Willa was in Daryl's arms. When Quarry looked up he found her staring at him. And his gun.
'Did you hear that, Daryl?' said Quarry.
'Hear what?'
'That.'
It was the sound of footsteps pinging off the mine walls.
'It's the police,' Quarry said. 'They're here. Probably a whole damn army.'
Daryl looked stonily at his father. 'So what you wanta do now?'
'I wanta fight. Take as many of them with us as we can.'
'Then I'll go get us something to fight with.'
Daryl handed Willa off to Quarry. Right before his son hustled off down a side shaft, Quarry grabbed his arm and said, 'Bring the switch.'
Daryl smiled maliciously. 'We gonna take 'em down, Daddy.'
'Just bring it. But give it to me.'
'You still giving the orders, huh? We ain't never getting out of here alive. Gonna be like old Kurt. Nothing but bones.'
'What is he talking about?' cried Willa.
'Just go!' Quarry snapped at his son.
'I'll go, all right. And then I'll be back. But my way, old man. Just this one time. This one last time. My way.'
'Daryl-'
But his son had already vanished into the dark.
More footsteps headed their way.
'Who's there?' roared Quarry. 'I got hostages!'
'Mr. Sam,' cried out a voice.
'Gabriel!' said a stunned Quarry.
Michelle had not been quick enough to stop Gabriel from yelling out to Quarry. Now she put a hand over his mouth and shook her head.
'Gabriel!' yelled Quarry. 'What you doing up here?' Silence. 'Who's you with?'
Quarry knew there was no way the boy could have gotten up here on his own. They had him. They had escaped the little house. Tippi was dead. And they had Gabriel. And now they thought they had Sam Quarry. Well, they had thought wrong. His rage swelled. All those years. All that work. For nothing.
'Who is it?' Willa said in a quavering voice, her arms around Quarry's thick neck.
'Hush up now.'
'It's that boy you talked about. Gabriel.'
'Yeah, it is. But somebody's with him.'
Quarry nudged Diane with his foot. 'Get up, quick.'
Diane rose to her feet and with Quarry gripping her arm they fast-walked down the passageway and turned a corner.
'Please let us go,' wailed Diane. 'Please.'
'Shut up, woman or I swear…'
Willa said, 'Don't hurt her, she's just scared.'
'We're all scared. They never shoulda brought Gabriel up here.'
'Mr. Quarry!'
They all froze at the sound of this new voice.
'Mr. Quarry. My name is Sean King. I'm here with my partner, Michelle Maxwell. Can you hear me?'
Quarry remained quiet and stuck his gun into Diane's side to make her do the same.
'Can you hear me? We were hired to find Willa Dutton. That's all. We're not the police. We're private investigators. If you have Willa, please just let her go and we'll leave.'
Quarry still said nothing.
'Mr. Quarry?'
'I hear you,' he called out. 'And you'll just walk away if I give her to you? Why do I think there's an army of police waiting right outside?'
'There's no one outside.'
'Yeah, you got no reason to lie to me, do you?' Quarry pulled Diane farther down the passage.
'We just want Willa, that's all.'
'We all want a lot of things, but we don't always get what we want.'
Sean's next words froze the older man.
'We've been to your house. We saw the room. Gabriel showed us. We know what happened with your daughter. We know all about it. And if you let Willa go we'll do everything we can to help the truth come out.'
'Why you wanta do that?' he cried out.
'It was wrong what happened, Mr. Quarry. We know that and we want to help you. But we need Willa safe first.'
'Ain't no help left for me. Ain't nothing left for me. You know what I tried to do. It didn't work. They'll be coming for me now.'
'We can still help.'
Sean had reduced the volume of his voice so that Quarry would not know that they were on the move, that they were growing closer.
'You don't want to hurt a little girl,' Sean said. 'I know you don't. If you had, you would've already done it.'
Quarry thought quickly. 'Where's Gabriel? I want to talk to him.'
Michelle nodded at the little boy.
'Mr. Sam, it's me.'
'What you doing up here?'
'Coming to help you. Don't want to see you get hurt, Mr. Sam.'
'I appreciate that, Gabriel. But them folks with you, listen up, Gabriel and his ma had nothing to do with this. It's all me.'
'We found the letter you left,' said Sean. 'We know. They're not in trouble.'
Gabriel said, 'Mr. Sam. I don't want anybody to get hurt. You or that girl. Would you let her go and then me and you can get on back home? Maybe we can go in the plane, like you promised.'
Quarry slowly shook his head. 'Yeah, that'd be real good, son. But I don't really see that happening.'
'Why not?'
'Rules, Gabriel, rules. Thing is, they don't apply to everybody. Some folks break all the rules and…' His voice trailed off.
Sean said, 'Mr. Quarry, will you please let Willa go? And Diane Wohl too? You have her too, right? You don't want to hurt them. I know you don't. You're not that sort of a man.'
They were close now. Sean and Michelle could feel it. They motioned to Gabriel to get behind them.
'Mr. Quarry!'
Quarry felt Willa clinch his neck tightly. As he looked at her, he suddenly thought he saw another little girl there whom he'd loved with everything he had and that he'd left to perish in a house of his own making. The fellow was right. Quarry was not that sort of man. At least he didn't want to be.
'All right. All right. I'll let 'em go.'
He set Willa down and knelt in front of her so they were eye to eye. 'Look here, Willa, I'm sorry for all that I done. If I could take it back, I would, but I can't. See, I lost me my little girl 'cause of what some folks did. And it just ate at me, made me something I never wanted to be. Can you understand that?'
She slowly nodded. 'I guess so,' she said in a tiny voice. 'Yes.'
'When you love someone you got to be prepared to hate too. And sometimes the hate just wins out. But you listen to me, Willa. You might have a real good reason to hate somebody, but you still got to let that hate go. 'Cause if you don't it'll just tear you apart your whole life. And even worse than that, it won't leave no room for any love to get back in.'
Before she could say anything he spun her around to face away from him. He called out, 'She's coming toward
