The Target

Molly. It's time we got help. We discussed this before. You didn't disagree."

"But the men who are after us, surely they'll find out who you are very soon. When they find out, they'll be on us like a shot."

He cursed under his breath. "You're right. I'll just bet they already know what I like to eat for breakfast. Okay. Let's just stop at my house so I can change, pack, and make arrangements. We'll fly to your father this afternoon. Sorry, Molly, but I just can't see any other choice unless you want to go to the cops right here in San Francisco."

"No." Molly cursed under her breath. "There's just no good alternative, is there? Let's go to Chicago, then. I'd still rather have her with me than being questioned by police psychologists, hordes of cops, not to mention the FBI. If Special Agent Anchor is representative, then the FBI is scary."

"He's not representative. All right, let's go to Chicago. When the time is right to bring in the cops, we can call them from there."

"I probably should have gone to him sooner. My old man's got more ability to protect Emma than the cops and the FBI. He may be a big criminal, but he'll do his best to keep Emma safe."

"All right, then. Let's use your father, if he'll let us. We'll let him keep Emma safe."

She closed her eyes a moment, then nodded to herself, coming to a decision. Then she smiled as she said to Emma, "Look over there, Em. It's Alcatraz Island. It was a prison for really bad guys until sometime in the 1950s."

"It's pretty. I wouldn't mind being a prisoner there."

"I read they fed the prisoners about six thousand calories a day, to make them fat, so they'd be less likely to try to escape and swim to shore. I think it was a whole lot of hot dogs and beans. They didn't let them exercise much."

Emma's eyes brightened.

He grinned at her in the rearview mirror. "They didn't cook them on hangers in a fireplace, Emma. They were boiled."

"Yuck."

Ramsey turned onto Scenic Drive in a beautiful old section bf the city called Sea Cliff. "We're the closest houses to the bay. My house is number twenty-seven, right there on the end."

"I knew federal judges must be paid pretty well, but not that well. This place must have cost a bundle, Ramsey."

"It's worth quite a lot, but I didn't buy it. It was bequeathed to me by my grandparents along with a nice inheritance. I'm not as rich as you, but I won't starve. The views are incredible. We'll come back, Emma, and barbecue. We can sit in the backyard and watch the fog roll in. It floats through the Golden Gate Bridge like soft white fingers. I've always loved the fog. I've even got a piano for you, an old baby grand that my grandfather played. He was a great old man."

Ramsey's nose twitched the instant he unlocked the front door and stepped into the tiled foyer. It smelled like rotten food, but that didn't make any sense. He stepped into the living room and quickly stepped back.

The room had been trashed. His high-tech stereo equipment was ripped open and stomped on. CDs were strewn all over the hardwood floor. All the furniture had been slashed. He walked numbly into the kitchen. The stench was pretty bad.

The refrigerator door stood open. Someone had flung food all over the floor, not that there'd been very much. Dishes were smashed, in shards everywhere. Drawers were pulled out, silverware all over the floor. A violent hand had simply swept everything out of the cabinets.

"Don't come in here, Emma," he said.

"Oh no," was all Molly said from the doorway, holding Emma back.

It took him only minutes to see that whoever had done this hadn't forgotten a single room.

He walked into his study, a magnificent dark oak-paneled room that looked toward the Marin Headlands. His antique rolltop desk had been gouged, the drawers pulled out and smashed, all his papers in shredded heaps everywhere. Books lay in broken piles on the Tabriz carpet. His favorite leather chair had been ripped open with a knife. His grandfather's baby grand piano had its legs sawed off. It lay drunkenly on its side, most of the keys stomped in. Someone had even cut the piano wires.

Devastation everywhere.

What had they been looking for? Something to tie him to Molly and Emma?

"I'm sorry, Ramsey," she said at his elbow. "I'm really very sorry. We brought this to you."

He realized then what she'd said, the full impact of it. He turned slowly, took her upper arms in his big hands, and said, "I was feeling equal parts enraged and sorry for myself. But now, after what you just said, I realize that this place, no matter how nice, is still just a place. When we get the person responsible for this, I look forward to kicking his butt, but Emma means more to me than a pile of stupid possessions. There's no contest. Do you understand me, Molly?"