Michelle ran up to one of the firemen and flashed her ID. “Did you find anyone? A black lady?”
The man looked at her solemnly. “We found… some remains.” He looked over at Gabriel, who was clawing through the rubble trying to find his mother.
Michelle turned and ran toward them. She stopped as Gabriel sat down on the ground, sobbing and holding something. As Michelle edged forward she saw what it was. A burnt rag. As she drew closer, she saw it was more than that. It was the remains of an apron.
As Sean and Michelle tried to soothe the little boy, Willa walked carefully through the piles of wet, smoky wreckage, sat down next to him in the dirt and filth, and put her arms around him.
He glanced over at her. “It… it was my ma’s.”
“I’m sorry,” she said in a quiet voice. “I’m so sorry, Gabriel.”
He looked at her, his face twisted in anguish. But he nodded his thanks and started sobbing again. Willa wrapped her arms more tightly around him.
Sean glanced at Michelle. “I never thought it would be his mother who was in danger,” he whispered to her.
“We had no way of knowing. Do you think this is something Quarry did somehow? Erase all the evidence?”
“I don’t know.”
Sean and Michelle stood back and watched the two kids sitting there, one supporting the other. It was clear from their expressions that they were thinking the same thing.
Willa didn’t know it, but she was going to be experiencing this exact same grief. And neither one of them had the heart or courage right now to tell her.
Even before the last timber fell into the smoldering depths of the inferno and the old Quarry home ceased to be, Jane and Dan Cox were just landing at Andrews AFB.
Jane had told her husband what she had done. He praised his wife for her quick thinking and gave her a kiss. Despite the likely loss of their niece, the First Couple rode back to the White House with their spirits higher than they had been in a while.
They really had survived, one more time.
CHAPTER 85
THE COUNTRY REJOICED at the safe return of Willa Dutton. It was all made far more poignant and indeed bittersweet by the loss of the young girl’s mother. Willa was America’s courageous little lady now, yet they had not seen much of her, because her family was shielding the bereaved girl from much of the media scrutiny.
An obviously relieved Dan and Jane Cox consistently mentioned it on the campaign trail, and asked both the public and the media to respect the privacy of the grieving girl.
If Willa was the number one story, a close second was the attempted assassination of Dan Cox by persons as yet unknown, though the investigation was ongoing. While he only would speak briefly and modestly of the ordeal himself, his staff made sure that the public knew how brave he and the First Lady had been, risking their lives to try and get their niece back and foiling the plot of what most of the country thought was the work of terrorists trying to kill their president.
He was so far ahead in the polls now that even the opposition openly acknowledged the impossibility of winning the upcoming election. Jane had never been more popular. She had appeared on the covers of a number of magazines and had made appearances on all the major news and talk shows. For those who knew her well, while she seemed the same physically, still radiant if thinner, there was something different about her. A certain light in the eyes that was no longer there.
Sean King and Michelle Maxwell had also been brought into the national spotlight, however unwillingly. After the president and Agent Waters had mentioned what they had done to foil the assassination plot, they had been inundated with press inquiries, to such an extent that they both had moved and taken up residence at an undisclosed location.
They had briefed Waters on what had happened at the mines. And about Diane Wohl being in there along with Daryl and Sam Quarry. Attempts were being made to excavate the mine collapse. Yet it was becoming rapidly clear that any evidence that might have been in there was going to stay in there.
When Waters questioned them as to Quarry’s motivation to do all this, they had claimed ignorance.
Sean’s arm and other injuries were healing and Michelle had gone from crutches to a boot on her foot. Gabriel had miraculously suffered no serious physical injuries. However, the emotional impact of losing his mother and his home had taken its toll.
Sean and Michelle had discussed what to do about him.
“We can’t just stick him in foster care,” she said.
“I don’t want to do that either. I want to find him a great home with a great family.”
“I don’t think anything will be great for him for a long time,” said Michelle. “No matter what sort of family he ends up with.”
“Do you think we could take care of him for a while?” he finally suggested.
“We? We live in separate places. We’re not married. And with our occupation, being gone half the time, they’d never let us have custody of him.”