Page 137 of The Search

Monty pressed closer to her legs and looked up at her. Find?

She reached down and stroked his head.

Find?

Yes, keep hope alive even if she was scared to death. So, stop standing there, shaking. There might be a way. Sweet Jesus, she hoped there was a way. “Find.” She started toward the fire department rescue command post with Monty trotting after her.

“Where are you going?” Galen called.

“To do my job.”

Christ, it was dark.

Monty was crawling ahead of her through the rubble in the drainage pipe. She could barely see him, but he was crawling steadily. He knew where he was going, he had the cone.

But that didn’t mean Logan was alive.

Don’t think about that. When they got through this pipe, they’d find Logan and he’d be alive. Repeat it like a mantra.

He is alive.

He is alive.

He is alive.

She could hardly breathe. She checked the monitor she wore around her neck. No lethal gases. It must be the concrete dust . . . and fear.

Digging her elbows into the rubble, she slowly made her way forward.

“Okay, Sarah?” It was Donner at the command post, speaking through her wire.

No, it wasn’t okay. She was terrified. But she said, “No problem. There are more air pockets than I thought there’d be. And I haven’t found any weak spots I wasn’t able to shore up.”

“That doesn’t mean you won’t. Don’t be a hot dog. You should get out of there and let us go in.”

She couldn’t do that, not when she knew they’d be forced to take precautions that would eat up time. Logan’s time. “No problem,” she repeated.

Monty gave a low moan.

She knew that sound. Oh, God, he’d found something.

And it wasn’t alive.

“I can’t talk anymore, Donner. I hear Monty. . . .”

She crawled until she saw Monty standing still.

Standing next to a body crushed beneath slabs of concrete.

Dead.

Please, Jesus. Let Monty be wrong.

Let Logan have a spark of life so she could save him.

She crawled closer.

Blood. She was crawling through blood.