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25
Emma opened the box slowly, lifted out a thick sheet of cream stationery. She read it and gasped. “Oh, Grandpa! Mama, Dad, it’s a handwritten invitation from Mikhail Ivanov, you know, the world-famous pianist from St. Petersburg. He’s asked me to play a duet with him when he visits San Francisco to play with the orchestra in September. He wrote the music himself.” She unfolded six sheets of music. “Look, he’s sent it to me.” She flung her arms around Mason Lord’s chest, just as her mother had done, and held on tight. She pulled back, her eyes shining. “I don’t know what to say. Imagine, Mikhail Ivanov. I’d admired him forever.” Emma hugged her grandfather again. “It’s wonderful. Thank you, thank you.”
Elizabeth Beatrice left the twins with their trains and came to stand beside her husband. “We met Mr. Ivanov in Milan. He was shopping for new suits, he said, because the tailors in Milan were the best in the world. He’s a lovely man, Emma. When Mason told him you were his granddaughter, he pumped Mason’s hand, said he’d heard you play, he’d streamed your performances, too, just as Mason and I have. He said he particularly admired your performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He said it brought tears to his eyes. He told us our appearance was a miracle because he’d just written the music for a duet for piano and had wondered what he’d do with it, and now he knew. He’d play it with you in San Francisco.”
Mason clasped Emma’s shoulders in his hands. “He said he thought you’re brilliant. We traded email addresses so you can keep in touch with him.”
In that moment, Molly loved her father more than she ever had, master criminal or not.
The twins shouted to their father to come and look at their trains. Ramsey, smiling, stretched out on the carpet and started explaining how the engines worked. They shouted to their grandfather to come and show them where to shovel the coal, but he demurred and sat instead in one of the large living room sofas, crossing his legs over the perfect crease in his pants. Elizabeth Beatrice joined Ramsey on the carpet to play trains with the twins. She seemed to enjoy the twins’ boundless enthusiasm. Maybe because she had a younger brother, Thomas?
Molly looked back to her father. He looked as dapper as ever in a tailored lightweight gray wool suit, a white shirt and darker gray tie, Ferragamos on his long narrow feet. His hair was a beautiful pewter now, no dye job for him, and with his thin blade of a nose, his lean face etched with high cheekbones, he looked like a slender aristocrat among peasants. She watched his eyes go frequently to his wife even as he spoke to Emma, who’d sat down on the sofa next to him. Molly wondered if he hadn’t told her about his new marriage because he feared she’d make fun of him, taking a third wife ten years his daughter’s junior. No, no one’s opinion would concern him. She heard him asking Emma questions about the other young performer, Vincenzo Rossi—and how did he know about Vincenzo? Molly shook her head. He’d come for Emma, that was what was important, new wife or not.
Emma leaned toward him. “Grandpa, how did you find out I was in trouble?”
He looked briefly amused at her question. “Your mother called me, Emma, and told me. I hope you’re looking forward to visiting us after you play at Kennedy Center tonight.”
Cal and Gage yawned at exactly the same time. Molly laughed, scooped them both up, and carted them to their bedroom for their afternoon naps, the twins whining and complaining every step. Molly knew they’d be asleep in two minutes. She doubted she’d be hauling them around much longer, they were getting too heavy. She hoped the babysitter she’d arranged to spend the evening with them tonight was endowed with fortitude and a sense of humor.
When she returned to the suite living room, Emma was telling her grandfather about what had happened to her in San Francisco. Her voice was calm, without any fear or stress. Ramsey sat close beside her.
Rather than a simple nod, as was his wont, Mason took her hand. “Well done, Emma. I’m very proud of what you did. Miles and Gunther will be pleased you kept your head, but not surprised. You were very brave.” Mason Lord said to Ramsey, “I’m pleased you taught her how to take care of herself.”
Gunther was Mason Lord’s right-hand man, something like his bodyguard. Molly had never cared exactly what he did when he accompanied her father on his visits to San Francisco. He’d worked for her father as long as she could remember, and he was a favorite with the twins. Miles, her father’s majordomo and chef, had always been kind to her, always been on her side. The whole Hunt family looked forward to seeing Gunther and Miles. Gunther gave Emma shooting lessons and Miles gave them chocolate chip cookies. Whenever they visited, Molly knew she’d find the twins in the kitchen with Miles, underfoot, but he never seemed to mind. How would her father’s twenty-four-year-old wife fit into that life behind the guarded walls of his compound?
Ramsey said, “Mason, I believe Molly told you Special Agent Savich and his wife, Special Agent Sherlock, are involved?”
Mason Lord sat back, tapped his long slender fingers together. “Of course. I’m pleased they are, and that Agent Sherlock has recovered.”
Emma said, “Poor Aunt Sherlock. One of the men came into the concert hall during rehearsals and shot her in the neck with a dart. She’s okay, but she was really mad.”
Molly said, “Lieutenant Ben Raven is helping. He’s assigned four men as guards for tonight’s performance.”
A touch of contempt flitted across Mason’s face. He said, “I have two men here who will see to Emma’s safety at Kennedy Center. I’ll arrange for our flight to Oak Park in the morning.” He flicked a small speck of lint from the arm of his cashmere jacket. “A pity they’ve made no progress.”
Elizabeth Beatrice came to sit on the rolled arm of the sofa next to her husband. She lightly touched his shoulder. “You said you wondered if what’s happening to Emma has something to do with you, Mason.”
Mason said, “Elizabeth Beatrice and I discussed this situation on our flight here to Washington. She knows Emma was taken six years ago only because she’s my granddaughter. I hope I’m not responsible again for what’s happened.”
Ramsey said, “We’ve checked into all possible relatives of Father Sonny.”
“Who is he?”
Mason said to his wife, “He was the pathetic ex-priest who kidnapped Emma when she was only six years old. When he tried to take Emma in Monterey—an oceanside town in California—Molly shot him. He died in the hospital.”
He didn’t just pass away from his injuries, though. Molly knew her father had had him killed there. She said, “We were all very grateful it was finally over, whatever the exact cause. There’s no one left in his family. But he was hired by your former partner, Dad, Rule Shaker. Do you think it could be him?”
Mason said without hesitation, “Rule wouldn’t dare. He knows I’d come after him myself, bury him in the desert if he tried anything like this again after so many years.”
If Molly wasn’t mistaken, Elizabeth Beatrice’s eyes glittered.
Ramsey said, “Well, he certainly knows how dangerous it would be for him, but if he is involved, it’s because something must have happened in the past few months, something he believes critical to him and his interests. Can you think of anything you’ve done in the past few months, Mason, to make him think you broke the truce? Something that sent him over the edge?”
“What truce?” Elizabeth Beatrice asked.
Mason took Emma’s hand as he said to Elizabeth Beatrice, “Molly arranged an agreement between us six years ago forcing us to stay out of each other’s business. I’ll tell you all about it on our flight back to Chicago.” He continued to Ramsey, “I’ve had no contact with him for six years, no involvement with any of his business dealings. Actually, I hadn’t given him a thought in a very long time. Wait, I did hear he was having his own problems, business falling off at his casinos, some of his croupiers leaving, some of his waitresses attacked on the street, even vandalism. I suppose it would be natural for him to wonder if all that was a coincidence, and maybe think of me, but he wouldn’t take a risk like this unless he was confident of his facts.” Mason shrugged. “But he has to know I want to keep the truce in place so there’d be nothing for him to find.”
“Could it be someone else besides this Shaker, Mason?” Elizabeth Beatrice asked.
Instead of giving her a dismissive nod as he had Molly most of her life, Mason gave his wife his full attention. “I’m considering all my competitors, of which there are only a few nowadays.”
Ramsey said, “No major blowups with any of them?”
“No. As I told Molly, I’ve been out of the country a good bit not only these past weeks with Elizabeth Beatrice, but also in England quite a lot of the time these past six months wooing this incredible woman. Still, I’ve got all my people working on it. I do want to speak with Savich and Sherlock.” He gave a small smile, said to his bride, “The two FBI agents I’ve told you about. They’re good, but if this has anything to do with me, they simply don’t have my resources.”
“Still,” Elizabeth Beatrice said, closing her hand over his, “they might have fresh ideas.”
Mason nodded, then said in his commander-in-chief voice, “Gunther has already collected some interesting rumors. It’s too soon to know if the rumors are legitimate. Everyone’s agreed, our next step will be to get Emma safe at Oak Park?”
Yet again, Molly marveled at him. Her father was concerned about what they thought? Molly, Ramsey, and Emma all nodded.
