The 6th Target (Women's Murder Club 6)

“This is André Devereaux,” he said of the abducted Canadian child. “He looks to be the same boy as the one whose picture was found inside the Queensbury Register.

“André’s nanny was Britt Osterman, a Swedish citizen. She was employed by the Queensbury Registry. A week after the abduction of André Devereaux, Britt Osterman was found dead in a ditch off a secondary road. Bullet to the head.

“The Queensbury Registry was owned by two Americans, called themselves John and Tina Langer,” Macklin continued. “The Langers disappeared after the Devereaux/Osterman abductions. The Canadian police e-mailed this photo of the Langers.”

Macklin put another laser-print photo on Tracchio’s desk, a man and a woman, white, late forties.

It was an informal snapshot taken at a holiday party. Beautiful room. Carved paneling. Men in dinner suits. Women in cocktail dresses.

Macklin’s finger was pressed against the photo, nailing a brunette woman in her late forties, wearing a low-cut bronze-colored dress. She was leaning against a smiling man, who had his arm around her.

I could only guess at the woman’s identity, but I knew the man. His hair was black, combed straight back. He had a goatee, and he didn’t wear glasses.

But I’d looked into that face only a short time ago, and I knew him.

John Langer was Paul Renfrew.

Chapter 111

AT JUST AFTER NOON THAT DAY, Conklin and I were at Uncle’s Café in Chinatown. We’d both ordered the Wednesday special: pot roast, m

ashed potatoes, and green beans. Conklin had made inroads into his potatoes, but I had no appetite for food.

We had a straight-on view through the plate glass across the gloomy street to a row of brick houses and the Westwood Registry.

A pregnant Chinese woman in pigtails refilled our cups of tea. When I looked through the window a nanosecond later, Paul Renfrew, as he was calling himself, was stepping out of his doorway and heading down the front steps.

“Lookit,” I said, tapping Conklin’s plate with my fork. My cell phone rang. It was Pat Noonan.

“Mr. Renfrew said he’s going out for lunch. Coming back in an hour.”

I doubted it.

Renfrew was going to run.

And he had no idea how many eyes were watching him.

Conklin paid the check, and I made calls to Stanford and Jacobi, zipped my jacket over my vest, and watched Renfrew’s peppy march past herbal shops and souvenir stores as he headed toward the corner of Waverly and Clay.

Conklin and I got into our Crown Vic just as Renfrew unlocked the door of his midnight-blue BMW sedan. He looked over his shoulder, then entered his car and headed south.

Dave Stanford and his partner, Heather Thomson, pulled in behind Renfrew when he reached Sacramento Street while Jacobi and Macklin took a northern route toward Broadway. Our walkie-talkies bleeped and chattered as our team members called in their locations and that of the BMW, following, dropping back, weaving into place, and picking up the trail.

My heart was thudding at a good steady rate as we followed Paul Renfrew’s run to wherever the hell he was taking us.

We crossed the Bay Bridge and drove north on Highway 24, finally entering Contra Costa County.

Conklin and I were in the lead car as Renfrew turned off Altarinda Road onto one of the smaller roadways in Orinda — a quiet, upscale town almost hidden within the folds of the surrounding hills.

I heard Jacobi on the car radio, telling the local police we were conducting a surveillance in an ongoing homicide investigation. Macklin requested backup from the state police and then called the Oakland PD and asked for chopper surveillance. The next voice I heard was Stanford’s. He called for the big guns, an FBI response team.

“The SFPD just lost control of the takedown,” I said to Conklin as Renfrew’s BMW slowed, then turned into the driveway of a white multigabled house with blue shutters.

Conklin drove past the house, casual-like.

We made a U-turn at the junction at the end of the road, came back up the street, and nosed our car into a tree-shaded spot across from where Renfrew had parked his blue BMW next to a black Honda minivan.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.