Catherine Coulter - The Target

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.