“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.