"She needs to be controlled. The way she spoke to me. I nearly struck her, Eve."
"But you didn't. When she threatened to leave, you backed off and told her what she wanted to hear-that you wanted to know what she had to say as well as this Ramsey Hunt." Eve paused a moment. The show was coming back on. Then she said, "You flattered her and she fell for it. You did control her, Mason."
"No," he said, "really, she didn't fall for anything. She's scared for her daughter. She'd make a deal with the devil to keep her daughter safe, even if the devil is me." But he knew if he hadn't backed off, she'd have been out of there, and that man would have gone with her. She had to be sleeping with him, to have him so pussy whipped. He looked at his wife. She'd turned back to her game show. He walked to the door of the immense living room and quietly opened the beautiful French doors that gave onto a walled-in, quite lovely English garden. The air was soft, redolent with the intermingling scents of hyacinths, roses, and star jasmine. The jasmine he'd selected himself for the garden. There were no sounds to break the quiet. Very few people knew that half a dozen men were stationed in and around the house. As soon as Molly, Emma, and Ramsey Hunt had arrived, he'd added more guards. He turned to see Miles coming from across the hall, toward him.
"Emma liked the spaghetti I made for her," he said. "The pasta was shaped like Jurassic Park dinosaurs."
Mason Lord could only stare at a man who'd been loyal only to him, at his beck and call only, for twenty-two years. He'd begun here when Molly was a little girl, but he'd never
paid her much attention. Why Emma? Sure she was pretty, she was the very picture of Alicia, but so what? He'd never paid any attention to Alicia either.
He saw Ramsey Hunt coming down the wide staircase to his right. He was dressed well in black slacks and a white shirt. No tie, but that was all right. They'd been on the run. He called to him, "Did you deal with Molly?"
"Yes."
"You told her how she was to behave in my house?"
Ramsey wanted to laugh at the heavy-handed tactics. He just smiled. "She knows exactly what to do. Now, I hear from Miles that you want to speak to me."
"Yes, but just you, not Molly. She doesn't understand either business or strategy."
"Last I knew, Molly was in her bedroom, giving Emma another reading lesson. The kid's really bright."
"I read Moby Dick when I was five years old."
"I understand that Molly was reading very early on as well. That's remarkable."
Mason Lord had forgotten that. He nodded. "Come to my study. It's quiet there." He shut the double oak doors, cutting off the repulsive sound of that game show in the living room and all those shouting low-class slugs.
Ramsey said without preamble, "I understand that when you heard that Louey Santera had beaten Molly you were out there like a flash. That was well done."
Mason Lord stared at the big man standing in front of his desk, at ease, his face open, his expression even admiring.
He wouldn't have even gone to Denver if it hadn't been for what Louey had done. "I wasn't about to let that little creep hurt one of mine."
And that was the bottom line for Mason Lord, Ramsey thought, relieved and pleased. "And naturally you'd feel the same about Emma. She's also one of yours. Who do you think is behind this?"
"It's a kidnapping. Louey is rich-well, not as rich as he was before my daughter divorced him, but he's doing very
well. His European tours net him literally millions, the wretched little shit."
"No, it's not just a kidnapping. I told you there were a lot more men after us. How many more people would you need to mount a tracking operation like that? Say at least two more, all of them professionals. Not a kidnapping, sir. Something else. I'd stake a lot on that." Ramsey paused a moment, then said, "I'm sorry to have to tell you, but you don't know yet that Emma was taken to a cabin in the woods, high in the Rockies, and sexually abused and beaten. It's another thing we have to think about. Emma needs to see a doctor and a child psychiatrist. She has nightmares. Neither Molly nor I have spoken about this because we're afraid of making things worse."
The blood drained from Mason Lord's face. For a moment Ramsey thought he'd be sick-that, or explode. He did neither. Gradually the color returned. His breathing was slow now, calm.
He looked directly at Ramsey. "The bastards have just signed their death warrants."
"I shouldn't, but I feel the same way."