First Family (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 4)

He climbed back in his little plane, throttled up, and once more lifted into the sky. He headed on, zipping into a forgiving headwind of less than five knots an hour.

A short time later, he pulled back on the throttle, pushed the yoke forward, and rode the thermals down. This was the tricky part, landing at his other property. It was set in the mountains and there was no runway, just a long strip of grass that he’d leveled and mown with his own sweat. It was firm and flat and yet the crosswinds and shears up here could be challenging. The balls of his cheeks tightened and his strong hands gripped the yoke as he swooped down, his landing flaps set on full. He touched, bounced, touched again and bounced up once more, the tiny plane’s suspension system getting a nice quiver. When he came down the third time his wheels held to the earth and he pushed hard on the tops of the foot pedals with his heels to engage the front-wheel brake. That along with the landing flaps allowed the Cessna to come to a halt well short of the end of the makeshift landing strip.

He pressed the tops of the lower foot pedals with his toes to work the inner flaps and direct the plane back around so it faced in the opposite direction; then he cut the engine. Quarry climbed out after grabbing his knapsack and a set of roped-together triangular parking blocks that he carried in the aircraft. He placed them under the wheels of the lightweight plane to keep it stationary. Then his long legs ate up the rising, rock-strewn ground to the side of the mountain. He pulled a ring of keys from his coat pocket and flicked them around until he found the correct one. He stooped and unlocked the thick wooden door set into the side of the mountain. It was mostly hidden behind some boulders that he’d levered off an adjacent outcrop and then chocked down tight.

For decades his grandfather had worked the coal seams inside this mountain, or rather his crew of underpaid men had. As a child Quarry had come here with his ancestor. Back then they had traveled here by a road that had been accessible until a day ago when Quarry had blocked it off. It was by this road that the dump trucks had carted away the coal when the mine was in operation, and he had used the same route to ferry by truck all the supplies he’d needed up here. They wouldn’t have fit in his little plane.

This chunk of mountain hadn’t always been a mine. Cavernous rooms had been created over time by the corrosive force of water and other geological muscle. In these spaces, long before any coal was ripped out of it, imprisoned Union soldiers had slowly and horribly died here during the Civil War, eking out their final days without sun and fresh air as the flesh fell off their bodies, leaving only glorified skeletons on the day they stopped breathing.

The shafts were now set up with lights, but Quarry didn’t use them unnecessarily. The power came from a vented generator and fuel was expensive. He used an old flashlight to see. The same one, in fact, that his father had used to hunt down “uppity” blacks—as his daddy had called them—at night in the swamps of Alabama. As a child he’d spied on his old man coming home at night, all giddy about what he and his comrades in hate had done. Sometimes he would see the blood of the old man’s victims on his father’s sleeves and hands. And his daddy would cackle as he sucked down his whiskey, in sick celebration of whatever it was he thought he was accomplishing by killing folks who didn’t look like him.

“Old hateful bastard,” Quarry said between clenched teeth. He reviled the man for all the misery he’d caused, but not enough to throw out a perfectly good flashlight. When you didn’t have much, you tended to keep what you had.

He opened another door set against a rock wall off one of the main shafts. He grabbed a battery-powered lantern from a shelf and switched it on, setting it on a table in the middle of the room. He looked around, admiring his handiwork. He’d framed out the room with sturdy two-by-fours and put the Sheetrock up himself; every wall was plumb and painted a therapeutic light blue. He’d

gotten all the materials for free from a contractor buddy of his who had supplies left over from jobs with no place to store them. Behind the walls was the solid rock of the mountain’s innards. But anyone looking around the room would think they were in a house somewhere. That was sort of the idea.

He walked over to one corner and studied the woman who sat slumped in the straight-backed chair. Her head rested on her shoulder as she slept. He poked her in the arm, but she didn’t react. That wouldn’t last.

He rolled up her sleeve, pulled a sterilized syringe from his knapsack, and stuck her in the arm. That did drive her awake. Her eyes opened and then slowly focused. When they settled on him, she opened her mouth to scream, but the tape across it prevented this.

He crinkled a smile at her even as he efficiently filled two vials with her blood. She stared down in horror at what he was doing but the restraints held her tightly to the chair.

“I know this must seem strange to you, ma’am, but believe me, it’s all for a good cause. I’m not looking to hurt you or anybody else, for that matter, really. Do you understand that?”

He pulled the syringe free, dabbed the wound with a cotton swab doused with alcohol, and carefully placed a Band-Aid over it.

“Do you understand that?” He gave her a reassuring smile.

She finally nodded.

“Good. Now, I’m sorry I had to take some of your blood but I really needed to. Now, we’re going to feed you and keep you clean and all that. We won’t keep you tied up like this. You’ll have some freedom. I know you can see that was necessary at first. The tying-up part. Right?”

She found herself locking gazes with him and, despite the terror of her situation, nodding once more in agreement.

“Good, good. Now, don’t you worry. It’s going to turn out okay. And there won’t be any funny business. You know with you being a woman and all. I don’t tolerate any crap like that. Okay? You have my word.” He gently squeezed her arm.

She actually felt the edges of her mouth curl up in a smile.

He put the vials in his knapsack and turned away from her.

For a moment she imagined him whipping back around and, with a maniacal laugh, firing a bullet into her brain or slitting her throat.

Yet he simply left the room.

As Diane Wohl looked around she had no idea where she was, why she was here, or why the man who’d kidnapped her had just relieved her of some of her blood. She had gone shopping at Talbot’s, he had been in her car with a gun, and now she was here, wherever here was.

She began to sob.

CHAPTER 7

SEAN KING SAT in the dark. The light blazing on made him lift a hand to shield his eyes and squint up at the intruder.

“Sorry, didn’t know you were in here,” Michelle said, though she didn’t actually sound apologetic.

“I slept here,” he explained.

She perched on the edge of his desk. “Going off in a pout? Refusing to answer questions? Sleeping at the office? Sitting in the dark? Do I sense a pattern?”