"Molly, you and Emma go into this restaurant and stay in the bathroom. In five minutes, I'll pull up out front. Be there. Five minutes, by your watch."
He ran back toward the shopping center. He didn't see them. He walked quickly around the north side, into the parking lot. There was the Honda, double-parked right out front. It was empty.
He smiled.
Four and a half minutes later, he was in front of the restaurant, and Molly was opening the passenger side.
"Excellent. Emma, you all set back there?"
"Yes, Ramsey. My piano's okay, too." She was hugging that box so tightly her knuckles were white.
It was hard to smile, but he managed it. "Hold on, kiddo. We're outta here."
"Will they follow?"
He looked over at Molly as he pulled back onto 89. "No, they're going to be a while. I took the distributor cap. They probably have a cell phone and will make some calls. Since they know where we are, we can't take the chance of going back to the house."
They were on Highway 80 ten minutes later, heading west.
"We never got to hike, Ramsey."
"We will, Emma, we will."
THEY drove over the Golden Gate Bridge three hours and thirty-five minutes later. The day was sharp and clear, a picture-postcard day. The fog was just beginning to curl through the arches of the bridge.
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Ramsey?"
"I don't know, but I'm tired of running. My base is here, Molly. It's time we got help. We discussed this before. You didn't disagree."
"But the men who are after us, surely they'll find out who you are very soon. When they find out, they'll be on us like a shot."
He cursed under his breath. "You're right. I'll just bet they already know what I like to eat for breakfast.
Okay. Let's just stop at my house so I can change, pack, and make arrangements. We'll fly to your father this afternoon. Sorry, Molly, but I just can't see any other choice unless you want to go to the cops right here in San Francisco."
"No." Molly cursed under her breath. "There's just no good alternative, is there? Let's go to Chicago, then. I'd still rather have her with me than being questioned by police psychologists, hordes of cops, not to mention the FBI. If Special Agent Anchor is representative, then the FBI is scary."
"He's not representative. All right, let's go to Chicago. When the time is right to bring in the cops, we can call them from there."
"I probably should have gone to him sooner. My old man's got more ability to protect Emma than the cops and the FBI. He may be a big criminal, but he'll do his best to keep Emma safe."
"All right, then. Let's use your father, if he'll let us. We'll let him keep Emma safe."
She closed her eyes a moment, then nodded to herself, coming to a decision. Then she smiled as she said to Emma, "Look over there, Em. It's Alcatraz Island. It was a prison for really bad guys until sometime in the 1950s."
"It's pretty. I wouldn't mind being a prisoner there."
"I read they fed the prisoners about six thousand calories a day, to make them fat, so they'd be less likely to try to escape and swim to shore. I think it was a whole lot of hot dogs and beans. They didn't let them exercise much."
Emma's eyes brightened.
He grinned at her in the rearview mirror. "They didn't cook them on hangers in a fireplace, Emma. They were boiled."
"Yuck."
Ramsey turned onto Scenic Drive in a beautiful old section bf the city called Sea Cliff. "We're the closest houses to the bay. My house is number twenty-seven, right there on the end."
"I knew federal judges must be paid pretty well, but not that well. This place must have cost a bundle, Ramsey."
"It's worth quite a lot, but I didn't buy it. It was bequeathed to me by my grandparents along with a nice inheritance. I'm not as rich as you, but I won't starve. The views are incredible. We'll come back, Emma, and barbecue. We can sit in the backyard and watch the fog roll in. It floats through the Golden Gate Bridge like soft white fingers. I've always loved the fog. I've even got a piano for you, an old baby grand that my grandfather played. He was a great old man."
Ramsey's nose twitched the instant he unlocked the front door and stepped into the tiled foyer. It smelled like rotten food, but that didn't make any sense. He stepped into the living room and quickly stepped back.
The room had been trashed. His high-tech stereo equipment was ripped open and stomped on. CDs were strewn all over the hardwood floor. All the furniture had been slashed. He walked numbly into the kitchen. The stench was pretty bad.
The refrigerator door stood open. Someone had flung food all over the floor, not that there'd been very much. Dishes were smashed, in shards everywhere. Drawers were pulled out, silverware all over the floor. A violent hand had simply swept everything out of the cabinets.
"Don't come in here, Emma," he said.
"Oh no," was all Molly said from the doorway, holding Emma back.
It took him only minutes to see that whoever had done this hadn't forgotten a single room.
He walked into his study, a magnificent dark oak-paneled room that looked toward the Marin Headlands. His antique rolltop desk had been gouged, the drawers pulled out and smashed, all his papers in shredded heaps everywhere. Books lay in broken piles on the Tabriz carpet. His favorite leather chair had been ripped open with a knife. His grandfather's baby grand piano had its legs sawed off. It lay drunkenly on its side, most of the keys stomped in. Someone had even cut the piano wires.
Devastation everywhere.
What had they been looking for? Something to tie him to Molly and Emma?
"I'm sorry, Ramsey," she said at his elbow. "I'm really very sorry. We brought this to you."
He realized then what she'd said, the full impact of it. He turned slowly, took her upper arms in his big hands, and said, "I was feeling equal parts enraged and sorry for myself. But now, after what you just said, I realize that this place, no matter how nice, is still just a place. When we get the person responsible for this, I look forward to kicking his butt, but Emma means more to me than a pile of stupid possessions.
There's no contest. Do you understand me, Molly?"
She nodded. "I just don't understand why someone would do this. They could have just searched, if they wanted to find some sort of connection between us. They didn't have to destroy everything."
"I don't understand either, but we're going to find out."
"I hope so." She leaned down and picked up an atlas, its pages ripped, the spine broken. She tried to smooth the pages. She looked numb.
He gently took the book from her. "Help me pack, then we're out of here. I'll make some phone calls from a pay phone." But there weren't any undamaged clothes left. Even his leather luggage, a Christmas present from his folks, was mutilated.
Ramsey made four calls from a public phone on the corner of California and Gough. The first was to a cleaning service, the second was to Dillon Savich, the third was to an airline, and the fourth was to Virginia Trolley of the San Francisco Police Department. He made one stop: his bank.
"Let's go," he said, grinning at Emma as he came out of the bank. "This is going to be exciting, kiddo. At least now I'm as rich as your mama." He handed her a twenty-dollar bill. "Keep this, Emma. Tuck it away somewhere safe."
Molly gave him a quizzical look but didn't say anything, just watched her daughter very carefully fold the twenty-dollar bill and slip it inside her piano.
"I think I've had enough exciting things happen, Ram-sey," Emma said and hugged her piano to her chest.
Molly said, "Maybe we can buy her some more clothes at the airport."
Ramsey frowned. "I'm thinking. I don't remember any kids' clothes there. T-shirts, but that's about it. We don't have time to stop. We'll get her a new T-shirt at the airport, and work on her wardrobe in Chicago.