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“Not at all. I just want to talk with her about an ongoing investigation.”

  “Then find another source,” Keene told me. “She’s had a rough time, but she’s clean. Getting her life straightened out. Being questioned by the cops …” Keene shook his head. “Checkout is at noon tomorrow.”

  The bathtub in my room had claw feet. The towel rack was brass, and there was a basket of toiletries on the pedestal sink. I ran the hot water, poured some bath salts into the tub, and called Conklin.

  “Antoinette Burgess is in a motorcycle gang called Devil Girlz,” I told him. “Outlaw type, I’m guessing.”

  Conklin said, “Hold on,” and did a Web search while I tested the water temperature and pinned up my hair.

  “I’m finding some stuff on these Girlz,” Conklin told me. “Drugs. Weapon trade. They aren’t Avon ladies, Linds. Watch your ass.”

  “I’m walking on tippy-toes,” I said. “Rich. I saw evidence of a baby in the Burgess house. A baby car seat on the kitchen table. Blue one.”

  “No kidding. Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Do me a favor and tell Brady.”

  Joe picked up my call on the first ring. I stepped into the tub, lowered myself slowly, and sighed as the hot water covered my shoulders.

  “What’s it like there?” Joe asked me.

  “Sweet little town,” I told him. “Imagine Northern Exposure crossed with The Twilight Zone.”

  “Be careful, Blondie.”

  Second guy in under ten minutes telling me to be careful. Jeez, I’ve been a cop for a decade.

  “I’ve got a badge and a gun,” I said to my husband.

  “I don’t like the way you sound.”

  “How do I sound?”

  “Blasé. In a completely detached kind of way.”

  “I’ve been driving all day.”

  “Call for help if you need it. Promise me.”

  “I promise. Now, give me a kiss.”

  After I got out of the tub, I used the house phone and called the sheriff downstairs at the front desk.

  “Sheriff Keene. Got a minute? I want to tell you about this case I’m working.”

  Chapter 77

  AT JUST AFTER EIGHT in the morning, I turned the Explorer onto Clark Lane and headed south.

  “Look at that,” Claire said.

  A thick knot of bikers filled the street — headlights on, engines revving — forming a wall between us and the Burgess house. As we closed in, the knot tightened, and the bikers showed no sign of parting to let us pass.

  My plan had been to knock on Toni Burgess’s door. Show her my badge. I imagined going inside that house and getting the baby out. I hadn’t counted on a rumble. Freakin’ Buck Keene must’ve given Toni Burgess a heads-up.

  “What now, Kemo Sabe?” Claire said.

  “We’re winging it, Tonto,” I said. “Going to rely on what I’ve been told is a lot of charm.”

  I braked fifteen yards from the bikers, close enough to clearly see their mannish haircuts and grungy clothes, their chains looped over their shoulders and around their waists, and their tattoos down to their fingernails.

  I told Claire to lock the doors after I got out and to keep her cell phone in hand.

  The moment I stepped out of the Explorer, there was no turning back. I was committed to gaining entrance to the cedar-shingled house. I made a path in my mind, saw myself sidestep the leader of the pack, walk through the gate, and approach the front door.

  The biker in the lead position gunned her engine, then shut off the motor and dismounted. She closed the distance between us and stood her ground.

  She looked to be in her late forties and about my height, five foot ten, but she had fifty pounds on me. Her blond-gray hair was greased back, she had gaps in her phony grin, and her nose was angled toward the right side of her face.

  The patch over the breast pocket of her jacket read “Toni.” This was Antoinette Burgess? Not your typical suburban mom.

  “What do you want?” she asked me.

  My hands were sweating. There were a dozen ways this could go wrong. Devil Girlz trafficked in guns. I pulled the front panels of my jacket aside, showed her the Glock on my hip and the gold badge on my belt.

  “Sergeant Lindsay Boxer, SFPD. I’m here about the baby.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the biker said.

  That’s when a baby’s piercing wail came from inside the house. I looked up and saw the backlit form of a woman standing at the front window with a bundle in her arms.

  I turned around, went back to the Explorer and, when the lock thunked open, got inside and asked Claire for the phone.

  I had Buck Keene’s number on my speed dial.

  “Sheriff Keene, this is Sergeant Boxer. I need assistance on Clark Lane. If you’re not here in five minutes, I’m calling the FBI. They’ll take down anything or anybody who gets between them and that kidnapped baby.”

  Chapter 78

  THREE GREEN-AND-WHITE PATROL CARS screamed up Clark Lane in the dim light of morning and braked on the verge. Sheriff Buck Keene got out of the first car, wearing a cowboy hat and a dun-colored jacket with fringe along the sleeve seams and a badge on the breast pocket. He had a rifle in his arms.

  “Girls, break it up. Let’s keep things simple, okay?”

  There was some hooting and wisecracking. “What did you say? ‘Keep it simple, stupid’? Who’re you calling stupid?” someone called out.

  But the Devil Girlz moved their bikes out of the way and made a narrow pathway through their ranks for Sheriff Keene.

  Toni Burgess, Claire, and I drafted behind the sheriff, through the weed garden, along the fieldstone path, and up the creaking steps to the deck and the front door.

  Keene knocked and called out, “Sandy, open up. It’s Buck.”

  The door cracked open.

  A woman’s voice said, “Go away, Buck. We’re not hurting anyone.”

  I said, “Sandy, I’m Sergeant Lindsay Boxer, and this is Dr. Claire Washburn, SFPD. We just want to talk to you.”

  “Call me on the phone if you just want to talk to me.”

  “We want to see the baby,” Claire said. “Make sure he’s okay.”

  Sheriff Keene shouted at the door. “What is this, Sandy? What have you girls done?”

  “We haven’t done anything wrong, Buck. Just back off. Unless someone has a warrant, get off our property.”

  “You can’t send law enforcement away. You’re making a mistake, Sandy,” Keene said.

  “Someone is. Go away. Don’t make me say this again. You’re trespassing.”

  I’d had enough of this. I took a half step back, then put my shoulder to the door and rammed it wide open. Claire and the sheriff barreled into the house after me.

  “Subtle,” Claire muttered.

  “As a jackhammer,” I reminded Claire, and that’s when I saw the woman who had been standing behind the door. She was wearing coveralls and a long-sleeved pink T-shirt. Her face was pretty and her hair was long and brushed to a shine. She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties.

  She had a baby under a blue blanket over her left shoulder. It was a wriggling newborn.

  Was this Avis Richardson’s baby?

  All I knew for sure was that he was alive.

  And then I noticed that Sandy had a 9-millimeter handgun pointed right at my head. And from the look on her face, I knew she wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

  Chapter 79

  “BUCK, GET THE HELL OUT of here!” Sandy shouted.

  “I’m not leaving,” he said, “until you put down that gun and tell me what the hell is going on. That is your baby, right, Sandy? You were pregnant. I saw you —”

  “Aw, geez, Buck. Don’t ask, don’t tell. You ever heard of that?” said the girl with the baby over her shoulder.

  “What are you saying? You were lying to everyone? You were faking your pregnancy? Toni? Jesus Christ. How could you two do that?”

  Sandy put the barrel of the gun
underneath her chin. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. All of you. Get out. I’m not kidding,” she said. “And I’m not lying either.”

  The blood left my face. Coffee climbed into my throat.

  “Sandy,” Keene said. “We’ll help you. This isn’t the way.”

  “It’s my way. Now, get out, get out, get out!” she shouted.

  The baby was crying now, real hearty wails.

  My mouth went dry. So many ways for this to go wrong and I never even imagined it this way. I said, “You’re not in trouble, Sandy. We just want to talk about the situation. Buck, let us have some privacy. Please.”

  “Toni, talk some sense into her, damn it,” the sheriff said to the woman in the biker’s leathers. “I’ll be waiting outside.”

  As the sheriff left the house, I said to Sandy, “I’m putting my gun down.” I reached under my jacket, extracted my Glock with two fingers, and put it on the floor.

  Toni Burgess scooped up my weapon and walked across the open room, chains clanking. She put my gun in the garbage can under the sink and closed the cabinet doors.

  Sandy dropped her gun into her coveralls pocket, then hugged the baby with both arms.

  I let out a breath I’d been holding for far too long and looked around. I saw baby bottles on the counter, baby toys on a sheepskin rug on the floor. Pictures of the baby were stuck all over the fridge.

  Sandy jounced the baby against her shoulder and patted his back, but he kept crying.

  “My name is Sandra Wilson,” she said. “And this is my son, Tyler Burgess Wilson. I’m his mother now. I answered Avis Richardson’s ad in Prattslist, and I paid her twenty-five thousand dollars as reimbursement for her expenses in carrying and bearing the baby. And she signed the papers. It’s all legal. You make sure to tell Avis that it’s too late to change her mind.”

  “Avis ran the ad?”

  “She sure did. I can show it to you. After Avis said she wanted us to have the baby, we wired the money into her bank account. Now, listen to me. We love Tyler and we’re not giving him up. This little boy is ours.”

  Chapter 80

  CLAIRE SAID, “I’m a doctor, honey. And I have a baby not much older than Tyler. Could I just take a quick look at him? Please?” She reached out her arms toward the baby in Sandy Wilson’s arms.

  “I can’t get him to eat,” Sandy said in a voice that suddenly cracked with emotion.

  Claire hugged the girl and said, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Then she tugged the baby out of Sandy’s arms and took him to the kitchen table. “Got some baby wipes and a clean diaper?” she asked, her voice as calm as if we weren’t under the gun.

  I was at Claire’s side as she unwrapped the baby, and I could see that he was brown-eyed and pink all over and that he had all his parts, plus a little port-wine stain on the back of his hand. I reached out and touched his little palm. He kicked his legs and let out a fresh new wail.

  While Claire cleaned and inspected the baby, Toni Burgess disappeared. She returned a minute later with the ad from Prattslist and a sheet of paper in her shaking hands.

  “Sergeant, I want you to see this so you can leave us in peace and tell Buck to go home.”

  “You go ahead and read it. I’m listening,” I said.

  “I, Avis Richardson, being of lawful age and sound mind, do give my unnamed son to Sandra Wilson and Antoinette Burgess, who have paid me $25,000 for my expenses in bearing this child.”

  The ad was as Sandy described it. And the note was signed, dated, and witnessed by Antoinette Burgess and Sandra Wilson.

  I sighed, and then I had to say it.

  “Toni, the problem is, Avis Richardson is only fifteen years old.”

  “She’s eighteen. She showed us her ID.”

  “She’s a liar,” I said. “And that’s just the beginning.”

  “This is just wrong,” Sandy said, collapsing into a kitchen chair and sobbing into her hands.

  She was crying so hard, it was difficult to make out everything she said, but this much I got loud and clear: “We planned for him. We delivered him. We’re giving him a loving home. Avis didn’t want him. She had no love for him at all.”

  I went to Sandy and took her gun out of her coveralls pocket and ejected out the magazine.

  She looked up at me, pleading. “Help us. What do we have to do to keep him?”

  “You can’t keep him, Sandy,” I said, knowing that my words were like taking a hatchet to her heart. “This baby already has a family who wants him. I’m very sorry for your pain.”

  Chapter 81

  OUR DEPARTURE from Clark Lane was excruciating; slow and tearful.

  Cops, neighbors, and Devil Girlz crowded around the Explorer as Toni handed me a car seat and other things for the baby, and Sandy pushed papers into my hands.

  “This letter is for Tyler to read when he’s older,” Sandy said. And she gave me her diary and a fat envelope of pictures documenting the baby’s birth.

  I put the photos in the door pocket, evidence that would do until Tyler’s DNA was processed, and I set up the car seat in the backseat.

  Claire fired up the ignition, and as soon as we cleared Taylor Creek, I reclined in the passenger seat and dozed, my eyes flashing open every few minutes over the next four hundred miles. I kept turning to look back at Tyler.

  What was next for this baby?

  Would he be okay?

  As dusk blotted out sundown over Bryant Street, we pulled into the parking lot outside the Medical Examiner’s Office. Conklin was standing next to his car, tossing his keys into the air, catching them, waiting for us to arrive.

  He came over to the car, opened the back door, and stood speechless as he gazed down at the baby.

  “This kid is adorable,” he said. “So what’s the plan?”

  I unfolded my aching bones, got out of the Explorer, and said, “We’re going to wait a few hours before calling Child Protective Services.”

  I hugged Claire good-bye, took Tyler and his car seat, and got into the squad car, Conklin behind the wheel. He said, “The last place Avis Richardson used her cell phone was Tijuana. She called her parents. That was twelve hours ago.”

  “Here’s what I think,” I said. “We introduce the baby to the Richardsons. Tell them to call Avis’s phone. Even if they just leave a message, that’s fine. They just need to say, ‘We got your baby back.’

  “We put a trap on their phone line,” I said. “And we take the baby to St. Francis. We have undercover work in neonatal until Avis comes to see the baby. We put another team at the hotel.”

  “And if she doesn’t show?”

  “I’ll think of something else. You can bet I will.”

  “Works for me,” said Conklin.

  Chapter 82

  SONJA AND PAUL RICHARDSON were waiting in the hallway outside their suite, shades of hope, expectation, and praise-the-Lord lighting their faces.

  They ran toward us as we got off the elevator, and I braced for the imminent shock of separating from the baby.

  I clutched the little boy as I told Sonja that by law we had to take him to the hospital, and the legal system would dictate what happened to him after that.

  “But I knew you would want to see him first,” I said and handed the child to his grandmother.

  It was a beautiful moment.

  Sonja’s pretty face shone with tears as she held him. Her husband curved a protective arm around her shoulders and put a hand on his grandson’s chest. Sonja looked up at me and said, “Thank you so much for finding him.”

  “This is a great day,” Paul said. “A great day.”

  Back in the suite, we all sat down for a serious conversation.

  “Sonja, Paul,” I said. “Avis has to come in. Avis was the one who placed the ad on Prattslist. We have a copy of the ad. She wasn’t solicited. She put the baby up for sale and was paid twenty-five thousand dollars. That’s child trafficking. We have a copy of the contract she signed.”

  Conklin said,
“Avis is in Mexico, and that means that she’ll be deported when she’s caught. If Ritter is with her, he’s guilty of transporting a minor across international lines. He’s in enough trouble to keep a platoon of lawyers busy for years.”

  “But because Avis is a minor,” I said, “if she comes in on her own, we can try to protect her. We’ll work with the DA to get her into the juvenile offenders system. But if she’s deported from Mexico …,” I said with a shrug. “Trust me. You don’t want her to be tried as an adult.”

  A look passed between husband and wife.

  Paul Richardson sighed deeply.

  “Avis is in the bedroom,” he said. “Actually, Jordan is in there, too.”

  Chapter 83

  I SAID to the Richardsons, “Please take the baby to the kitchen. Lie down with him on the floor. Go. Now.”

  The Richardsons looked startled, but they did as I said.

  I pulled my gun, Rich pulled his, and we flanked the door to the bedroom.

  I shouted, “Avis Richardson. Jordan Ritter, this is Sergeant Boxer. It’s all over. Come out with your hands up.”

  There was silence, but before Rich could kick in the door, we heard Ritter’s voice.

  “Sergeant. We don’t have any weapons.”

  The door opened and Ritter came out with his hands up. He hadn’t shaved and his cheeks were sunburned. Even so, he still looked like an ad for an upscale men’s clothing line.

  Rich spun Ritter around and flattened him against the wall. He frisked him and was cuffing him as Avis darted out of the bedroom.

  Avis had her hands up, too, but she was wiggling one of her fingers to draw my attention to a shiny gold band.

  “We got married,” she cried. “Jordan and I got married.”

  “Congratulations,” I said as I threw her against the wall with great satisfaction.

  Once again, in my heart I wanted to slap this girl. Instead I cuffed her and said, “Avis Richardson, you’re under arrest for child trafficking, neglect of a child, and obstruction of justice. You have the right to remain silent …”