Tunnels 02, Deeper

when Mrs. Burrows sprang up with surprising speed and stood before the door, barring Sarah's way.
    "Not so fast!" Mrs. Burrows exclaimed. " I have some questions for you first."
    "I can see I've made a mistake coming here, Mrs. Burrows," Sarah said decisively as she put her coat over her arm. She took a step toward Mrs. Burrows, who didn't budge an inch, and so they stood, face-to-face, like two prizefighters sizing each other up. Sarah was beginning to tire of the pretense -- and Mrs. Burrows clearly didn't now anything more than she did about Will's whereabouts. Or if she did, she wasn't telling.
    "We can finish this another time," Sarah told her, flashing a sour smile and turning sideways as if she meant to squeeze between Mrs. Burrows and the wall.
    "Stop right where you are," Mrs. Burrows ordered. "You must think I'm gaga. You come here with your shabby clothes and your second-rate performance and expect me to swallow it?" Her eyes, narrowing to two vicious slits, flashed with the satisfaction of knowing .
    "Did you really think I wouldn't figure out who you are? You have Will's face, and no amount of hair dye or stupid playacting" -- she swatted the folder in Sarah's arms with the back of her hand -- "is going to hide that." She nodded slyly. "You're his mother, aren't you?"
    "I don't know what you're talking about," Sarah answered as coolly as she could.
    "Will's biological mother."
    "That's absurd. I..."
    "What hole did you crawl out of?" Mrs. Burrows sneered sarcastically.
    Sarah shook her head.
    "Why did it take so long for you to come back? And why now?" Mrs. Burrows continued.
    Sarah didn't say anything, staring daggers at the red-faced woman.
    "You abandoned your child... You gave him up for adoption... What gives you the right to come sniffing around here?" Mrs. Burrows demanded.
    Sarah let out a sharp breath. She could knock this rather flabby, lazy woman out of her way with so little effort, but chose to do nothing. They stood there, under a pounding silence, one Will's adoptive mother and the other his birth mother, inexorably liked and both instinctively knowing who the other was.
    Mrs. Burrows broke the silence. "I take it that you're looking for him, or you wouldn't have shown up here," she simmered. She raised her eyebrows like a TV detective making a vital deduction in a case. "Or maybe you were responsible for his disappearance?"
    "I had nothing whatsoever to do with his disappearance. You're insane."
    Mrs. Burrows snorted. "Oh... insane, you say... Is that why I'm in this awful place?" she said in a hammy, melodramatic way, rolling her eyes like a terrified heroine in a silent film. "Dear me!"
    "Let me through, please," Sarah asked with resolute politeness, taking a small step forward.
    "Not just yet," Mrs. Burrows said. "Perhaps you decided you wanted Will back?"
    "No--"
    "Well, I bet you're involved in some way. You bloody keep your bloody nose out of my affairs. It's my family!" Mrs. Burrows scowled. "Look at the state of you. You're not fit to be anyone's mother!"
    Sarah had had enough.
    "Oh, yes?" she retorted through tightly clenched lips. "And what did you ever do for him?"
    A wave of triumph swept across Mrs. Burrows's face. She'd flushed Sarah out into the open. "What did I do for him? I did my best. You were the one who dumped him," she answered angrily, unaware that Sarah was struggling with an almost irrepressible urge to kill her. "Why didn't you come to see him before? Where've you been hiding all these years?"
    "You bitter, vindictive hag!" exploded Sarah, revealing the scorn and resentment she felt for the other woman, her face erupting with all the violence of which she was capable.
    But Mrs. Burrows wasn't put off by this, not in the least. She stepped back from the door, not in retreat, but to place her hand over the large red panic button on the wall. Sarah now had a clear passage out of the room and went to the door, twisting the handle to open it a fraction. As she did so, the sound of a commotion echoed down the corridor -- a tremendous clattering and hysterical shouts. Mrs. Burrows knew immediately that one of the Screamers' body clocks must have gone awry. That was odd -- they usually saved their histrionics for the small hours.
    For the briefest moment, Sarah was distracted by the noise, then she focused her full attention back on Mrs. Burrows, who remained with her hand poised over the button.
    Sarah looked fiercely at her, shaking her head. "You don't want to do