Molly blinked at the detective. "Wet spot? Why is that a wonder?"
"He spit, Mrs. Santera. The shooter spit. That means DNA, if we're lucky. That means if and when we catch the guy, we'll have indisputable proof that he's guilty. The forensics folks think he's a smoker with a bad hacking cough. His vices might end up bringing him down.
"Since Mason Lord is a very powerful man, despite his more questionable associations and business practices, this case is very high profile. The press is starting to understand there isn't much to see around here. But they'll start showing up again at dawn, you can count on it. I'm glad you made it back so early.
They'll find out soon enough that you're back, Judge Hunt."
"What do the doctors say about Mason's condition?"
Detective O'Connor checked his watch. "It's nearly midnight. I told his surgeon that you'd be arriving about now. He said you could call and he'd give you the latest word."
Detective O'Connor pulled out his cell phone and dialed. After five minutes of being sent from one person to the next, he handed the phone to Molly.
Ramsey watched her face as she took in what was being said to her. Her expression didn't change. That was odd. He watched her press the C^button, then hand the phone back to Detective O'Connor.
"He's alive. The surgeon, Dr. Bigliotti, says he's got a fifty-fifty chance-if, that is, he manages to survive the night. He already woke up." She looked at Detective O'Connor. "He whispered to the officer sitting next to his bed that Louey Santera shot him."
"You're kidding," Detective O'Connor said. "He must have been out of his head, what with the drugs."
"Yes, that's what Dr. Bigliotti said. My father hasn't said anything more. Dr. Bigliotti also said the media was all over him personally and the hospital in general. One of the night nurses nabbed a reporter who was carrying around a mop- as a disguise, I suppose-trying to find Mason Lord's room. Do you guys have any ideas? Any guesses that might help?"
Molly and Ramsey just looked at him. He knew defeat when he saw it.
THE hiss of the regulator was obscenely loud in the momentary quiet of the ICU at Chicago Memorial on Jefferson, the closest trauma center available when her father had been shot down in the street. Molly looked down at her father's white face, the tubes in his mouth and nose, the lines running into both arms, the bag emptying his bladder hanging from the side of the hospital bed. One officer sat not six inches away from him, a recorder on his lap, holding a police procedural mystery novel in his right hand. He nodded to them, then did a double take when he saw Ram-sey. He nodded again, this time, his head going lower, a sign of excessive respect, Molly thought, to Ramsey.
The ICU was huge, impersonal, filled with high-tech equipment. There were six other patients, with just curtains around their beds, and they weren't quiet. Moans of pain mixed with that damnable hissing sound, low voices of relatives speaking to patients, curses from the bed in the far corner, a nurse's hurrying footsteps.
Her father was as still as death. If it weren't for the machine, he would be dead. She lightly touched her palm to his cheek. His skin felt slack and clammy.
She realized in that moment that she wanted him to live. No matter what was true, he was her father. She wanted him to live. The nurse motioned them to leave after five minutes.
In the corridor, Molly said to Detective O'Connor, "Has anyone called my mother? She lives in Italy."
He looked at her blankly, scratched his ear, and shook his head. "Can't say anyone has, Mrs. Santera."
"I'll do it then when we get back home." It was nearly two o'clock in the morning. Molly had wanted to come, to see his face, just to see for herself that he was alive. Life was there, huddling deep inside her father, barely.
There was no traffic on the drive back to Oak Park. Ramsey kept a hard focus on the road in front of him. He was nearly cross-eyed with fatigue.
Even if they'd managed to get married, he was so tired right now, he doubted he could even stay awake long enough to kiss Molly's ear, even if she offered her ear to him to kiss. She was in pretty bad shape herself.
When they finally drove to the gates of the Lord mansion, they saw a man jump from a dark car just up the road. A reporter.
"Just what we needed," Ramsey said, and quickly called out to the guard in the security box at the gate.
"It's Judge Hunt, open the gates, quickly. A reporter is coming."
"Putrid little maggots," the guard snarled, and got the gate open just before the reporter got to the rear end of the car.
"Wait!" the reporter yelled, but Ramsey just roared through the open gate. The reporter started through, then saw the wild maniacal grin on the security guard's face in the lighted booth as the huge gates began to swing shut.
He stepped back, cursing. "Hey, haven't you heard of the First Amendment? You jerk!"
The security guard, still grinning like a mad scientist, said over the loudspeaker, "Sure, you little shit, and Prince Charles is a Tampax."
Ramsey heard that. It made no sense at all. It all of a sudden seemed hilarious. He began to laugh. Molly joined him. They walked into the house, holding hands, laughing their heads off.
"Oh, dear," Miles said.
BOTH Miles and Gunther had alibis. Warren O'Dell also had an alibi. So did Eve Lord. Of all things, three of her friends had come over for a visit. They'd been drinking iced tea by the swimming pool at the time of Mason Lord's shooting.
The media had exploded. Since Eve was young, beautiful, extravagantly rich, she garnered immense sympathy and support, bolstered by the media, who always wallowed in beauty and money, particularly if it was possibly tragic beauty.
Molly's mother had expressed sympathy, but wasn't about to fly back to the U.S. "Why ever should I, my dear? I have no desire to hold his limp hand or let the paparazzi leap out of bushes at me. Just keep me informed, Molly."
Not unexpected, Molly thought, given that the new Mrs. Lord was young enough to be her daughter, and that her ex-husband hadn't been in her life for a good number of years.
Mason Lord, who lay unconscious, his life in the balance, was nearly forgotten. The attention was on the beautiful young wife, who just might at any moment become a widow. But then again, to be fair, what reporter wanted to risk his own neck questioning the background of Mason Lord?
He survived that night. They'd nearly lost him once, but they'd been able to control his blood pressure with a medication dripping into his IV, and he seemed stable. Molly and Ramsey hadn't gone back that morning, staying with Emma and watching as Eve Lord negotiated her way through the press when she visited her husband, all in glorious color on a special news bulletin on all three major local stations.
"I wish I had a clue as to what she was thinking," Molly said.
"So does Detective O'Connor," Ramsey said. He turned to see Emma walking slowly into the living room. "Hi, Em," Molly said. "Come on in and tell us what Miles is making for lunch."
Emma just stood there, holding her piano against her, looking bewildered. "Mama, when can we go home?"
Home, Molly thought. Which home?
"Where would you like to go?" Ramsey asked. He patted his knee. Emma went to him instantly. She carefully set her piano down on the floor beside the sofa and let him lift her onto his legs.
"Where?" he asked again.
"Home," Emma said. "To San Francisco."
"Ah," Ramsey said. "You got it right. What would you say, Em, if your mom and I were to get married?"
She turned to look up at him. She slowly raised her hand to lightly stroke his cheek. She said with all a child's appalling candor, "My daddy just died, Ramsey. He wasn't with us much, but he was my daddy."
"Yes, he was. He'll always be your daddy."
"I don't think so," Emma said then. She leaned against his chest, her cheek against his shoulder. "I can't take the chance, Ramsey, I just can't."