The Target f-3

by Catherine Coulter

  "It's all right, baby. We're together again. It's all right. I'll never let you go again, I swear it. Oh Emma, I love you. Oh God, I nearly lost hope."

  He turned away, giving them what privacy he could, but he listened to them both crying, Emma's sobs, strangely, deeper than her mother's. He waited until they'd begun to quiet, listened to the sniffs, then tossed her a blanket. She pulled it over both of them. She said blankly, "Emma's wearing a man's undershirt."

  "Yes, I forgot to buy her some pajamas. At least she doesn't trip over the undershirt."

  Ramsey rose, his leg screaming. "Let me lock the door. We can't take any chances."

  She didn't say anything, content to wait, he supposed, since she had her daughter back. He knew she watched him closely as he stared through the window, then fastened the chain and flipped the dead bolt.

  When he turned, he watched her pull off a close-fitting black knit cap. Red curly hair spouted out, most of it in a braid, the rest a riot around her thin face, a pretty face, one that was changing even as he watched. The tension was leaving her face, bringing color to her cheeks. Her mouth was curving into a smile, her eyes were growing lighter even as he stared at her.

  There was so much to say, so much to ask, but what came out of his mouth was, "Would you like some coffee? It will just take a minute to make. We're really basic here."

  She nodded. "That would be wonderful. I'm so cold I think it's permanent now."

  He walked to the kitchen. He felt Emma's hand on his knee. She'd followed him out, his gray T-shirt nearly dragging on the floor and a pair of white gym socks pooling around her skinny ankles. He watched her walk to the small table and measure the coffee into the waiting pan. Then he poured the water over the coffee and set it on the stove. They'd gotten this routine down as of four days ago.

  He looked over to the woman standing in the doorway, staring at them, more dazed than not. He didn't even know her name, but at this moment, it didn't seem to matter. What mattered was creating an air of normality. He said to her, "Emma and I are a good act. We got the coffee thing down first thing. We're just about ready to take it on the road. Hey, Emma, who gets top billing?"

  "I don't know what that means, Ramsey."

  "Does your name go first on the signs or does mine?"

  "I'm the youngest. I should go first."

  He laughed and ruffled her hair. He looked over at her mother. She was just standing there. He could tell she was trying to make sense of things, not just coming to understand the relationship between her daughter and this man she didn't know, but she was also trying to come to grips with the fact that Emma was safe, that she actually had her daughter back.

  She didn't say anything, just stood watchfully. She looked strung out and very tired. He said, "You'd think that boiled coffee would rot your fillings out, and it just might, come to think of it, but it doesn't taste too bad and it does zing your brain. As I said, we're basic here. We've got a small refrigerator and the lights in the living room, due to a generator. But it's a wood-burning stove and we heat the water for a bath."

  Emma said, "We toast bread with a metal thing that has a long handle."

  The woman shook her head, still trying, he knew, to understand what was happening here. "I'd drink anything that passed for coffee at this point. I've been sitting out there waiting and waiting for daylight, waiting for you to come outside, but when you did, you had that rifle and I was too far away to do anything with my Detonics."

  "I shouldn't have left the cabin door unlocked. It was stupid. If it hadn't been you, it could have been them."

  "Well, it wasn't. I didn't see anyone else out there. Who's them? Who are you talking about?"

  "Let's hold that for just a little bit," he said, and nodded toward Emma. He poured her a cup of coffee that was still bubbling. "Sit down and try to drink it. If anything it'll keep you buzzing until noon, when you'll probably crash. Emma, I'm going to fix you a bowl of Cheerios. You want peaches or bananas?"

  "A banana. I don't really like peaches."

  "But you've eaten them without complaint."

  She said as she took the cereal box from him and poured Cheerios into her bowl, "I didn't want to hurt your feelings. But I do like bananas better."

  He sliced the banana over her cereal while she got the milk out of the small refrigerator. "Look, Mama," she said, pointing. "It doesn't have a freezer. We make everything fresh, just the way we do at home."

  "I've never seen one that fancy before. It's neat." She didn't know how the words, such ordinary words, had come out of her mouth. She'd passed from blankness to disbelief. Here she'd expected to come in and fight her daughter's abductor and deal with a hysterical hurt child, and now she was drinking boiled coffee at a kitchen table, looking into a high-tech refrigerator, listening to her daughter chew her Cheerios. She looked at the big man who needed to shave. He'd saved her daughter? He'd protected her with his life? Nothing made sense yet.

  Emma was eating Cheerios with a banana on top, nicely sliced by that stranger. She didn't say anything more until Emma was down to her last bite of cereal and he was drinking his second cup of coffee, seated across from her at the table. "I've been tracking her for two weeks. When I showed Emma's picture down in Dillinger, I just couldn't believe it. Several people told me she was Ramsey's little girl. I didn't know what to think. I've been watching since yesterday, but I couldn't get to you without taking a chance of hurting Emma. You never came out of the cabin. Neither of you did."

  "Who are you?"

  "I'm Molly Santera."

  Emma looked up as she swallowed a banana circle. "Mama says it sounds like a made-up band's name-our last name-but it's real. It's my dad's name."

  Molly smiled at her daughter and leaned close, just to touch her. "That's true enough. But I'll bet you there are lots of Santeras in the New York phone directory."

  "I've never been to New York," Emma said.

  "We'll go when you're a bit older, Em. We'll have a great time. We'll stay at the Plaza and walk right over to FAO Schwarz. It's really close."

  Santera. The name was vaguely familiar. He remembered Emma's drawing of a man holding a guitar and his jaw dropped. He said slowly, "Santera. You mean Louey Santera? The rock star?"

  "One and the same," Molly said, her voice clipped, colder than a late-spring freeze.

  Ramsey wanted to know more about Emma's father, ask her why the hell the guy wasn't tracking with her, even though he was a famous rock star. But he could tell that Molly didn't want to say more about him right now. There would be time enough for her to answer all his questions and for him to answer all of hers. Emma had eaten her cereal, all the while smiling at her mother, then smiling at him, like any happy well-adjusted kid.

  "I know who you are now."

  He cocked his head at her. "Me? How?"

  "I recognize you now that I've thought about your name. Are you the famous Ramsey Hunt?"

  Again, for Emma's sake, he used a light hand. "Infamous is more accurate."

  "In your dreams."

  He sputtered in his coffee, raised his head, and stared at her. "Men," she said, her hands wrapped around her coffee mug, "if they have a choice, would rather have the world believe them infamous-you know, rogues and bad boys- not heroes, not known for something worthy or moral they've done or tried to do."

  "No," he said. "That's not me."

  She sighed, and shrugged, looking away from him. "This is tough to believe. You're a federal judge from San Francisco, but you're here. You found Emma."

  "Yes," he said.

  "Given what you did in your courtroom, I suppose Emma couldn't have been safer."

  He said nothing, just took another sip of the afterburner coffee.

  A federal judge who was also famous, a hero truth be told, despite his reticence, and here both she and Emma were with him. Life had kicked her so much in the teeth for the past two weeks that she supposed she shouldn't be shocked at this latest surprise. She said to her daughter, "Em, you lo
ok beautiful. How are you, love?"

  Emma kept her head down. Reality had crashed in suddenly and she wasn't ready yet. Molly had sounded too serious, too strident. She felt stupid and so very tired. She could have kissed Ramsey Hunt when he said, his voice still light and calm, his attention seemingly on Emma, "She had to have other stuff to wear than just my T-shirts. I put off leaving the cabin for as long as possible, but she had to have some clothes. And that's how you found us. When Emma and I went shopping in Dillinger."

  "As I said, I showed her photo around and the town folks all believed she was your little girl. Truth be told, I didn't expect to learn anything at Dillinger. It was the last stop. I guess then I would have had to let the cops and the FBI deal with things. Naturally, they are dealing with things, in their own way. They didn't solve a thing, didn't turn up a thing. I gave them two days, then hit the road. I heard they called off the manhunt for her after four days."

  "Where do you live?"

  "In Denver." She picked up a spoon and fiddled with it, her eyes down on the white-and-red-checked tablecloth. "Her father is in Europe. He's on tour and couldn't leave, but he'll be back soon now." She turned to her daughter and took her small hand. "I speak to him nearly every day, Em. He's very worried about you, really."

  Emma stared down into her bowl that had one banana slice floating in a bit of milk. She said, never looking up, "I don't know why he'd come. I haven't seen him for two years."

  He realized her daughter had knocked her flat. He said quickly, "I see. You're divorced."

  "Yes," Molly said. She'd gotten herself together again. "Emma, it doesn't have anything to do with the divorce. Your daddy loves you. It's just that he's so very busy."

  "Yes, Mama."

  Time to move along, quickly, Ramsey thought, and said, "So you gave the cops all of two days then you struck out on your own?"

  "Yes. There was nothing I could do at home except go quietly nuts."

  He wanted to tell her that if the kidnappers called, they'd have wanted to speak to her. Then he realized that any female police officer could do that duty. He didn't say anything. Emma was all ears.

  "I've been traveling from Aspen to Vail to Keystone and all the places in-between. Dillinger was my final try."

  "You lucked out. As I said, if she hadn't needed clothes, I wouldn't have taken her to Dillinger. I'd been here at the cabin for nearly two weeks before I found Emma."

  "Why were you here of all places?"

  He shrugged, looking down at his coffee. "It got to be just too much," he said at last. "Just too much. The tabloids just wouldn't let up. The paparazzi were leaping out from behind my bushes to catch me unawares."

  "They call you Judge Dredd."

  "It's ridiculous, all of it." He started to curse, realized that Emma was staring up at him, and took a deep breath. "I took three months off and got away from everything-people, phones, TVs, everything. Then I found Emma." He leaned over and cupped Emma's chin in his palm. There was color in her cheeks. She looked little-kid beautiful, and healthy. "Why don't you go wash up and put on your jeans and a real bright shirt. Your mom and I will talk and decide what we should do."

  She looked worried. "Mama, you won't try to shoot Ramsey again, will you?"

  "I never drink a man's coffee then hurt him, honey. It's not done."

  "Mama, you made a joke." Emma beamed at her.

  "Yes, a good joke," Ramsey said. "Go, Emma."

  He sat back in his chair and looked at the woman across from him. "Emma drew several pictures of you.

  In all of them you were smiling really big." But now she wasn't smiling. She was pale and thin and had the reddest hair he'd ever seen, all curly, just like Emma's drawings. Her eyes were a sort of green-grayish color, a bit tilted at the corners, sort of exotic. She didn't have any freckles, and she didn't look a thing like Emma.

  "I've been calling her 'sweetheart.' I like Emma. It suits her."

  "It was my grandmother's name."

  She sat forward, intent, then suddenly jumped to her feet and began pacing the small kitchen, hyper now from the coffee, alert, and ready for answers. "How did you find Emma?"

  "It was exactly eight days ago. I was out chopping logs when I heard this strange sound, you know, a sound I shouldn't have heard here. I tracked it down and found her unconscious in the woods. I spotted her only because she was wearing a bright yellow T-shirt. I brought her back here and took care of her.

  She didn't speak until she yelled at you."

  He saw the question in her eyes and slowly nodded. "Yes, she'd been beaten and sexually assaulted.

  There wasn't any sodomy that I could tell, but then again, I'm not a doctor. She's much better now, even though last night she had a nightmare." He stopped and shook his head. "It took her a good four days to trust me. She's a great kid."

  Tears were running out of her eyes and down her cheeks, dripping off her lips. She sniffled. He handed her a napkin and she blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

  "She's only six years old. She was kidnapped by a child molester and it was all my fault. If only-"

  "Stop it, just stop it. I've known you for an hour and I know you didn't leave her unattended, wouldn't do anything to jeopardize her. Now, I don't want to hear any more of that crap." He sighed, knowing deep down that she'd probably never stop blaming herself for the rest of her life. "Believe me, I've never felt so helpless in my life. She's such a sweet little girl. She was terrified of me, a man, and I couldn't blame her at all. When she didn't speak, I became convinced she was mute."

  He'd kept talking so she could get a hold on herself, which she finally did. He watched her shoulders square. "Maybe it was the trauma. Maybe she felt safer if she didn't say anything and didn't write down her name for me. Maybe she really couldn't speak until it became a matter of life and death. Would you have shot me?"

  "In a heartbeat if you'd so much as moved a finger."

  "I'm rather relieved that Emma remembered her voice. You've had a hard time of it. It must have been very difficult to go into all the towns and show her picture."

  "No, everyone was very nice, all except for the local cops. Almost to the man, they treated me like a hysterical female, all patronizing and pats on the shoulder and leave it to them, the big macho guys. I nearly punched one guy out in Rutland. When I finally found your cabin, I thought a lot about what I was going to do. I know enough about how law enforcement works to realize that if I only captured the man who'd abducted her, he'd probably be out on bail at some point. Would he come after Emma again? Say the judge denied bail, they kept him in jail, then even convicted him. He'd probably get out sooner or later and then be out again to prey on other children or come after Emma again. I'd have to worry about him for the rest of my life. So would Emma, and that's worse. A child molester, a kidnapper. A monster like that doesn't deserve to live."

  She met his eyes squarely. "If that monster had been you, I would have at least wounded you. That way, at least, you couldn't have been out on bail. You would have been in a hospital. There maybe someone would have screwed up your medicine and just maybe you would have croaked."

  He drained the last of his coffee, an eyebrow arched. "You don't have much faith in our system."

  "No, not a scintilla of faith. The system, even if it weren't screwed up, is so backed up that plea bargains are the only way to keep criminals moving. Why am I saying the obvious to you, a judge who lives this every day?

  "You know that this guy, even if he were caught, might plea-bargain down to seven years then get out in three. It's not right, but of course the trial lawyers aren't about to let anybody change anything. They don't care about justice, just about getting their hands on as much money as they can. Then they put all the focus on the poor criminal and how screwed up his childhood was, as if that excuses his brutality. It's just not right. You're part of it. You know it's not right."

  He said mildly, "No, it's not right. Look, no one wants the bad guys on the streets. Most of us work reall
y hard to keep them in prison." He shrugged. "But sometimes the wrong things just happen."

  "Spoken like the person you are."

  He shrugged. "I guess none of us can escape what we are for very long."

  "You said you came here to hide out."

  He looked mildly embarrassed. "Things were out of control. I came here to get myself back together again and to give people time to forget, which they will, soon enough."

  "You're a federal judge. You have to know lots of people. You must believe in the system. Why didn't you immediately take Emma to the police? The hospital?"

  "I couldn't," he said simply. "I just couldn't. She was terrified. I couldn't bear the thought of strangers all over her." His eyes dropped to his running shoes. "I also worried that she could be taken again if she went home."

  She just looked at him for a very long time, then, slowly, she nodded. "If I'd been in your shoes, I wouldn't have given her over to strangers either. I wouldn't have sent her home either, not until I knew she'd be protected. Thank you for keeping her safe. She's the most important person in the whole world.

  I don't know if I could have gone on if she'd been killed."

  He thought she would cry, but instead, she shook herself, and stood up. "And that's why I don't want to go back to Denver."

  7

  "IF I WERE in your shoes, I'd feel the same way." He sat forward, his elbows on the scarred tabletop. "I worried about not notifying the police, not taking her to a hospital, but, bottom line, I just couldn't give her over to the care of strangers. Did you see the sheriff in Dillinger?"

  "No, I stopped seeing the local cops as of six towns ago. I just took Emma's photo around and asked and asked. I didn't know what else to do. I had this feeling that the kidnapper had taken her west, not up north toward Fort Collins and Cheyenne. No, I just knew it was here in the Rockies."

  "Why?"

  "The Denver police had this hot line for anyone who had seen anything. They were flooded with calls, none of them relevant, but there was this one, an old woman who claimed she'd seen a white van heading west. The cops thought she was senile and ignored it, but I went to see her. She lives up the block from me. She has really bad arthritis and so she spends a lot of time just sitting in her chair, looking out the window. If there was anything to see I knew she'd have seen it. I told the cops this, but they blew it off."