Catherine Coulter - The Target

"Yeah. Thank God the Church now hands them over to be prosecuted."

"Yes, once they realized there were no cures. This guy was so over the edge that at the last parish they sent him to the people found out about him within a week of his arrival. Unfortunately, he had time to molest a little girl while her mother was in the church bathroom. There was a wedding rehearsal going on at the same time. Everyone came running out when they heard the mother yelling her head off. The bride and groom got an eyeful. He was in prison until about a year ago. He was supposed to register when he got out, but he didn't. He's been a fugitive, but no one ever really tried to find him, not enough cops, larger cases, until now."

"Does he look like Emma's description?" "Have I got a surprise for you. I inputted the police sketch, just as if it were a photograph, into what we call the Facial Recognition Algorithm program. The general public doesn't know about this program yet; I got it from a friend who helped develop it for Scotland Yard. I've made modifications and have been working on it for the FBI. We've already uploaded photographs of every convicted child molester in the United States, and several other groups of violent felons too.

"With MAXINE's help, we treated the police sketch like a photograph and ran the program. What this program does is compare the photo, or the sketch in this case, to the photos in the database. It compares, for example, the distance between the eyes, the length of the nose, the exact size of the upper lip, the distance between various facial bones, you get the idea. Since MAXINE and I are pretty flexible, we managed to make the comparisons and came up with a list of a couple of hundred who resembled the sketch. We found Father Sonny in the group in under an hour. He fits all the other characteristics: he's a heavy smoker, has rotten teeth, drinks too much, and he's been out of Folsom for about eight months.

His prison records indicate he refused any dental care. He said, and I quote: 'I won't have any of those drill-wielding assholes in my mouth.' He's a real hard case, Ramsey, real hard. They only let him out because they didn't have a choice."

"Did he molest both little boys and little girls?" Savich said, "Evidently he didn't have a particular preference, at least then. Obviously if Shaker hired him to kidnap Emma, in order to bring Louey into line, he's no longer on Shaker's payroll since Louey's dead, and since Emma managed to get away from him."

Ramsey said, "I can't imagine that Shaker would ever want to see this guy again, unless it was to have a little talk with him. No way Shaker knew he was a child molester when he hired him to kidnap Emma."

"So what Father Sonny did in San Francisco was all on his own." Savich paused a moment, then added,

"He took a hell of a risk taking Emma right from under your nose. That's really out of control."

"Yeah, that's close to obsession. I'd say, bottom line, he's left common sense way behind."

Savich cursed, something rare for him. "Fixation, obsession, whatever the shrinks want to call it, Father Sonny's there. Our shrinks who deal with child molesters say it's common. A guy can come to believe that a certain child will save him. In this case, since the guy's an ex-priest, he might even believe that Emma can save his soul and cleanse him, heal him, maybe even make him acceptable to God again.

Usually, though, after they're done with the child, they'll carefully select another child and believe the same thing all over again. Why does he want Emma back? Was it because she managed to escape him and so he wasn't the one who got to decide? He wants the control, the power? His can be the only voice?"

"Or maybe," Ramsey said, "he still believes that only Emma can save him, that she wasn't through cleansing him, so he's got to have her back. She said that he needed her more than God needed him, something to that effect. You know what? I want to kill the fucker."

"Yeah, you and about a zillion other people. We've got everyone countrywide clued into Father Sonny.

That's what most of the other prisoners called him. He'll surface sooner or later. Someone will see him, recognize him. We'll get him. Your cop friend in the SFPD, Virginia Trolley, she's heading things up out there. How is Emma doing? She love Ireland?"

"Oh yeah. She's big into feeding the ducks here at Dro-moland Lake and into visiting castles. She hasn't had any nightmares since we've been here. You know, I was getting worried since she was always so quiet, so well behaved. Today she was a real kid, Savich. She finally whined this afternoon, didn't want to do something her mother told her to do. It warmed me to hear that fretful, obnoxious little voice. Molly says it's tough not to spoil her because of all that's happened to her. But we're trying." He paused, then said, "I saw Molly shooting photos of her this morning. Emma was feeding ducks, laughing, the sun bright, the ducks carrying on madly." "And?"

"I don't know," Ramsey said. "I really don't know why I was telling you that." He saw Emma's beautiful face in his mind's eye, then, suddenly, saw her lying on her face in the forest, saw the marks on her small body, the blood on her legs. Vicious deep rage nearly overwhelmed him. It drummed all the way into his bones. He was clutching the receiver so tightly his knuckles showed white. "It's not right, Savich. This shouldn't have happened. Not to Emma, not to any little kid."

"You know how common it is, Ramsey. God knows you saw enough of it in your time in the U.S.

Attorney's office, and probably some when you were a trial lawyer. And now as a judge."

"Some people in the San Francisco area think I've been too tough on crimes like this, but I don't agree.

There isn't a cure or rehabilitation for child molesters, as the Church finally discovered, so it behooves us to keep them well away from children for the rest of their lives."

They spoke of Paris, of Sherlock's continuing reaction to the word pregnant. Savich was laughing as he said, "I accidentally said the accursed word in a three-star restaurant on the Isle St. Louis. She nearly puked in her fancy French mushrooms stuffed with something I can't begin to pronounce. I'll bet it means something like 'greasy tourist innards' but I could be wrong. In any case, our waiter was wild-eyed, flapping his white waiter's towel around, but he got her to the women's room just in the nick of time."

"The bathroom was very nice. It was too bad that I didn't make it to the toilet."

It was Sherlock and she was laughing. Ramsey said, "It shouldn't last much longer, should it?"

"The doc says another month. I'm thinking of taping Dillon's mouth shut to keep that word stuck in his throat, but then he couldn't kiss me properly. It's a tough call, downsides everywhere. How's Molly?"

"She's hanging in, taking lots of pictures, even of me. I look up and there she is, turning all these dials on her camera, assuming strange contorted positions, muttering about backlighting and the like. She's spending a fortune on film. You want to speak to her?"

Molly slipped out and came around to Ramsey's bed. Thank God Emma was sound asleep. She listened, then spoke to Sherlock. She laughed, a warm infectious sound that made Ramsey smile. She was humming to herself when she slipped back into her bed beside Emma.

RAMSEY BRUSHED HIS teeth, put the cap back on the toothpaste, and rinsed out his toothbrush, standing it bristles-up in a glass on the sink. He was leaning into the small shower stall to turn on the water. He heard something, straightened, and turned back toward the bathroom door.

Molly was standing there in her cotton nightgown, her hair tousled from sleeping, and her eyes were remarkably bright and focused. She was staring right at his cock.