put her hands on her hips: ‘‘Now you’re messing with me.’’
    ‘‘Damn right,’’ he said. ‘‘What do you want for breakfast?’’ She ran on the beach, but not on Venice Beach. Harper drove her to Santa Monica, parked on the bluff across from an art deco hotel, and they walked down an access stairway, across the highway, and onto the beach a few hundred yards from where Jason had been found.
    ‘‘I didn’t see any cops following,’’ Anna said.
    ‘‘That’s good,’’ Harper said. ‘‘But they’re there.’’
    She ran most of a mile north, turned, ran back past him to the pier, then back. The beach was nearly empty, and Harper could see her all the way; and she could see everyone around her.
    ‘‘Not the same,’’ she said, when she got back. She was barely breathing hard. ‘‘I felt like I was wearing a leash.’’
    ‘‘Gonna have to do for a while,’’ he said. He mussed her hair, kissed her on the lips, and put her in the car. The feeling of being on a leash had been unpleasant; the feeling of being squired about was not. ‘‘We’re not trying to run your life,’’ Harper said. ‘‘We’re just taking care for a few more days.’’
    ‘‘Did you think about Clark?’’ she asked. She’d told him about Creek’s phone call.
    ‘‘I’ll talk to Pam—there are a few checks we could get done right away, through the cops, without talking to Wyatt. See if he had any problems with the police back east. I can get credit reports, see if I can find a guy to look around Harvard.’’
    ‘‘That’ll take forever.’’
    ‘‘Not with computers—we’ll have most of the paper in an hour or two,’’ he said. ‘‘Getting a guy to look around
Harvard—we could hear something tomorrow, if I can find the right guy.’’
    ‘‘I don’t want him to know about it,’’ Anna said.
    ‘‘He won’t feel a thing,’’ Harper said.
    ‘‘Still . . . Ah, God.’’
    ‘‘Up to you.’’
    On the way back, she decided: ‘‘Go ahead with the calls on Clark—but you know what? I want to see him. Let’s see if we can find him.’’
    ‘‘Today? We oughta get some paper on him