I nodded.
“For how long?”
“A little while. Three or four months.”
“That’s nothing,’” Claire said.
By then we were on Interstate 5 about one hundred miles north of San Francisco. Knee-high thickets of scrub flanked both sides of the freeway, and wire fences separated the road from the plains of parched grass that stretched to the horizon.
The word “barren” came to mind.
“You having PMS right now?” Claire asked me.
“Yuh-huh,” I said.
Claire reached over and gave my shoulder a shake. “You’re getting a chocolate bar at the next gas station,” she said.
I croaked, “What is that? Doctor’s orders?”
Claire laughed. “Yes, it is, smarty-pants,” she said. “It most definitely is.”
Chapter 74
ANY COP WOULD SAY that emotional attachment messes with your objectivity. You just have to accept that innocent people get hurt, raped, scammed, kidnapped, and murdered every day.
But if you’re a cop and you don’t bring everything you’ve got to nailing the bad guys, what the hell is the point? For the same time and money, you might as well be punching tickets on a train.
We gassed up the Explorer outside Williams, then had lunch at Granzella’s, a restaurant that looked like a feed store on the outside and a hunting lodge inside. Claire and I sat at a table under the mounted heads of deer and bear as well as zebras, water buffalo, and long-horned goats.
Along with the exotic taxidermy, Granzella’s specialized in a very nice linguine with a spicy red sauce. While we ate, I groused about Avis.
“She’s wasted more than a week of our time, Claire. And she’s such a liar, even
Claire clucked sympathetically as I ranted, then raised the heat by reminding me about the last big case we’d worked together. Pete Gordon, a bona fide psycho killer, had murdered four young moms and five little kids a few months ago in a murder spree that had torn me and Claire to pieces.
I went to the bathroom, sat on the rust-stained throne, and got some major weeping out of my system. Then I washed my face, came out, and said to Claire, “I’ve got the check. Let’s go, butterfly.”
We were back on the road again by a quarter past two. About two hundred miles north of San Francisco, the freeway crossed a section of Shasta Lake.
For the first time in a week, I stopped thinking of babies. The sight of pink-and-yellow sandstone banks rising from the impossibly vivid bands of sea-green and peacock-blue water simply blew everything else out of my mind.
And then sightseeing was over. Surely we would find Avis’s baby boy. Surely we would.
We pulled into Taylor Creek at 5 p.m.
It’s a one-traffic-light town, a typical small town in the great northwest. Main Street was a row of western facades from the late 1800s. Brick buildings that were once banks or warehouses now housed boutiques and small storefront businesses.
Cars crawled along the main drag. Streetlights and headlights came on as the sunlight faded to a streak of pink.
“I want to drive by Antoinette Burgess’s house,” I said to Claire. “Get a fix on the place.”
The disembodied voice of the GPS guided us to Clark Lane, a narrow, tree-lined street with a sign reading DEAD END. Green picket fences edged the front yards, and behind the fences was an assortment of homes from different decades — Victorians, ramblers, Craftsmans, and ranches.
The house belonging to Antoinette Burgess was a cedar-shingled A-frame with a wraparound deck and a satellite dish on the roof. I saw no lights on inside the house and no car in the driveway.
I parked the Explorer on a pile of fallen leaves at the curb, and Claire observed, “Looks like no one’s home, Lindsay.”
I thought,
I turned off the headlights and said, “Be right back,” and got out of the car.
Chapter 75
THE FRONT YARD was unkempt; the grass hadn’t been mown, and the leaves hadn’t been raked. To my right, a weedy gravel driveway flowed past the house to an open, freestanding two-car garage.
I flicked on my flashlight and proceeded down the driveway, the pea stone and dry leaves crunching loudly underfoot.
The garage smelled of motor oil, and there was grease on the floor. I flicked my light across a rowboat in the rafters, stacks of plastic tubs, and cartons of what looked like motorcycle parts: sprockets, valves, and brake shoes.
There was nothing of interest here.
I left the garage and headed toward the back of the house. Flashing my beam through the multipane windows. I could make out worn furniture, a woodstove, and a baby’s car seat on the kitchen table.
My eyes fixed on the car seat. It was blue and it was empty. My heart rate jacked up another twenty beats a minute as I put my hand on the doorknob and twisted.
The door was unlocked — but a half second before I pushed the door open, I saw a tiny red flashing light reflected in the microwave door across the room.
Burgess had an alarm system, and the house was armed.
I let go of the doorknob, and at that moment, I heard the distant sputtering and roar of motorcycles, a sound that got louder the closer it got to Antoinette Burgess’s house.
The bikes were coming to this house, I was sure of it. I had to get out of here.
I turned off my flashlight and retraced my steps by the waning glow of twilight. Claire buzzed down the window and called out to me, “You hear that, Linds?”
“Couldn’t miss it,” I said.
I pulled myself up into the driver’s seat and started the engine as a stream of seven or eight single headlights drew closer.
My wheels whinnied as I jammed on the gas, spun out, and left the curb in a sharp U-turn.
“That was smooth. You think anyone could possibly have noticed us?” Claire asked as she gripped the dash.
“Hey, that’s me. Subtle as a jackhammer.”
We passed the motorcycle cavalcade coming toward us and I continued up the street with my eyes on the rearview mirror. Bikes wheeled up to the Burgess house and turned down the driveway toward the garage.
Was Antoinette Burgess in that motorcade?
Where was the baby?
I glanced back at the mirror and saw the silhouette of a biker who had stopped at the entrance to the Burgess driveway. The bike was still there and the biker was still astride it as I took the next right turn and sped away.
Crap.
