Chapter 8 - Edge of the Quarry Cliff
"Step back from the ledge, Leo, you're going to slip," Miller warned, extending a hand slowly while keeping his other hand hovering near the holster on his tactical vest.
"Don't touch me! You're one of the bad men who came to the house with Uncle Marcus's bosses!" Leo yelled, tears of frustration spilling over his lower eyelids as he balanced precariously on the loose gravel at the very lip of the abyss.
"I'm not the bad guy, kid, I'm the one trying to make sure your parents don't spend the rest of their lives behind bars for things they didn't even mean to do," Miller lied smoothly, taking another calculated step forward across the pine needles.
"You're lying, just like Dad, just like everyone else!" Leo cried out, his voice cracking as a sudden gust of wind swept up from the quarry basin below, chilling him to the bone.
Suddenly, the brush behind Miller parted violently, and Richard burst out of the timberline, covered in mud and grease, breathing so hard he could barely stand upright.
"Leo! Stop! Don't move an inch!" Richard shouted, throwing his hands out in a desperate plea as he took in the terrifying sight of his son standing on the sheer edge of the cliff with a federal agent cornering him.
"Mr. Vance, stay back, don't startle him or he'll go over the side," Miller snapped, not breaking eye contact with the boy.
"Leo, sweetheart, please, just give the agent what he wants and we can go home, I swear to God I'll never lie to you again," Richard pleaded, tears finally breaking through his own stoic facade as he fell to his knees on the dirt path.
"You promised we'd go to the lake last year, but you took Uncle Marcus to the basement instead," Leo whispered, his voice dangerously calm as he looked down into the deep water three hundred feet below.
"That was different, Leo, you don't understand how the business works, people get hurt if the books are balanced the wrong way," Richard stammered, scrambling forward on his hands and knees.
Before Richard could reach his son, the screech of tires echoed from the logging road behind them, and Eleanor's station wagon slammed to a halt at the edge of the clearing, the driver's side door flying open instantly.
"Richard, don't let him talk, if he sings that song to Miller, we are finished!" Eleanor shrieked as she sprinted out of the vehicle, her cream silk blouse stained with mud and sweat.
"Shut up, Eleanor! Can't you see the boy is standing on the edge of a cliff?!" Richard roared, spinning around to face his wife in absolute fury.
"If he falls, the backup server auto-deletes the encryption keys at midnight anyway, but if he talks, we go to trial tomorrow!" she screamed back, lunging forward past Richard toward the ledge where Leo stood.
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Leo watched his mother rushing toward him with a twisted, desperate look in her eyes, and in that split second, the eight-year-old boy made a choice that would change everything.
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