"A banana. I don't really like peaches."
"But you've eaten them without complaint."
She said as she took the cereal box from him and poured Cheerios into her bowl, "I didn't want to hurt your feelings. But I do like bananas better."
He sliced the banana over her cereal while she got the milk out of the small refrigerator. "Look, Mama," she said, pointing. "It doesn't have a freezer. We make everything fresh, just the way we do at home."
"I've never seen one that fancy before. It's neat." She didn't know how the words, such ordinary words, had come out of her mouth. She'd passed from blankness to disbelief. Here she'd expected to come in and fight her daughter's abductor and deal with a hysterical hurt child, and now she was drinking boiled coffee at a kitchen table, looking into a high-tech refrigerator, listening to her daughter chew her Cheerios. She looked at the big man who needed to shave. He'd saved her daughter? He'd protected her with his life? Nothing made sense yet.
Emma was eating Cheerios with a banana on top, nicely sliced by that stranger. She didn't say anything more until Emma was down to her last bite of cereal and he was drinking his second cup of coffee, seated across from her at the table. "I've been tracking her for two weeks. When I showed Emma's picture down in Dillinger, I just couldn't believe it. Several people told me she was Ramsey's little girl. I didn't know what to think. I've been watching since yesterday, but I couldn't get to you without taking a chance of hurting Emma. You never came out of the cabin. Neither of you did."
"Who are you?"
"I'm Molly Santera."
Emma looked up as she swallowed a banana circle. "Mama says it sounds like a made-up band's name-our last name-but it's real. It's my dad's name."
Molly smiled at her daughter and leaned close, just to touch her. "That's true enough. But I'll bet you there are lots of Santeras in the New York phone directory."
"I've never been to New York," Emma said.
"We'll go when you're a bit older, Em. We'll have a great time. We'll stay at the Plaza and walk right over to FAO Schwarz. It's really close."
Santera. The name was vaguely familiar. He remembered Emma's drawing of a man holding a guitar and his jaw dropped. He said slowly, "Santera. You mean Louey Santera? The rock star?"
"One and the same," Molly said, her voice clipped, colder than a late-spring freeze.
Ramsey wanted to know more about Emma's father, ask her why the hell the guy wasn't tracking with her, even though he was a famous rock star. But he could tell that Molly didn't want to say more about him right now. There would be time enough for her to answer all his questions and for him to answer all of hers. Emma had eaten her cereal, all the while smiling at her mother, then smiling at him, like any happy well-adjusted kid.
"I know who you are now."
He cocked his head at her. "Me? How?"
"I recognize you now that I've thought about your name. Are you the famous Ramsey Hunt?"
Again, for Emma's sake, he used a light hand. "Infamous is more accurate."
"In your dreams."
He sputtered in his coffee, raised his head, and stared at her. "Men," she said, her hands wrapped around her coffee mug, "if they have a choice, would rather have the world believe them infamous-you know, rogues and bad boys- not heroes, not known for something worthy or moral they've done or tried to do."
"No," he said. "That's not me."
She sighed, and shrugged, looking away from him. "This is tough to believe. You're a federal judge from San Francisco, but you're here. You found Emma."
"Yes," he said.
"Given what you did in your courtroom, I suppose Emma couldn't have been safer."
He said nothing, just took another sip of the afterburner coffee.
A federal judge who was also famous, a hero truth be told, despite his reticence, and here both she and Emma were with him. Life had kicked her so much in the teeth for the past two weeks that she supposed she shouldn't be shocked at this latest surprise. She said to her daughter, "Em, you look beautiful. How are you, love?"
Emma kept her head down. Reality had crashed in suddenly and she wasn't ready yet. Molly had sounded too serious, too strident. She felt stupid and so very tired. She could have kissed Ramsey Hunt when he said, his voice still light and calm, his attention seemingly on Emma, "She had to have other stuff to wear than just my T-shirts. I put off leaving the cabin for as long as possible, but she had to have some clothes. And that's how you found us. When Emma and I went shopping in Dillinger."
"As I said, I showed her photo around and the town folks all believed she was your little girl. Truth be told, I didn't expect to learn anything at Dillinger. It was the last stop. I guess then I would have had to let the cops and the FBI deal with things. Naturally, they are dealing with things, in their own way. They didn't solve a thing, didn't turn up a thing. I gave them two days, then hit the road. I heard they called off the manhunt for her after four days."
"Where do you live?"
"In Denver." She picked up a spoon and fiddled with it, her eyes down on the white-and-red-checked tablecloth. "Her father is in Europe. He's on tour and couldn't leave, but he'll be back soon now." She turned to her daughter and took her small hand. "I speak to him nearly every day, Em. He's very worried about you, really."
Emma stared down into her bowl that had one banana slice floating in a bit of milk. She said, never looking up, "I don't know why he'd come. I haven't seen him for two years."
He realized her daughter had knocked her flat. He said quickly, "I see. You're divorced."
"Yes," Molly said. She'd gotten herself together again. "Emma, it doesn't have anything to do with the divorce. Your daddy loves you. It's just that he's so very busy."
"Yes, Mama."
Time to move along, quickly, Ramsey thought, and said, "So you gave the cops all of two days then you struck out on your own?"
"Yes. There was nothing I could do at home except go quietly nuts."
He wanted to tell her that if the kidnappers called, they'd have wanted to speak to her. Then he realized that any female police officer could do that duty. He didn't say anything. Emma was all ears.
"I've been traveling from Aspen to Vail to Keystone and all the places in-between. Dillinger was my final try."
"You lucked out. As I said, if she hadn't needed clothes, I wouldn't have taken her to Dillinger. I'd been here at the cabin for nearly two weeks before I found Emma."
"Why were you here of all places?"
He shrugged, looking down at his coffee. "It got to be just too much," he said at last. "Just too much. The tabloids just wouldn't let up. The paparazzi were leaping out from behind my bushes to catch me unawares."
"They call you Judge Dredd."
"It's ridiculous, all of it." He started to curse, realized that Emma was staring up at him, and took a deep breath. "I took three months off and got away from everything-people, phones, TVs, everything. Then I found Emma." He leaned over and cupped Emma's chin in his palm. There was color in her cheeks. She looked little-kid beautiful, and healthy. "Why don't you go wash up and put on your jeans and a real bright shirt. Your mom and I will talk and decide what we should do."
She looked worried. "Mama, you won't try to shoot Ramsey again, will you?"
"I never drink a man's coffee then hurt him, honey. It's not done."
"Mama, you made a joke." Emma beamed at her.
"Yes, a good joke," Ramsey said. "Go, Emma."
He sat back in his chair and looked at the woman across from him. "Emma drew several pictures of you.
In all of them you were smiling really big." But now she wasn't smiling. She was pale and thin and had the reddest hair he'd ever seen, all curly, just like Emma's drawings. Her eyes were a sort of green-grayish color, a bit tilted at the corners, sort of exotic. She didn't have any freckles, and she didn't look a thing like Emma.