The green door had no handle on my side, only a bare spindle and a chair shoved beneath it. I had reached the passage by following the scrape of Daniel's shoes. Now he was quiet. I put my mouth near the crack. 'It's Ellis.' Something brushed the other side. 'Where's Ruth?' he asked. I lifted the chair away with my good hand. 'Outside. Stand back.' The door moved against my palm, then caught on something heavy near the floor.
I pushed with my hip. Whatever blocked it dragged a few inches and stopped. The passage smelled of damp paper and machine oil. Behind me, beyond the room where Ruth had been kept, a door opened. I could not tell how far away. 'Daniel, can you shift what's there?' 'A cabinet. I can't get behind it.' I braced my back against the opposite wall and drove with my legs. Pain climbed from my shoulder into my neck. The door opened another hand's width.
Daniel got his fingers around its edge. Together we dragged and pushed until the cabinet tipped enough to scrape across the concrete. I squeezed through sideways. He stood barefoot beside a metal shelf, holding one shoe. His other shoe lay under the cabinet. I bent for it before thinking. The movement nearly put me on my knees. Daniel caught my coat. 'Leave it.' But I had it already. I handed it over and waited while he pulled both shoes on without tying them.
His face had narrowed since I last saw him. There was dirt along his jaw and a swollen place above one eyebrow. I wanted to ask what Sutter had done, wanted to hear him say it could be put right. Instead I looked around for another way out. A high window was covered by a fixed grille. The passage was all we had. 'Stay close,' I said. Daniel stepped away from the shelf. 'Then keep moving.'
Mercer stood between us and the turn toward the yard. He had come quietly, or I had been too busy hearing my own breath. His coat was dry across the shoulders. That small fact angered me more than it should have. 'You let her out,' he said. I kept Daniel behind me and moved toward the turn. Mercer shifted across it. 'We can settle this, Ellis. Bring Ruth back. The boy waits here until she comes. Then everybody goes home.'
'He's coming now.' Mercer looked past me at Daniel, as if my nephew had interrupted a private business discussion merely by standing there. 'You can have your place back. Vehicle, regular pay. You won't get far without either.' My shoulder throbbed in time with my heart. He knew the price of the things I had lost because he had taken some of them himself. For years I had called that knowledge friendship. Daniel's breath touched the back of my collar.
I could see the yard door beyond Mercer's left side. A strip of darkness showed beneath it. 'Move,' I said. He put his hand against my chest. Not a blow, just the familiar pressure of a man accustomed to directing where I went. I knocked it aside. Daniel started past us. Mercer caught his sleeve, and I drove forward with my good shoulder. We struck the wall together. Daniel twisted free, leaving a torn seam in Mercer's fist.
'The door,' I told him. Daniel reached it, fumbled the latch, and pushed into the wet night. Mercer tried to follow. I spread myself across the opening before the turn, one hand against the wall. He seized my coat and pulled me off balance. My bad arm struck the jamb. White pain closed my sight for a second. I held on with my other hand, hearing Daniel's shoes slap across concrete outside. Every step was a reason not to let go.
Mercer drove his forearm across me and shoved. My heel slid on a damp patch. I went down against the edge of a wooden crate, then onto the floor. He stepped over my legs. I caught his trouser cuff and pulled hard enough to make him stumble. 'Daniel, keep going!' I shouted. Mercer kicked loose without looking back. I rolled toward the doorway, trying to get my knees beneath me. My injured arm hung useless and heavy against my ribs.
Cold air reached my face as I crawled over the threshold. The yard light showed Daniel nearing the fence, his untied laces whipping around his shoes. For an instant I thought he had made it. Then Sutter came around the end of the van. Daniel veered, slipped, recovered. Sutter caught the back of his shirt and drove him against the wire. I dragged myself onto the apron while Daniel gripped the fence, and Sutter pulled him away from it.