The Target

stood patiently in front of the door while Molly pulled out her key. She slipped it into the lock and turned it easily. "Things look so beautiful because I've had a person coming to garden for me. One of my neighbors waters the indoor flowers and plants. Still, it's bound to be a bit on the musty side and-"

    Molly got no farther. The stench hit them full in the face the moment they stepped into the small foyer.

    "Mama, this isn't good," Emma said, backing up. "It smells like there's bad food everywhere. It smells like Ramsey's house did when we went there."

    Ramsey caught Emma as she raced back out the front door. "Get behind me, Emma. That's right. Your mother and I will go see what's going on. You stay right here."

    "Oh, no." Molly's once-colorful very cozy living room with high ceilings open to the dining room through an arch, filled with fat silk pillows, framed watercolors and photographs, and restored furniture painted in bright colors, all of it was trashed. Even the ivy had been pulled from its pots and dashed to the wooden floor.

    "Let's see if your clothes and Emma's are all right. Pack up and get your passports, if they're still here, then we're out of here. We'll call the police from the hotel."

    "I want to call my neighbors, too, and a cleaning service. Who did this and why? Is it ever going to stop?"

    "It will. It has. This was done days ago."

    An hour and a half later, the police met them at the hotel, in their two-bedroom suite on the ninth floor of the Brown Palace. The suite was huge, but the rooms were too warm. Ramsey had opened all the windows and complained to the front desk that the air conditioner was on the fritz. It was finally beginning to cool down a bit. Emma was seated on one of the sofas, watching a cartoon on TV. Ramsey, Molly, and Detective Mecklin of the Denver PD were sitting at the circular table at the other end of the living room. A pot of coffee and a plate of cookies were on the table.

    Detective Mecklin was chewing on an oatmeal cookie from the Brown Palace kitchen.

    "As I told you," Molly said, "I had a neighbor coming in to water my plants. Everything was fine three days ago. One of your people is speaking to her, right?"

    "Yeah, right. But I doubt she saw anything, or we'd have gotten a call by now. Whoever did it, had guts. We didn't clear out of there until about five days ago."

    The hotel doorbell rang.

    An officer who'd accompanied Detective Mecklin answered it. He walked into the living room, a stoic look on his young face. Behind him stood FBI Special Agent Anchor, decked out in his dark suit, white shirt, dark thin tie, and wing tips.

    Molly wanted to groan. Mecklin was enough. Now the both of them?

    "Hello, Mrs. Santera. I'm still considering whether or not to arrest you."

    "That's nice, Agent Anchor," Molly said, feeling the tension in her replaced by anger. It felt good, that wave of rage. She sat back in her chair and smiled at him. She realized she'd seen her father do this. She'd wanted to fry this guy since he'd first walked into her house after Emma had been kidnapped. He was arrogant and overbearing. "Hey, have you decided on the charge? Was it saving my daughter from a kidnapper? Was it perhaps escaping to avoid getting murdered? Or maybe it was keeping my child out of your incompetent hands? No, I've got it. You're going to arrest me for doing your job."

    She'd got him. His face was red and his hands were stiff at his sides. He looked ready to explode. She loved it. "Oh, how about this-you want to arrest me because I trashed my own house?"

    Agent Anchor managed to control himself. He even managed a very stiff smile at Molly. Ramsey was surprised and hopeful that perhaps the man would stop being a jerk. Agent Anchor said finally, "Your attitude isn't helping your case, Mrs. Santera." He then looked at Ramsey, a dark eyebrow raised. The raised eyebrow was met with silence.

    Agent Anchor said finally, "You look familiar."

    "He should," Detective Mecklin said between chews on ' another oatmeal cookie. "He's Judge Ramsey Hunt, you know the guy we've been hearing about from San Francisco and Chicago."

    Agent Anchor froze. He was used to being in charge and then Molly Santera and this guy Hunt had treated him like he was a Keystone Kop. "What are you doing here?"

    Ramsey just smiled at him. "Well, you know, my house in San Francisco was trashed just like Mrs. Santera's. We were thinking that there just might be some parallels. What do you