“Hey,” her rescuer said, louder this time. “Are you okay? Need you to answer me.”
“I’m all right. Just a little dustier.” She pushed the words up and out, even though each one felt like broken glass scraping up her raw throat. She studied the hulking figure behind the light. She clung to the only visible sign of life, of hope, in this hellish tomb. “Did you hear Joshua cry during the aftershock? He’s okay, and now you have to know.”
He pressed two fingers to her wrist. Taking her pulse, no doubt.
“Amelia,” he said with unbelievable calm, his fingers warm and steady against her skin, “we’re going to get you both out of here.”
She noticed he didn’t agree to having heard her nephew. Her lawyerly ear that helped her ferret out nuances in witness testimony was a curse right now. “How much longer do you have on that battery?”
“Long enough. Keep the faith. My guys are close.”
“How can you be sure?” She hated the hysteria creeping into her voice.
“I know,” he answered simply. “It’s what we do. I understand how we think.”
She laughed hoarsely. “So they’re all as crazy as you are…? I don’t even know what to call you.”
“My name is Hugh.” His large competent hands slid from her wrist to her IV, jiggling the needle, applying a new strip of tape.
The enormity of what he was doing for her and for Joshua flooded through her.
“Hugh…” She tested the lone syllable and accustomed herself to putting a name with the fuzzy blur who was risking his life to save hers. “Hugh, what makes you do something like this for a living? I can’t imagine anybody willingly coming down here.”
“What can I say?” He settled onto his side, stowing his gear. “I was the kid who climbed trees to rescue stranded cats.”
“No kidding?” She grasped at the piece of normalcy.
“When I was seven, the neighbor’s Siamese got stuck in a big old oak. The family called the fire department, but it was going to take a while for them to get there because of a three-alarm blaze on the other side of town.”
His smooth-as-bourbon bass voice filled the cave with an intoxicating calm. “The neighbor girl was bawling her eyes out. So I figured, why wait? I’d climbed that tree a hundred times.”
His story wrapped around her, sinking into her pores and transporting her to the world beyond this murky gray hell, a world with leafy green trees and fuzzy kittens.
“I’ll bet the neighbor girl was glad to have her pet back.”
“Oh, I didn’t save her Siamese. The cat climbed down on its own.” He chuckled softly. “I got stuck when my jacket snagged a branch and the fire department had to rescue me.”
She laughed with him—how could she not?—until her eyes stung with tears and she choked on the thick air. “You’re making that up to distract me.”
“Not a chance. I was scared to death up there. Cried like a baby, when I got to solid ground again.” A half smile dug a crease into the dirt on his rugged face. “The little kid had her cat back and looked at the firefighter like he was a god.”
“Ahhh,” she smiled, realizing. “You had a crush on the neighbor girl.”
He didn’t answer right away, the dull throb of distant engines filled the void.
“Yeah.” His voice went flat, the smooth bourbon tones turning gravelly.
The leafy world in her mind faded, landing her back in the drab fissure. She rubbed circles over Joshua’s head to soothe the child and keep the circulation going in her increasingly numbing hand. Closing her eyes, she struggled to will herself back to the brief escape from this place.
The sound of jackhammers intensified along with the growl of trucks and maybe even the occasional voice. But her mind could be playing tricks on her. The only thing she knew for sure, her only reality, was this man in front of her. “I hate feeling helpless, dependent.”
“Hey… Hey,” he repeated forcefully. “You’re anything but helpless, and there’s nothing wrong with needing me. It’s my job. You’ve stayed calm. Believe me, from where I’m sitting, that’s huge. A whacked-out victim is a danger to herself, to me, and to everyone around us. You’re doing good, Amelia.”
She forced dank air in through her nose, out through her mouth, rubbing Joshua’s back in time with each breath. “What’s your last name? You never told me.”
“Franco. My name’s Hugh Franco.”
“And you’re a PJ…” She traced the insignia on his uniform sleeve.