Return to The Quarry

Chapter Twenty-seven

Cicadas droned relentlessly in the heat of the early afternoon as it beat down on the piles of broken excavation equipment and the quartzite rise through which the tunnel had been cut decades ago. Septimus Hackett waded through the scraggly weeds that swayed at the edge of the sunny opening of the tunnel. As he stepped into the shady darkness beyond, his boots crunched the stone rubble of the tunnel's floor, each step slow and careful as he came to stop at the polished fender of the green Model T parked inside.

Through the glass windscreen, he saw the young woman in the driver's seat, her auburn head resting on the leather seatback, the pretty, pale face serene with sleep.

Septimus lifted the hinged panel of the automobile's hood, idly examining the gleaming, cold motor underneath. He looked to the sleeping face and let the panel fall from his hand, snapping closed with a boom.

The young woman jolted awake. She held up a slender hand against the glare of the sun as it stung her now wide open blue eyes. Fumbling around, Deirdre got a look at the tall, wiry man in dirty overalls who stood looking at her with a blank expression on his face.

"Well, well, well," he said dryly, "funny place to park."

Deirdre opened her car door and stepped out onto the gravel, her badly scuffed shoes unsteady on the stones.

"Are you . . . Septimus Hackett?" She closed the door behind her. Her heart pounded from having been so suddenly awakened. But if this was him, if this were her chance . . .

"That's right. And you are?"

She swallowed. "Glamour Girl," Deirdre said simply. She fought back the tears that threatened to show in her eyes as she remembered the name she had so capriciously given to the go-between, that anonymous man on the telephone who sounded as though he talked through his nose. Those carefree days seemed so far off, now. Now, as she stared at the man who killed her entire world, she felt as though they never had happened.

Septimus, his cold, heavily lidded gray eyes did not appear fazed by her arrival. If he was, he certainly did not show it.

"I thought it might be you," he said simply. "I got your notes, you know. Heck of a lot of 'em."

Deirdre nodded slowly. "Did you?"

"Yes ma'am. And, uh. Just what can I do for you, Miss Glamour Girl?" He cocked his head. "Problem with goods delivered?"

Deirdre could feel her face color with rage at the joke. She used every bit of acting skill to keep calm.

"I'll say, Mr. Hackett."

"That's a right shame."

Her mind worked faster than it ever had. She looked at his boots, his muddy, creased and worn boots. If she could get him to take them off, even only for a second-

"Is there somewhere we can talk?" she asked, thinking of his house or an office. He would have to take off his boots to go in, wouldn't he? "You know. Out of this place? The dust is bothering my eyes something awful-"

"Just what do you want, miss?" said Septimus plainly. He folded his arms across his chest. "I reckon you didn't come out all this way just to talk, you know, out of the dust." He shifted his weight from foot to foot, crunching the stones beneath his feet. "Say, just how did you find out about this tunnel, anyhow?"

Deirdre blinked. "Accidentally. The man at the place where I hired this car used to work here. The one with a missing leg? He said your grandfather let him go after a hauling car full of processing waste ran him over in an old tunnel used for running garbage off the property."