“Your partner is in there?” the incident commander boomed into the radio. “Have you contacted him? Is he okay?”
Clearly Williams had forgotten that Cal was with the K-9 Unit and his partner was a dog. Cal ran a hand over his hair. He didn’t bother to set him straight. “I have to go in.”
“No.”
“I have to—”
“I said no.”
“But—”
The voice on the other end became more human, less like the commanding officer at a serious incident. “Look. I understand your position, but we have no idea if anyone still down there is alive. It was a significant aftershock, and the building shifted considerably.”
“Yeah. But I have to make sure.”
There was a long pause. “No. It’s too dangerous. We haven’t ascertained the structural integrity of the building, and the probability of another aftershock is high. I’m sorry, but I can’t risk it. I can’t clear you to go in.”
Cal heard the click of the radio disconnecting and was tempted to hurl the device over the edge. Instead, he glanced around. He saw the firefighter who’d been in the building with him preparing to take Kayla down to street level on the articulated boom lift of a fire truck. She was holding on to him, her chin resting on his shoulder. When his eyes met hers, she raised a hand and waved to him, and he was sure her mouth formed the word mommy. That decided it for him. He had to go in. He’d promised her he’d go back to find her mother. The odds might be against it, but he couldn’t ignore the possibility that Kayla’s mother was still alive.
And he wouldn’t leave Scout.
There weren’t many people left on the rooftop, and those who remained were in the process of making their way back to street level.
Soon it would be him and a firefighter who’d been helping with the hoisting mechanism. Cal didn’t know where the firefighter he’d argued with had gone, but this guy was young—no more than twenty-four or -five—and in the process of dismantling the contraption.
“Hey!” Cal called as he did his best to jog up the slanted roof toward him. “Hold on a minute. I need to go back in.”
The kid looked around, seemingly confused. “I was told no one else is going in. I’m supposed to wrap up here and get off the rooftop.”
“Well, I have to go back in.” When the kid just stared at him, Cal sighed. “Hey, my partner’s in there...”
“Your partner?” The kid sounded horrified. “But we lifted everyone out before the aftershock hit. We tracked everyone going in and out.”
Cal’s mind was made up. He doubted he could do anything for Kayla’s mother; he had to face reality. But Scout was still down there, his condition unknown. He was going in, with or without Command authorization, whether this kid was going to help him or not. He raised himself to his full six feet two inches and tried to look intimidating. “I don’t have time to argue. You saw that little girl?” The kid nodded. “Her mother’s down there. I don’t know what kind of shape she’s in, but I can’t leave her without determining her condition. What if she’s still alive? You want to tell that little girl that we abandoned her mother to die? And my partner is the search-and-rescue canine hoisted down after me. I’m not leaving him, either.”
“Okay,” the kid said hesitantly, and reached for his radio. “I’ll just get it cleared.”
Cal shot out a hand and placed it over the kid’s, held his gaze. “You’re not going to get clearance. I’ve tried and Command refused it.”
“But...”
Cal felt the guilt trickle through him. It was one thing for him to disregard a direct order from Command, especially with the blot on his past. It was something entirely different for him to coerce someone else to do so—and that someone still young and inexperienced. “Look—” he checked the kid’s nametag “—Adam, I’m disobeying an order by going back in, but I have to do it. Like I said, there’s no way I’m leaving my dog. And I want to verify the condition of the girl’s mother. I owe it to Kayla to make sure. What if she is alive and I can save her?”
Cal examined the ropes and pulleys of the hoisting mechanism. His voice was solemn. “I don’t want to implicate you in what is essentially insubordination. Go. But if you could leave this stuff behind, I’d appreciate it.”
Cal could see that Adam was trying to work things out in his own mind. When Adam spoke, his voice was a little shaky but he seemed resolved. “You can’t do this on your own. I’ll help you.”
“You understand what it means if you do?”
Adam nodded.
Cal had a silent debate with himself. He was involving the rookie in something that could cost the kid his job, his career. But he acknowledged that he needed Adam’s help. If sparks flew, he’d just take all the heat, accept all the blame. He’d say he’d pressured the kid. It would be even worse for him, but Adam would get written up for a mild misdemeanor without the risk of losing his job.
“Then let’s do it,” Cal said.
The elevator shaft no longer provided a straight vertical descent. Their progress was slower and Cal had to guide himself down, using his feet to push away from the obstructions and around protruding structural elements. They couldn’t use their radios or they’d be discovered; they communicated by a prearranged sequence of tugs on the guywire.
When Cal reached the third floor, he could no longer follow the elevator shaft. The force of the aftershock had created a hundred and thirty-five-degree elbow in the passage. He was lowered through the elevator door opening, directly into the tilted two-story atrium of the main lobby. When he emerged from the elevator shaft, he was suspended a good twenty feet above floor level. Two thoughts flashed through his mind. First, that the space had shifted considerably with the aftershock, just as he’d been warned. And second, that Scout was nowhere in sight. As his feet touched the floor and he unbuckled himself, he swept his gaze around the room and called Scout. Relief flooded through him when he heard the short, sharp barks signaling the dog’s location. Following the sound, he could tell that Scout was in the same cavity from which they’d rescued Kayla. He must have tracked the scent back to Kayla’s mother, but the opening they’d cleared was blocked again.
“I found you. You’re okay!” Cal called to Scout as he rushed over. Fortunately, the opening, enlarged by the way the building had skewed during the aftershock, was blocked only with loose rubble. When he removed it, the dog bounded out and directly to Cal. Scout’s coat of black and brown was covered with so much concrete dust he looked nearly white. Even his eyelashes and whiskers were coated in white. While Scout licked Cal’s face and pranced around, Cal did a quick exam to satisfy himself that the dog appeared to be unharmed. He took a moment to reattach Scout’s collar, and instructed him to sit-stay.
Because of the enlarged opening, Cal was able to shimmy into the cavity on his stomach, using his elbows to propel himself, his flashlight gripped between his teeth.
Sweeping the beam of light around the confined space, he saw her, lying on her back. Her face was stunningly beautiful. Dark olive skin, delicate features and the long cascade of ebony hair, so much like her daughter’s. His throat clogged and he had trouble breathing. He crawled over to her to check for vitals, but he was certain it was just a formality.
He understood why Kayla would have thought her mother was asleep; she must not have noticed—understandable with the absence of any light filtering in—that her eyes were open. She had one arm slung above her head and the other extended at her side. The way her hand was positioned and her