“So what do we do?”
He thought.
“We get it back to him without turning ourselves into part of the story.”
“How?”
“We find a way to return it.”
“To Oakland?”
“If we have to.”
Chloe stared.
“That sounds insane.”
“Keeping it sounds worse.”
“Shouldn't the police handle lost property?”
Jackson gave her a look.
“Normally.”
“Normally?”
He dragged both hands down his face.
“I don't know, Chloe. Maybe I'm overreacting.”
“You look like you're about to board up the windows.”
“I grew up around mechanics. I've worked on bikes for riders from half the clubs in Nevada. One thing I learned is you don't insert yourself into club business if you don't understand the business.”
“So we return it anonymously.”
“That would be my preference.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
“First thing.”
“Yes.”
Chloe wrapped the ring in a clean shop towel and placed it inside her purse.
She took the purse into her bedroom.
She put it beneath a chair.
Then spent the rest of the night waking every forty minutes and checking that the doors were locked.
At eight the following morning, she arrived at the Copper Skillet looking as though she had not slept.
Pete Donovan noticed immediately.
Pete was fifty-seven, wiry, permanently irritated, and had been frying eggs so long that his forearms carried tiny burn marks like constellations.
“You sick?”
“No.”
“You look sick.”
“Thank you.”
“You want to go home?”
“No.”
“Then stop looking sick. Customers don't like mortality near breakfast.”
That was Pete's version of concern.
Chloe put her purse on the shelf beneath the register.
The ring remained wrapped inside.
Her plan was simple.
Work until lunch.
Drive to the post office.
Ask Jackson what address he had found.
Send it.
Never discuss it again.
At 9:15 a.m., the diner was moderately busy.
Six tables.
Two counter customers.
A family passing through toward Utah.
A retired rancher reading the newspaper.
Pete worked the grill.
Chloe refilled coffee.
The morning almost became normal.
Then one of the spoons on the counter began vibrating.
Chloe frowned.
The glass coffee carafe beside it trembled.
A customer looked down at his cup.
Ripples spread across the surface.
Pete stopped moving.
He looked toward the front windows.
“No.”
The sound arrived seconds later.
Low at first.
Then growing.
Motorcycles.
Not one.
Not five.
Dozens.
The vibration built until the plate-glass windows buzzed in their frames.
People stopped eating.
Chloe's mouth went dry.
Pete stepped away from the grill.
“Chloe.”
She was already moving toward the window.
Down Highway 93 came a column of motorcycles riding in tight formation.
Chrome.
Black paint.
Leather.
Red-and-white patches.
More bikes than Chloe could count quickly.
Forty.
Maybe fifty.
The sound rolled ahead of them like weather.
Outside, Caliente reacted.
A pedestrian crossed the street and disappeared into the hardware store.
The hardware-store owner lowered his front security gate.
A delivery driver climbed into his van.
Two tourists who had been taking photographs of an old railway building suddenly decided their trip needed to continue immediately.
Pete whispered, “Lock the door.”