The Target

20

IT WAS AFTER nine o'clock that evening. Everyone had finally moved from the dining room into the huge living room for coffee and some of Miles's low-fat apricot tarts. Emma had begged to stay up so she could help Miles load the dishwasher. After she'd left in Miles's wake for the kitchen, Ramsey told everyone about their encounter with Warren O'Dell. When he said, "And then Mr. O'Dell said Rule Shaker really wanted Louey," Molly stared at him, disbelieving. "He's gay? This Mr. Rule Shaker wanted Louey Santera for a lover? Is that what he meant?"

"Yeah," said Sherlock. "What's all this about?"

Ramsey just smiled. Both Sherlock and Molly had understood it just as he had. Their incredulity was as great as his had been.

Savich sat back in his chair and said, "I'll bet there's an unexpected punch line here. Come on, Ramsey, spit it out."

Ramsey smiled wider, nodding to Mason as he said, "As it turns out, it was Mr. Shaker's daughter who wanted Louey. Her name is Melissa and apparently she's the apple of her daddy's eye. Anything she wants, Daddy gets for her.

It was Louey she wanted, and so Mr. Shaker went after him."

"And ended up killing him." Molly was tired to her bones, worried sick about Emma, and now some gangster's daughter had wanted Louey? She continued, "So her daddy rigged a craps game so Louey would lose big time? And when that didn't work, you're saying this Mr. Shaker had Emma kidnapped to make Louey fall into line? Then he sent men after the three of us? Finally he tried to blow Emma and me up and killed Louey by mistake?" Molly jumped up from her chair, nearly knocking it over. She began pacing up and down, her eyes fastened on the toes of her black Bally loafers. "No, that's as nuts as this Shaker guy being gay. What kind of monster is he? That's sick."

Mason narrowed his eyes on his daughter, "Get a hold of yourself, Molly. Louey could have had his own daughter kidnapped so he could get his hands on my money and pay back Rule Shaker. It would further seem that finally Rule Shaker tried to kill Emma so that Louey would be frightened enough to do as he wanted him to do. It was business."

"Mason's right," Eve said. She gracefully set down her coffee cup. "If there's something you want badly enough, then you must be prepared to do whatever is necessary to gain it."

"Despite the costs?" Molly asked.

"Costs are part of doing business," Mason said.

"No," Ramsey said. "Louey didn't have a thing to do with any of it. Don't you see? There wasn't enough time to get another team in there working for a different master. Emma was kidnapped; I found her; then the two men came to the mountain cabin and tried to shoot us. Then two others probably followed us all the way here. No one knew where Emma was except the people who took her. All these acts seem connected, they're all part of the same piece of cloth."

Mason was chewing on an unlit cigarillo. He said slowly, "Well, it's a lot simpler to think that Louey wasn't involved at all."

"I've got a headache," Molly said, going toward the door. "It's late and I don't think I can help us anymore. I'm going to go to bed."

"I'll come with you," Ramsey said. "Sherlock? Savich?"

"I want to speak to MAXINE about all this just a bit longer," Dillon said from where he was sitting near the fireplace in a massive leather chair, his laptop on a small table in front of him. "She's been chewing over some information while we were talking."

Sherlock said, "When she's finished chewing, then, doubtless, MAXINE will want to speak to me. When she's a female, she communicates better with another female. We'll be up soon."

Mason held out his hand to Eve. "Shall we go up, my dear?"

"Certainly, Mason," Eve said, smoothing the silk of her dress over her hip. Every man's eyes followed that move.

Mason Lord turned at the doorway, slight bewilderment in his voice, "I have a judge and two FBI agents staying in my house. This isn't what I'm used to."

He left without another word. Ramsey would have laughed, but he felt too much tension. He rubbed his neck. Emma would have remarked that her granddaddy had made a joke. Mason Lord knew this Rule Shaker, or at least he knew of him. What did he really think of all this? He as well as all his staff had been politely unhelpful to the police. What would Mason do?

Savich stood and said to Ramsey, "You want to go work out? That is, if your back's up to it?"

Sherlock said to Ramsey, "Working out is great for his stress. I usually work out with him. I used to let him throw me around, under the pretext of teaching me karate. He tromped me regularly until he found out that I was in this interesting condition, then he refused even to let me watch him. You two go; it'll be good for both of you. I'm beat. Molly, I'll head on upstairs with you."

Molly gave Ramsey a worried look, but he just smiled, nodding at her. "I'll be up later," he said. "Tell Emma I'll be in to kiss her good night." He knew she was thinking about Emma, whose father had been blown up, and it had to be dealt with.

"Let's do it," Ramsey said. They didn't have to leave the compound or even Mason Lord's house.

Gunther took them to the downstairs of the west wing to a state-of-the-art gym, actually more like a sports facility.

Ramsey said when they came out of the locker room, "Look at this. You think we're in the wrong line of work, Savich?"

Savich fastened on a weight belt. "Nah, it doesn't matter. Hey, the equipment might be the best, the mats might be the thickest, the bottled water might be from France, but the end result is still sweat. Let me help you tape your back up really well before we get the kinks out. I can even make you waterproof."

After Savich taped him, they both stretched for five minutes, then, as if of one mind, they began circling each other, poised and focused. Ramsey made the first move, a high clean kick with his right foot. Savich stepped three inches to the left, grabbed the ankle with his right hand, and pushed. Ramsey went flying to the floor, only to roll to the side and be back in position in an instant. He felt a twinge in his back, and Savich noticed.

"You're a bit faster than Sherlock, but not much, Ramsey. I don't think your back's ready for this. Why don't we just spot each other on the equipment?"

After thirty minutes, they ended up on their backs on the mat, their arms flung out, sweating and feeling better. After twenty laps in the swimming pool, they felt even better.

"Not bad," Ramsey said as he hauled himself out of the pool onto the cool pale blue tile apron. "I'd forgotten how busting my butt relieves the tension. My back doesn't feel so bad either."

"It's always worked for me."

Ramsey gave Savich a hand out of the pool. They sat in silence, soaking in the sweet still air in the huge enclosed pool room. "This place is something," Savich said. "So much foliage, it looks like a rain forest."

"As long as it doesn't have any boa constrictors under those palm fronds."

"Look," Savich said quietly, nodding only slightly upward. "It's a TV camera. Well, what did I expect-our host to give us a welcome kiss and let us roam at will? I'll bet there are microphones as well."

"Who cares? I'll have to ask Miles to show me the equipment," Ramsey said. "It looks like high-grade stuff from here."

"Think he has any female security people?"

"No," Ramsey said, "not Mason Lord. He's not what you'd call a major employer of women. I've seen him look at his wife. There's actually lust in his eyes and a sort of immense satisfaction that she's his and no one else's. I'm a bit surprised that he bothered to marry her, except that maybe he wants to get himself a son." Ramsey shook his head. "Mason probably had to marry her just to get into her pants. Eve's very smart."

Savich said, "Safe bet, huh?"

"As for Molly, well, she seems to deal with him pretty well. When we showed up here, I could practically taste her fear of him, the pressure to be the helpless little girl grateful for her daddy's help, but at the first insult from him, she dug in her heels."

"You backed her up, I assume?"

"Yeah, even though I didn't know the players then. I didn't realize then what a big deal it was for him to back down. I do now. And he did back down, Savich."

"You'd have to be blind not to notice what he thinks of her. That's got to have been tough on her. Jesus, I hope he doesn't show his stripes too obviously in front of Sherlock. She'd take a strip off him."

"I bet she would. Good choice, Savich. I like her. She's tough and she's smart and she seems to think you're pretty hot."

"Ramsey, what do you really think is going on here?"

Ramsey slowly rose. He was nearly dry. His back was beginning to hurt. He'd probably pay for the exercise, but right now, he was still glad he'd done it. He picked up a big dark gold towel and wrapped it around his shoulders. It was very soft, money soft. He shook his head, lifted an end of the towel, and wiped his face. "What's going on here?" he repeated, still drying his left ear. "I don't know, Savich, any more than you do. I'm too close. I care too much for the players. I do know one thing: To put a bomb in that Mercedes means that someone here on the premises had to have done it. No one could have gotten in here and planted that bomb without being seen. But nobody's coming right out and saying it. I wonder what Mason Lord is going to do."

"How much do you know about Molly Santera?"

Ramsey cocked a dark eyebrow not at the question itself, but the seriousness of Savich's voice. He said slowly, "I know she's fiercely protective of Emma. I know she's brave and tough, just like Sherlock. I know she can focus on one main thing and disregard everything else. She's also got great hair. Red like Sherlock's, but not at all the same shade. It's more like a sunset I once saw when I was on the west coast of Ireland."

Savich didn't say anything to that. He looked away, wishing things could be different, but, of course, they weren't. He said finally, "Did you know that one summer when she was about twelve years old she supposedly let her younger brother drown?"

Ramsey dropped the towel. He stared at Savich. He was shaking his head. "No," he said, "oh no. I can't believe that, Savich. That's not at all like her."

"I'm sorry. Sherlock discovered it in fifteen-year-old records. I'm sorry if you think she was spying on something that wasn't her business, but Sherlock is a professional to her fingertips. She looks at everything."

"I have no problem with Sherlock checking out my birthmark if she thinks it's relevant to this case, but I'm telling you that this thing with Molly's brother, it had to be an accident. Molly could never just watch her own flesh and blood die. No way. And that includes that son-of-a-bitch father of hers."

Savich shrugged. "There was an investigation, of course, but the results were inconclusive. The general belief at the time was that she hated her younger brother because Daddy made it clear he was the favorite, the heir, the only one worth anything. You told me yourself that Mason doesn't have much use for his daughter. Maybe you're right, maybe that's one reason he married Eve. He wants another boy child.

"Mason and his first wife, Alicia, were divorced when Molly was around eight years old and her brother was six," Savich continued. "She went with the mother back to her mother's home in Italy and the boy stayed with the father. Molly was visiting here one summer when this happened. When she was eighteen, she went to Vassar. She left after a year and moved in here with her father.

"You can't just dismiss it out of hand, Ramsey. Molly Santera has a past. She may have been innocent, but you know there was a question about it. We can't afford just to ignore it."

Ramsey said, "Are you suggesting that she'd have anything to do with Emma's kidnapping?"

"No, I don't believe that. But how about Louey's murder. What if Louey was the target after all?"

Ramsey said, "Listen, she divorced his worthless ass. There was no reason to kill him. Besides, she couldn't have known that he would try to escape. It was a spontaneous thing; Louey just lost it and ran."

Savich rose to stand facing Ramsey. "What if she convinced him that her father was going to kill him?

What if she told him he'd best clear out and he could take the Mercedes that Gunther had just brought it up? Isn't that possible? Just think about it, Ramsey. None of us have known any of these people for very long. Don't sweep it under the rug because you happen to admire the lady, just because you think her hair's cool."

Ramsey felt his heart pounding against his chest. It made his back ache even more. He didn't believe it.

He was a good judge of character. He'd seen Molly in crunch situations. She hadn't faltered, hadn't broken, hadn't flipped out. He said aloud, "She would have no clue how to fashion a bomb. That means she would have had to hire someone in a very short length of time. Not likely."

"She's Mason Lord's daughter, but maybe you're right about her. You really seem to know this woman very well, even though it's only been for a short time." He sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck.

"What better person to bring someone onto the estate in secret? And how do you know she wouldn't know how to rig a bomb?"

Ramsey just stared at him. He shook his head. Then he turned and walked away. His back was throbbing.