The Night Crew

'No.' End of story.

Clark's car was still where he'd left it. 'We could wait,' Harper said, glancing at his watch. 'The shopping center closes in ten minutes. There's a space we could watch from.'

A

'Let's waitfor a while. I'll call Louis.'

They waited for more than an hour, slumped in the car, talking in a desultory way. Louis still hadn't found anything on McKinley.

After an hour, Harper called an end to it: 'It's after ten. Let's go on back to your place, see if anything turned up.'

'All right. But, goddammit, Jake, we're stuck.'

Chapter 27

The lights were on in the living room, and A

But Glass had gone.

'Got the house all to ourselves, my little potato dumpling,' Harper said, snagging her around the waist.

A

But now Harper was looking past her, toward the kitchen, and he said, 'What's that? In the kitchen.'

His voice carried a chill, and A

A

The stain was the size of a large human hand; liquid, purple.

'Blood,' Harper said. 'Don't go in. We might need crime scene.'

'Oh, Jesus, look at the window.' Harper looked at the window by the door. The plywood plug had been forced in, and only partly pushed back in place. 'He's got her,' A

'Gotta call Wyatt, and gimme the gun,' Harper grunted. Harper started going through the house, opening doors, checking everything, A

'This is A

Wyatt was instantly alert, picking up the vibration in her voice: 'No. What happened?'

'We came home, expecting to meet her here, but she wasn't here. But it looks like somebody broke in through the back and there's blood on the kitchen floor.'

'Oh, Jesus Christ, you stay right there. Stay there!'

And he was gone.

A

A

'No,' A

Two minutes later, a minivan screeched to a stop outside, and five seconds after that, a second one. Two plainclothes cops climbed out of each, milled for a second, then started for the door. Harper and A

'Pretty sure,' Harper said.

'She left here a half hour ago, ten minutes after they got back,' the cop said. He looked at A

Another cop was kneeling in the kitchen. He sniffed the stain on the floor, and looked back at them: 'It's blood.'

'And there's the window,' A

'Maybe she's okay, maybe she went out for something,' A

Harper looked at her and shook his head.

'He didn't get in here,' one of the other cops said, defensively. 'We watched every goddamned car that came in here, and the only one that turned down the street was that Korean guy.'

'He didn't come in a car,' A

'How? We were watching people on the street; and how in the hell are you go

They were still arguing when Wyatt arrived. He was wearing suit pants and a jacket over a striped pajama shirt, and carried a rumpled dress shirt and tie in his fist.

He listened for two minutes, then said to A

'Inside?'

'Gotta be,' he said. He ticked off the points: 'He killed a guy who claimed to be having a romance with you. Okay: that could come from simply following you around. But then he came here, and he just vanished. Then he went after your friend Creek, right down the street, and he got away again.'

'He went into his house,' Harper said.

Wyatt nodded. 'That would explain a lot,' Harper said.

A

'So you mean the whole thing was a coincidence?' Harper asked. 'That because it happened on the night my son died, and everything else. the animal raid and everything. we just made it up?'

Wyatt nodded. 'It's possibleor maybe he was following her that night, and something he saw set him off.'

Harper said, 'So have your guys check the logs and find out who came out of here after A

They worked through it, but A

She stood up and said to Harper, 'I'm go

She went out the back door, looked up: 'Hobie? Jim? You guys up there?'

A second later, Hobie's voice floated down: 'What's going on?'

'Trouble. Can you come down?'

'Be right thereout the back door.'

A

Hobie said, 'I didn't even hear that.'

'I think you were making popcorn,' Jim said.

'I'm sorry, A

A

People were fucking with her house.

And A

'Don't answer,' Harper said, urgently. He turned to Wyatt and said, 'Are you still set up on her phone?'