"Well, if you are withholding something from me I will get to the truth at some point and the results may not be to your liking."

"Is that a threat?"

"Threatening any member of the First Family is a felony, as you well know. And I'm one of the good guys. See you at the funeral, Mrs. Cox."

He hung up the phone.

Jane locked the letter and key back in her desk and nearly ran to the living quarters. As she undressed and climbed back into bed, she listened to the soft snores of her husband. He never had trouble going to sleep. Even after working the phones until the wee hours of the morning, he would finally put the receiver down after haggling over some mind-numbingly important national business, brush his teeth, and be asleep within five minutes. She, on the other hand, took hours to do so, if she ever managed at all.

As she lay on her side and stared over at the wall she imagined she could see Willa's face there, the child beckoning to her. Pleading.

Help me, Aunt Jane. Save me. I need you.

CHAPTER 44

WHAT'S THE MATTER, Gabriel? You look like you're not feeling too good."

Quarry eyed the little boy across the heft of the kitchen table.

"Haven't been sleeping too good the last couple of nights, Mr. Sam," he said miserably.

"Kids are always supposed to sleep good. You got something on your mind?"

Gabriel couldn't look at him when he said, "Nothing important. I'll be okay."

"You got school today?" Quarry asked, as he studied the boy closely. " 'Cause if you do, you're gonna miss the bus."

"Nope. Teacher day. I thought I'd help Ma, do some field work, and then get some reading done."

"I need to talk to your ma after I go into town."

"What about?"

"Personal business."

Gabriel's face fell. "I didn't do anything wrong, did I?"

Quarry smiled. "You think the whole world revolves around you? Naw, just business stuff. You get a chance to clean out the toolbench in the barn some, that'd be real good. Get rid of anything that's rusted up bad. And I got another stamp for you."

Gabriel did his best to smile. "Thank you, Mr. Sam. Got me a good collection going. I checked on one you gave me on the computer at school. On eBay."

"What the hell is that?"

"You buy and sell stuff on there. Like a bunch of stores on the Internet."

Quarry looked mildly interested. "Go on."

"Anyway, this one stamp you gave me is worth forty dollars!"

"Damn. You gonna sell it?"

Gabriel looked shocked. "Mr. Sam, I'm not selling anything you give me."

"Piece of advice for free, little man. That stamp collection is gonna help fund your college education. Why you think I been giving 'em to you? And the old coins too?"

Gabriel looked puzzled. "I guess I never thought about that."

"See, your brain's not as big as you think it is, now is it?"

"Guess not." They ate some more and the boy said, "You been flying up to the mine a lot."

He grinned. "Trying to find me some diamonds."

"Diamonds in the mine?" Gabriel said sharply. "Thought all those mines were in Africa."

"Might have us some right here in Alabama."

"I was thinking maybe I'd go with you."

"Son, you been all over that mine with me. It's still just dirt in a big hole."

"I mean on the plane. We always went in the truck."

"We always went in the truck 'cause you don't like to fly. Hell, you told me every time you watch me take off you want to crawl inside the earth and never come out."

Gabriel smiled weakly. "I'm trying to get over that. I want to see more of this world than just Alabama, so I've got to get on planes, right?"

Quarry smiled at the boy's spot-on logic. "That's pretty right, yeah."

"Let me know then. I'll be getting on with the chores."

"You do that."

Gabriel put his dishes in the sink and scooted out of the kitchen.

As he headed to the barn, Gabriel was thinking hard. Thinking about what he'd heard Mr. Sam talk about when he was drunk in the library last night. He'd heard the name Willow or something like that, maybe like the weeping willow, he figured. And he'd heard Mr. Sam say the word "coal," or at least it sounded like it, which had made Gabriel think of the mine too.

He wouldn't ask Mr. Sam directly because he didn't want him to know that Gabriel had been eavesdropping, even though he'd just come down for another book to read. Mr. Sam sure had been sad about something, Gabriel told himself while he was cleaning out the toolbench in the barn. And the other day he'd watched as Mr. Sam had rolled up his sleeve to help with washing the dishes. There were burn marks on his forearm. Gabriel wondered about that too.

And he'd heard Daryl and Carlos talk about things in the gunroom at night while they'd been cleaning their rifles. But none of it made much sense. Once they'd been talking about Kurt. When Gabriel had come in the room, they'd shut up real fast and then showed him how to break down and reassemble a pistol in under fifty seconds. And why go up to the mine every day? And why had Carlos and sometimes Daryl stayed up there overnight? Was there something going on up there? Gabriel didn't think it was about diamonds.

And more than once he'd gotten out of bed in time to see Mr. Sam head down to the basement with a fat ring of keys. Gabriel had followed him all the way one time, his heart beating so hard he thought for sure Mr. Sam would hear it. He'd watched as the man had opened up a door down a long passageway that smelled foul. His ma had told him once that that was where the Quarrys used to keep their bad slaves. He hadn't believed her at first and had asked Mr. Sam about it. But Mr. Sam had confirmed his mother's statement.

"Your family had slaves, Mr. Sam?" he'd asked him once when they were walking the fields.

"Most folks 'round here did back in the old days. Atlee was a cotton plantation then. Had to have people to work it. A lot of people."

"But so why didn't they just pay 'em? Not keep 'em as slaves just 'cause they could."

"I guess it comes down to greed. You don't pay folks, you make more money. That and thinking one race wasn't as good as another."

Gabriel had stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and said, "Now that's a damn shame."

"Too many people think they can do anything, hurt anybody, and get away with it."

But that didn't explain why Mr. Sam went down into the stink of the basement where they used to keep the bad slaves. Strange things going on at Atlee for sure. But it was Gabriel's home; he and his ma had no other, so it really wasn't any of his business. He was just going to keep going on his way. But he was still curious. Real curious. It was just his way.

CHAPTER 45

QUARRY STOPPED the pickup truck in front of Fred's Airstream and tapped the horn. Fred came out, a store-bought cigarette dangling from one hand and a paper bag in the other. He had on an old sweat-stained straw hat, corduroy jacket, faded jeans, and boots withered by sun and rain. His white hair hung to his shoulders and looked shiny and clean.

Quarry leaned out the window. "You remember to bring some ID with you?"

Fred climbed in the truck, took out his wallet, really two flaps of leather hooked together with rubber bands, and slipped out an ID card. "White man's way of keeping tabs on us real Americans."

Quarry grinned. "I got news for you, buckaroo. Old Uncle Sam ain't just watching folks like you. He's watching all of us. Real Americans like you and the ones just renting space here like me."

From the paper bag Fred drew out a bottle of beer.

"Damn, can't you wait until we're done before you suck that down?" said Quarry. "I don't want to ever see what your sorry liver looks like," he added.