Catherine Coulter - The Target

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Catherine Coulter's sensational contemporary suspense novels "The Cove" and "The Maze" were gripping enough to establish Coulter firmly in the genre, hailed "Publishers Weekly". Now, with "The Target", Coulter again lays claim to the territory where romance and terror intersect. Hoping to escape unwanted celebrity in the aftermath of a notorious incident, Ramsey Hunt settles in the Rockies, determined to bury himself in the safety of a solitary existence. But his isolation is shattered when he stumbles upon a small girl unconscious in the high-altitude forest. When strangers pursue Ramsey to his private meadow in an attempt to kill him and the girl, he's mystified that anyone would wish her harm. And the child can't shed any light on the subject: she's mute. Molly Santana, the girl's mother, catches up with Ramsey and her daughter, mistaking her daughter's savior for a kidnapper. But soon Ramsey's real role becomes clear. With the strangers in pursuit, the trio flee to Chicago for sanctuary. Even there, however, the child's enemies prove as relentless as their motives are baffling. With an unexpected assist from FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock (last seen in "The Maze"), Molly and Ramsey begin to unravel the clues, and in the process they make an astonishing discovery as to the true nature of the target.

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He felt a huge hand on his shoulder, and saw a big hammer part the air. He felt the blow throughout his body, but it wasn't exactly painful, just a numbing jarring that made his eyes blink once in surprise. The large hand released his shoulder.

Joe Elders fell beside Shirley's stool, his eyes staring up at her milk-swelled teats.

10

"I JUST HEARD Emma moving around upstairs. We've only got a few minutes before she comes down.

We'll get back to your daddy a bit later. Now our immediate problems: We've got to assume they're professionals. And that means we've also got to assume they have a backup organization to be on us in a flash if we use credit cards. If we're careful, your three thousand and my two thousand should last us just fine until this mess is cleaned up."

Molly figured she'd been frugal for a total of thirteen months in her life. She'd gone from one wealthy home to taking care of herself, and she'd done it, not that it had lasted long. Then she'd gone to another one. From a rich father to a rich husband. But for the past two years, she'd been on her own again. She loved it. She grinned. Actually, it was the first time she'd smiled in a very long time. "I'm going to go scrub a toilet."

"Mama, you're joking."

Emma had arrived, full of energy. Molly hauled her up in a big hug, kissed her small ear, and said, "No, sweetie, this time I'm not. Well, maybe. I'm thinking that if I can take Ramsey in poker, then he can scrub the John. What do you think?"

Emma looked very serious, her head cocked to one side. "I think you could beat him in Old Maid. I beat you last time we played poker."

"Thanks for the support, kiddo. All right, I'll think about it. Maybe I can play him to a draw."

"That's chess, Mama."

"Yes, but maybe I can figure out how to apply it to poker. Hey, you want some hot dogs for supper?"

"Oh yes. Ramsey makes the best. We stuck them on coat hangers and held them over the fire in the fireplace."

Ramsey was sitting in that big recliner, his hands folded over his stomach, a pillow under his leg. "You'll have to go a long way to beat my hot dogs, Molly."

"I know how to make the secret relish, handed down from my mother's family in Italy. The relish will make her jump off your bandwagon quick enough."

"We'll see about that. I've got secret other things, like good cheap yellow mustard." He said to Emma, "How come you know about draws and chess?"

"My boyfriend taught me."

"You've got a boyfriend, Emma?"

"His name's Jake. He's my nerd boyfriend."

Ramsey rolled his eyes. "You also got a jock boyfriend?"

"Oh no, Ramsey, they're gross."

"Hey now, I was once a jock and I wasn't gross. Well, maybe I was for a while, when I was real young."

"Young as me?"

He stared down into that small intent upturned face. "No, Em, I was never as young as you."

She giggled, actually giggled. It warmed him to his toes. Molly looked up, smiling. Emma said, "I'm just glad you're not as young as me right now." She lightly touched her palm to the wound in his thigh. "It's not warm anymore."

"Nope, all of me is at room temperature again."

She patted him, then skipped off to the small kitchen to help her mother.

It was an easy evening, with no talk at all about the sword of Damocles that was hanging over their heads, no talk just yet about Molly's criminal father. They played word games, then Ramsey gave Emma a reading lesson using the sets of letters and numbers he'd bought at the bookstore in Dillinger.

The kid was smart and fast. She was writing his name in full sentences, along with her name and her mother's by nine o'clock. "You put the best teacher in the world with the smartest kid in the world, and just look what you've got." He leaned down to stare at the last word Emma had printed: John.

Both of them tucked her up in the small single twin bed.

"You want a night-light on, Em?"

"No, Mama. Are you going to sleep with me again?"

"Yes," Molly said easily. "If Ramsey wakes up and gets lonesome, he can talk to us through the wall."

Emma was smiling even as her eyes closed. They stood looking down at her, this child who had changed both their lives.

"She wrote my name," Ramsey said. "It was legible. She wrote it in a whole sentence. Amazing."

"She's got her mother's brains." Molly grinned up at him. "My Ramsey is smart. Yep, that has a real ring to it. Can you believe she spelled john?

"And she did it well. It made her laugh, Molly. Where'd she get the hair?"

"Her father." Her voice was clipped. She didn't say anything else. Why hadn't he come back here after Emma had been kidnapped? He'd teased himself with that question at least half a dozen times now. He simply couldn't imagine any father not being frantic about his child. That the parents were divorced made no difference. He said, "Let's go downstairs. Now that Emma's in bed, I want you to tell me everything about Daddy."

"I should call Detective Mecklin and Agent Anchor first. I forgot."

"No, you didn't, but it doesn't matter. Let's do it. Who knows, maybe they've got something."

"Don't bet your gym socks on it."

She asked for Detective Mecklin and got put on hold. She stared down at the phone, then suddenly banged down the receiver. "They were trying to trace the call," she said. "I know it. The bastards."

"You're probably right. Let's call in the morning. They didn't have enough time. Don't worry."

"I guess you'd know all about that."

"Enough. It's not as if we really have to hide from the cops, Molly."

"I don't want to let them near Emma. Don't you see? They might take her away and give her over to a battery of doctors, strangers, all of them. She's doing so well. I can't take that risk. You didn't want to do it either. Just leave it alone."

"All right. Tell you what. Let me call Dillon Savich, my friend in Washington, D.C. See if he knows what's going on."

"Who is this friend, exactly?"

"He's a computer expert who happens to be an FBI agent. Trust me on this, he's not like Agent Anchor.

Actually, he and his partner-who's now his wife, Sherlock- were the ones who broke The Toaster case in Chicago. Do you remember that?"

"That was the young guy who'd killed those families?"

"Yeah. Russell Bent."

"They won't ever let him out, will they?"

"Trust the system on this one, Molly. Russell will be in a psychiatric hospital until he dies."

"Yeah, but I also remember the killer in Boston who escaped when the judge ordered that he be let out of restraints while he was being evaluated by the psychiatrists. The String Killer, wasn't that the moniker the press gave him?"

"Yes, that's what happened."

She gave him a long look. "Some system."

"You know, Molly, our legal system works well most of the time. Since people run it, sure there are screwups now and again. You need to be a bit more objective."

Molly sighed, then rose and walked to the French windows that looked out over a small sloping lawn to Nathan's Creek, full and rushing from melting mountain snow. The half-moon made the snow glisten.

"This is a beautiful place. Aren't you going to call Dillon Savich?"

"Yep. You got me sidetracked. I want to tell him what's going on. I want to tell him who you are. He won't do anything unless I ask him to. All right?"

Molly nodded.

He used the house phone and punched the speaker button. The phone was picked up on the third ring in Washington, D.C. Ramsey identified himself.

A very alert Savich said, "You know it's one A.M. here? Never mind. Where are you? You've got the speaker on. Are you finally ready to tell me what's going on?"

"You know about that kidnapping case in Denver? Emma Santera?"

"Yes. Wait, don't tell me. You're somehow involved in that?"

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