The Night Crew

'Fuckin' vinyl cowboy boots,' Harper said. 'You show me a woman who wears vinyl cowboy boots and I'll show you a woman whose.' He trailed off, glanced at A

'Whose what?' A

'Never mind,' Harper said.

A

Two minutes, and they were back in range: She had a message waiting, but called Louis and asked him to locate the other kid at the animal raid. Then she punched in the message, and got Wyatt's voice.

'We've got a proposition for you,' he said. 'Call me.'

'Wyatt,' she said to Harper. 'He's got a proposition.'

Wyatt was in the office: 'Things are go

'Excuse me?' A

'. Uh, sorry. Anyway, this whole thing is go

'Huh. Not bad. Let me talk to Jake about it.'

'There'd be a chance we could spot the guy,' Wyatt said. 'We'd have an undercover video van covering you and even if nothing happens, we could analyze every face in every crowd, every place you go. If he's tracking you, we could spot him.'

'Let me talk to Jake.'

'Okay, but we want to go tonightfour hours from now.'

Harper was adamant: 'No! No fuckin' way. They're so desperate they're willing to turn you into a bull's-eye.'

'When you were working homicide, did you ever use a civilian as a decoy?'

'Only once or twice and it didn't do any good,' Harper said. 'And the situations were really limited, we weren't out roaming around trying to find a psycho.'

'Did you have a relationship with either of those women? Were they women?'

'Yeah, they were women, and of course not, I didn't mess with people in investigations.'

'So you used them,' A

She was so silky with the question that Harper glanced all her and said: 'Shut up.' And a moment later, 'You're stupid.' A

Creek was awake, eating a bowl of raspberry Jell-O and arguing with Pam Glass, who looked more tired than Creek. When A

Creek was sitting up in bed, still plugged into the saline drip. He tried to look well. 'I'm feeling a hell of a lot better,' he said, in an u

'What do the doctors say?' Harper asked.

'If he keeps improving, maybe three days,' Glass said. 'That's the minimum. He's talking about how his insurance runs out. I offered to help him, but he won't take help.'

Creek looked embarrassed and A

'So, I thought it might run out.'

Glass's eyes narrowed: 'You were lying to me.'

'That's what I thought,' Creek mumbled.

Glass dropped in a chair. 'I don't even know why I hang around this place,' she said wearily.

'Jeez, Pam, take it easy.' Now Creek was worried.

Glass looked at A

'You pal Wyatt wants her to be a target in some stupid decoy operation,' Harper said.

'Decoy?' Now she was interested. 'How would it work?'

A

'That's bullshit,' said Creek. He looked at Harper. 'You can't go along with this.'

'Of course not. I already told her how stupid it is.' A

Now it was Creek's turn to be angry. 'Pam, goddammit, you don't know what you're doing. This guy's a psycho.'

'If we thought he was going to shoot her with a sniper rifle, then I'd be against it,' Glass said. 'But he seems to want to get his hands on her. These guys who'll be with herthey're tough guys. He won't take A

A

'I hadn't thought of that guy, but now that you bring him upthere's something about him. I think he needs a closer look,' Creek said.

'He's in Oregon,' A

'That could be some bullshit they pulled,' Creek said.

'I don't think so,' she said. A

'You said you had a couple ideas. One of them is the other kid. but what's the one you didn't want to talk about? The coincidence?'

Harper shrugged. 'Not much, really,' he said. Then, 'Could I have a little talk with Creek? Alone?'

A

Creek shrugged, looking curiously at Harper, and Harper said, 'If I wanted you to know, I'd just go ahead and askso if you don't mind, go talk to Pam. In the hall.'

A

Two minutes later, the door opened. Harper looked out, and said, 'You better come back in.'

A

'What?' A

'Jake, uh, brought something up. He didn't want to talk to you about it unless I thought there was something to talk about.'

'So?'

'Sothere might be.'

'So? What is it?'

Creek looked at Harper, shrugged, looked back at A

'Nope, nope, no way, no way,' A

'Probably not,' Creek said. 'But Clark is strange. You know that yourself: I've never met anyone as driven as he was. Every time you two guys got into trouble, it was because he was freaking out with work. Who knows what happened to him since you last saw himhe might've cracked.'

'Not Clark,' A

'Yeah? You've heard his voice,' Creek said. 'Are you sure it wasn't Clark's? You say it's familiar.'

She opened her mouth to say no, it wasn't Clark'sbut then she thought, maybeit is. The voice was a middle baritone, and Clark's was close to that; and she hadn't heard Clark's voice for years. She closed her eyes, listened to Clark talk. The same?

She opened; her eyes. 'No,' she said. 'It's not the same.'

'Bullshit,' said Creek, because Creek could read her mind. 'You don't know.'

A

Jake came out of the kitchen, carrying a plate of toast and jelly. They were at A