“Did you really beg, Ramsey?” Emma asked, shooting a look at him.
“I can beg with the best of them, Emma,” Ramsey said, going down on his haunches in front of her. “I decided I didn’t want to let you out of my sight. I decided not seeing you would make me very unhappy. Do you mind my staying with you at your house until tomorrow?”
“You can stay with us, Ramsey. I think it’s a good idea.” She marched through the open gate toward the front door, her piano hugged against her. She said over her shoulder, “Dr. Loo showed me Ireland in her atlas. She said it was so green you had to brush your teeth at least twice a day or they’d turn green too.”
“Emma, was that a joke?”
To his delight, Emma gave him a wicked little smile over her shoulder.
He said quietly, “The park, over there?”
“Yes. I used to love this house. We lived with Louey in one of those estate areas in the western part of Denver. After the divorce, I sold the house and found this one. The thing is, I don’t love it anymore. I can tell that Emma’s terrified. To be honest, I am too.”
“Let’s give it time,” he said and knew it was a worthless thing to have said. “Actually, we only have to give it the next few minutes, just time enough for you and Emma to pack. We don’t even have to spend the night if you don’t want to.”
“No, we won’t,” she said.
“Also, there’s no reason you can’t sell the place, Molly. There’s no reason at all why you couldn’t, say, move to San Francisco.”
The words came out of his mouth, and his eyes fastened on a rosebush just beyond Molly’s left shoulder. “I didn’t mean what you could maybe think I meant.”
“No, certainly not,” Molly said, all cool and calm and together. “Men rarely do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. It was a lot of years with Louey. We’re coming, Emma.”
Emma 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.