“How about me?”
“And at least six times for Ramsey. I’ve found that guys need more smiles than girls do. Remember that.”
RAMSEY smiled down at Emma. It was early afternoon, two hours before Louey Santera’s memorial service. He’d brought her upstairs for a nap, just tucked her in. “I like your jazz variation, Emma. Did you know that Mr. Savich plays the guitar and sings? Yep, country and western. He performs in a club. It isn’t Carnegie Hall, but it’s a neat place, he told me. He also has a friend who plays the saxophone. He and Sherlock want us to visit them.”
“I wish they didn’t have to leave. Sherlock told me that she hoped she was going to have a little girl just like me. She said that Mr. Savich felt the same way. She said they both thought I was really neat. I told her that that wasn’t a good idea. I’m not very good anymore.”
Ramsey looked down at the child he’d give his life for. He’d just kissed her forehead, just complimented her on her music, and now this. He gently pushed her hair back from her face. Before he could think of what to say, Emma continued, “Sherlock’s face turned red. She was really mad, but she said she wasn’t mad at me.”
“You, my perfect Emma, not good? Where’d you get a weird idea like that?”
She looked away, into a past that still had a hammerlock on her, a past that hemorrhaged into the present. “That man said I would save him. I didn’t know what he was talking about.”
Ramsey wanted to kill. He forced down a deep breath, slowed it, tried to calm himself. This was something for Dr. Loo, but she wasn’t here, he was, and the rage he felt couldn’t help her. “Listen to me, Em. This man who kidnapped you, he’s sick in the head, really sick. What he thinks, what he does, it has nothing to do with you-Emma Santera. He would have hurt any little girl he could find. You weren’t Emma to him. Do you understand?”
“No,” she said finally. “I don’t understand. It’s scary, Ramsey.”
He leaned down, his forehead touching hers. He kissed the tip of her nose. “Listen up, Emma. We’re on a roll here. The three of us together, we’ll take on the scariest thing you can dream up. You’re a very good little girl, Emma. In fact, you’re so good that the thought of not having you with me makes a big dent in my heart. That’s how good you are.”
She gave him a big smile. One small hand stroked his cheek. “You won’t leave, Ramsey, will you? You won’t go back to your house?”
He took both of her hands between his and kissed her fingers. They tasted like the gingerbread that Miles had baked for her at lunchtime. He didn’t really know what the future would bring, but he knew he couldn’t tell that to her. Her life had been smashed, her father murdered, and he said now, without hesitation at all, “I won’t leave you, ever, Emma.”
“Good,” she said, and yawned.
“Emma?”
“Yes, Ramsey?”
“Will you be a brat for me just once? Maybe when you get up from your nap? Or this evening? I know, you could whine about having to drink your milk or finish your dinner or having to go to bed? Throw a kid fit?”
She smiled at him. “Sure.”
“You want to take a nap now?”
“Okay.” She closed her eyes, then opened one and squinted up at him. “But maybe I won’t go to bed tonight.”
“Fair enough.” Actually, he just wanted to get her through her father’s memorial service. He hoped they could continue to keep out all the reporters, the local TV stations, and the paparazzi. The guards had ably assisted one reporter back up over the compound wall and out onto the road. He prayed that Emma wouldn’t pay any attention to the impertinent questions that flew at him and Molly whenever they went outside the gates.
23
MELISSA SHAKER WAS crying so hard she nearly tripped down the steps leading into the garage. It had been two days now but she still couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it. That damned ex-wife of his had held a dip-shit little memorial service, no actual funeral because there’d been nothing to cremate or bury.