"In the life of a player or coach there are times when even though bad news appears to be more important than football, at that time it probably isn't," Griff said to Caydance. "This is why I was not angry when you waited to tell me that Alarie has escaped from prison." They were sitting on the beach, watching the sun go down across the water. "That doesn't mean that you should have waited to tell me or that I should be happy that you didn't." Every once in a while, Griff lapsed into the lawyer voice that he had developed for better or worse at Stanford Law.

"Jack will tell me as soon as he knows if his colleagues" -- Caydance paused because it was never clear who Jack's colleagues were -- "pick up Alarie's trail. It is likely that he is headed for Mexico, where he has been difficult to find. Border guards have been alerted. But because of his ability to falsify passports and automobile documents and because of his mastery of disguise, Alarie has never been apprehended at the Mexican Border. The worry is that in prison there was a fellow inmate who works with known manuscript thieves. Based on his prison record of good behavior, that man was released last month."

It was cold on the beach as the sun went down. Caydance was wearing a sweater tied around her waist. She untied it, put it on.