my mommy.”
“We’re going to get her next, but you have to go out of the building.”
“No. I don’t want to. I want Mommy.” She thrust out her lower lip.
“You have to. Your mother would want you to be safe. This man will take you out and I’ll look for your mother.”
“Can’t the other man get Mommy?” Her chest was heaving and she clutched Cal’s arm harder. She was obviously near her breaking point.
Cal glanced up at the firefighter, who shrugged.
“That’s why I called you. She wouldn’t leave. She wanted you.”
Cal gripped Kayla’s shoulders and stared into her tear-drenched eyes. “I’m going to look for your mother now.”
She started to sob and threw herself in Cal’s arms. “I’m afraid. I don’t want to go without Mommy. Or you.”
Cal held tight, clasping one hand over the back of the child’s head, smoothing down the tangled, matted mass of dark hair. He assessed the circumstances quickly and decided the extra couple of minutes it would take him to lift the girl out would likely make no difference to her mother. Air was getting in. If the woman was unconscious, she wouldn’t run out of oxygen. And if it was worse...well, he didn’t want to think about it.
A loud grinding noise reverberated around them—metal abrading against metal—as if the building was settling. Cal and the firefighter froze, waiting for the noise and the vibrations to cease.
“I’ll take you out, but after that you’ll stay with this man, so I can come back for your mother.”
She sniffled a bit, then nodded, her head resting against his shoulder. “Okay.”
Cal rose, with Kayla in his arms. They made their way over to the hoist and the firefighter radioed to let them know up top what was happening. They decided the firefighter should go first. He would take Kayla to the triage area once Cal got her out. Cal ordered Scout to wait. The firefighter was lifted out, then the harness was lowered again. Cal strapped himself in. Holding Kayla firmly against his chest, he wrapped the final harness strap around both of them. He signaled for the crew to start the extraction.
As they began to move, the little girl held on tight, her arms wound around his neck, her face still buried in the crook of his neck. They ascended slowly and cleared the building. He blinked rapidly to adjust his eyes to the late-evening sunshine, blinding after the darkness inside.
He wondered fleetingly how the sun could shine so intensely with all the destruction below, but he didn’t have long to dwell on it. They were swung away from the opening and Cal unfastened them, handing Kayla to the firefighter.
Just as Cal was strapping himself back in, he felt a strong breeze and spread his legs to brace himself. Even so, when the building beneath him shook, he was nearly knocked off his feet.
“An aftershock,” he heard someone yell, and the building shifted, then tilted perilously.
This time Cal did lose his balance. Landing on his backside, he was catapulted down the inclined rooftop headfirst. The harness he hadn’t fully secured snapped free. He tried to twist around as the edge of the rooftop rushed toward him. He managed to turn enough so that he wasn’t leading with his head when he hit the parapet wall. He lay still for a few moments to catch his breath. His left shoulder screamed but he didn’t think it was broken. He hoped it wasn’t dislocated, either. Nothing else seemed to hurt enough to worry about.
People on the rooftop and at street level were shouting and rushing about. Cal unfolded himself and, bracing against the parapet wall, he rose to stand on the steeply sloping rooftop. He took one quick glance over the edge and knew that if the parapet wall hadn’t been there or hadn’t held, it would have been game over for him.
He pushed that thought aside and turned to search the area for the firefighter and Kayla. They were huddled together against the railing by the rooftop stairwell and looked unharmed. His next thought was of Kayla’s mother and Scout. He had to get back into the building. Massaging his shoulder, he walked at an angle along the steeply sloping roof toward the elevator shaft opening and the hoisting mechanism.
“Let’s get this done,” he said to the firefighter operating the hoist as he strapped himself back into the harness.
“You aren’t going down there.”
“Darn right I am.” He gestured toward Kayla. “Her mother is down there, and so is my dog.”
“I don’t have permission to let anyone back in.”
“Then get it,” Cal snarled, forestalling any further argument.
The firefighter had a hurried conversation on his radio with the incident commander, and shook his head. “No go. The building might be unstable now and they’re worried about another aftershock.”
Cal cursed under his breath and yanked his own radio off his belt and contacted Incident Command. “Yeah, I have to go back in,” he said. “Why? Because there’s a person still in there. The mother of a child I just brought out. Yes, I realize she’s probably deceased. And Scout—my partner—is down there.”
“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.
