David Baldacci - First Family

The pins finally fell into place; Willa turned the tension tool and the door swung open. Diane Wohl looked down at her. "You're only a child."

"I'm nearly a teenager," Willa said firmly "And I managed to get out of my room. And get you out of yours. Come on."

As they headed off Diane looked around. "Where are we?"

"You really need to keep your voice down," whispered Willa. "Sound really carries in places like this."

"Places like what?" the woman said in a lower voice.

Willa touched the side of the wall. "I think we're in a tunnel or old mine."

Diane hissed, "Oh my God, if we're in an old mine it could come down on our heads at any second."

"I don't think so. The support beams look really sturdy. And the men who are keeping us here wouldn't have brought us to an unsafe place."

"Why not?"

"Because they might get hurt too."

"Do you know which way is out?"

"I'm just, you know, trying to feel some air movement."

"But if we keep going, we'll get lost. Maybe forever."

"No we won't." She shone the light on the dirt floor. "I cut up the paper labels off the canned food. I've been dropping pieces every ten feet or so. That way we'll know where we came from in case we have to turn back."

They kept going forward, around one turn and then another.

Willa checked her watch by lantern light. "We have about twenty minutes left before they come by again. But the other man might show up. He's unpredictable."

"The tall man with the white hair?"

"Yeah. He doesn't seem as bad as the others, but I'm still afraid of him."

"I'm terrified of them all."

"Where do you live?"

"In Georgia."

"I'm from Virginia. I hope my family's okay. The man said he contacted them and told them I was okay. Do you have a family?"

"No, I don't," Diane said quickly. "I mean, not of my own. But I asked him to contact my mother and tell her I was okay. But I don't know if I'm going to stay okay."

"Another good reason for us to get ourselves out of here," answered Willa.

"What was that?" Diane said sharply.

There had been a shout somewhere behind them.

"I think they found out we're not there," said Willa. At that instant she felt a bit of air current on her cheek. She grabbed Diane's hand. "This way."

They hurried down the passage.

"Look!" Willa said.

The corridor ended in a thick door.

Diane tried to turn the old door handle but it wouldn't budge.

Willa already had out her tools. While Diane held the light she inserted the instruments and worked quickly but methodically.

"How'd you learn to do this?"

"It comes in handy if your little sister keeps locking herself in the bathroom," said Willa as she pushed and prodded with her pick, praying for the pins to fall into their correct slots.

Diane looked down the passage. "They're coming. Oh my God, I think they're coming. Hurry. Hurry!"

"If I rush, it won't work, okay?" Willa said calmly.

"If you don't they'll catch us."

The last pin dropped, and Willa turned the tension tool and with Diane's help they pushed the stout wooden door open. The light bursting through caused them both to shield their eyes. They rushed out and looked around, squinting.

Then the pounding of footsteps hit them harder than the sunlight had.

"Come on," Diane yelled.

She grabbed Willa's hand and they ran toward the flat land straight ahead even as the little plane touched down.

Diane said, "Who do you think that is?"

Willa looked around, noting that the only way in or out looked to be by plane. "Not anyone we want to run into. This way, quick."

They changed direction and ducked behind a chunk of rock just as Daryl and Carlos erupted from the mineshaft and sprinted off in different directions. Willa and Diane crawled and clawed their way up the narrow, steep ridge, keeping as low as possible.

"Maybe we can get to the top and then go down the other side," gasped Willa.

Diane was breathing so hard she couldn't answer back. She grabbed hold of Willa. "I just need to catch my breath. I've never been much into exercise."

A minute later they started their ascent again. They got to the top of the ridge, crossed it, and then looked over the edge on the other side.

"God help us," said Diane. It was steep and nearly sheer. "I can't make it down there."

"Well, I'm going to try," said Willa. "Do you think you can find a place to hide? If I get away I'll bring help."

Diane looked around. "I think I can." She looked over the edge again. "Willa, you'll get killed. You can't go."

"I have to try."

She gripped the edge of a boulder, aimed her foot at a narrow ledge, and took a step down. The ledge held though a few pebbles and dirt, disrupted by her maneuver, slid off the mountain and cascaded downward where they were caught by the swirling wind.

"Please be careful," said Diane.

"I'm trying," said Willa breathlessly. "It's really hard."

She lowered herself to another ledge and was just about to attempt another movement when the rock she was standing on gave way.

"Willa!" screamed Diane.

Willa grabbed at anything she could find to halt her fall, but nothing she touched held as dirt and rock pelted her.

"Help me!"

Diane was knocked to the side as the man raced past her, his long arm reaching out and snagging Willa by the wrist a second before she would have been lost.

Willa found herself being hauled up like a fish from the sea and then plopped down on a flat rock. She glanced up.

Sam Quarry did not look happy at all.

MICHELLE STARED at her mother's body. The autopsy was complete and while there were some toxicology and other test results still pending, the conclusion was that Sally Maxwell had not died from natural causes. She had died from a blow to the head.

Michelle had spoken directly to the county medical examiner. Her brother being a sergeant on the police force had allowed access where otherwise there would have been none. The family of a homicide victim traditionally was only given words of official comfort and time alone with their dead, not facts. The reason for this was simple if disquieting: Family members often murdered each other.

The ME had been terse but unmistakable. "Your mother didn't fall down and hit her head. The wound was too deep. The smooth cement floor couldn't have done it, and there was no trace on the car handle or the stair railing. And those edges didn't match up with the wound shape in any case."

"What exactly was the wound shape?"

"I shouldn't be talking to you about this, you know," he said crossly.

"Please, it was my mom. Any help you can give me that doesn't break any rules you can't live without would be appreciated." This simple plea seemed to strike a chord with the man.

"It was an unusual shape. About ten centimeters long and a little over one centimeter wide. If I had to guess, it was metal. But it had an unusual line to it. Very odd footprint."

"So someone definitely killed her?"

The ME had looked down his progressive lenses at Michelle. "I've been doing this for thirty years and I have yet to see someone kill themselves with a blunt instrument strike to the head and then, after death, hide the weapon so well the police couldn't find it."

Her mother's body had been released by the ME's office and sent to the local funeral home. Michelle had come here to see her mother before the woman's remains were prepared for viewing. There was a sheet draped over her up to her neck, thankfully covering up the Y-incision the medical examiner had sawn into her.

None of Michelle's brothers had wanted to accompany her here. As police officers they all knew what a dead body looked like after an autopsy and particularly forty-eight hours after death. The phrase about "beauty being only skin deep" had never seemed more apt. No, her "tough" brothers would wait until after the preservation agent had been pumped into their mother's body, her hair done, her face caked with makeup, her clothes nicely arranged to obscure the assault of the postmortem, and her body placed in the three-thousand-dollar casket for all to see.