Danielle Steel - Journey

“Find Maddy and tell her to get her ass over there. She should be home by now,” he directed, and then hung up. They already had two crews on the scene, and a third one was on its way, the producer had said. And the pretty blonde he was with at the Ritz Carlton asked him what had happened.

“Some asshole blew up a shopping mall,” he said, and flipped on the TV. And they both sat and stared at what they saw. It was a scene of total destruction and utter chaos. “Jesus,” he whistled through his teeth. Neither of them had realized the magnitude of the disaster until they saw it. They sat there silently for a while, and then he picked up his cell phone and called the network. “Did you find her?” he barked into the phone. It was a hell of a story, but even to a practiced eye like his, there were moments of what they were shooting that brought tears to his eyes. And next to him the girl he had only met the week before was crying softly. A fireman had just carried away a dead baby and its mother.

“We're trying, Jack,” the frazzled producer said. “She's not home yet, and her cell phone is off.”

“Goddammit, I told her never to do that. Keep trying. She'll turn up.” And then as he snapped his phone shut, a strange thought wandered across his mind, but he rejected it instantly. She had said she was going to buy wrapping paper and some things, but she usually hated malls and shopped in Georgetown. There was no reason on earth why she would be there.

“Can you hear me, Anne?” Maddy's voice penetrated through the concrete again, but it took her longer to rouse the other voice this time.

“Yes … I can …” and as she answered, they heard another voice. A man's this time, and he sounded surprisingly close to Maddy

“Who is that?” the voice asked. He sounded strong and loud, and he said he had dislodged some rocks and a beam and crawled a long way to get to them, but he had no idea which way he was going, or where he was.

“My name is Maddy,” she answered firmly, “and there's a girl here called Anne … she's not with me, but I can hear her. I think she's hurt and she has a baby.”

“How about you? Are you okay?” She had a headache, but it wasn't worth reporting to him.

“I'm fine. Can you move any of this stuff around me?”

“Keep talking, and I'll try.” She hoped he was big and strong. Strong enough to move mountains if he had to.

“What's your name?”

“Mike. And don't worry, lady. I bench-press five hundred pounds. I'll get you out of there in no time.” But she could hear him struggling as he continued to talk to her, and Anne dropped out of the conversation again, as Maddy called out to her, but the baby was crying louder than ever.

“Talk to your baby, Anne. If he hears you, he might not be so scared.”

“I'm too tired,” Anne said weakly, as Maddy continued to talk to Mike, and he sounded a few inches closer.

“Do you know what happened?” Maddy asked him.

“Damned if I know. I was buying shaving cream and the goddamn roof fell on top of me. I was going to bring my kids. I'm glad I didn't. Was anyone with you?”

“No, I was alone,” Maddy answered, while she tried clawing at the rocks and dirt again, but all she did was break her nails and hurt her fingers. Nothing was moving.

“I'm going to try and dig in the other direction,” he finally said, as Maddy felt a wave of panic wash over her. The thought of the friendly voice leaving her aroused a sense of abandonment in her like no other she had ever known. But they had to get help, and if one of them could get to it, the others would be saved too.

“Okay,” she said. “Good luck. When you get out,” she made a point of saying “when” and not “if,” “I'm a reporter, tell my network I'm here. I have a feeling they're out there somewhere.”

“I'll come back for you,” he said clearly. And a few minutes later, his voice disappeared again, and no others came. She was left alone in the darkness with her solitude, Anne, and her crying baby. And she kept wishing for her cell phone, not that it would have made much difference. She couldn't even have told them where they were, only where they had started. But for all she knew, they had been thrown a long way. There was nothing to identify where they were trapped now.

And as Bill continued to watch the news, he felt a rising sense of panic. He had called her a dozen times, and only got her answering machine. And her cell phone was still off. Finally in desperation, he called the network.

“Who is this?” the producer asked irritably, surprised the caller had even gotten through.

“I'm a friend of hers, and I was just concerned. Is she covering the story?”

There was a pause and then the producer decided to answer him honestly. “We can't find her either. Her cell phone's off, and she's not home. She could have gone to the scene independently, but no one's seen her. But there are a hell of a lot of people there. She'll turn up eventually. She always does,” Rafe Thompson, the producer, reassured him.

“It's not like her to disappear,” Bill pointed out to the producer in a worried tone, and Rafe couldn't help wondering how the man on the phone knew that, but he was obviously worried. A lot more than Jack was. All Jack had done was yell at them to goddamn fucking find her. And the producer had a fairly good idea of what Jack had been doing when he found him. A giggling female voice had been laughing in the background when Jack answered the first time.

“I don't know what to tell you. She'll probably call in pretty soon. She might be at a movie or something.” But Bill knew she wasn't, and the fact that she hadn't called him to tell him she was okay was making him panic. He wandered around his living room for another ten minutes after that, keeping an eye on the TV, and finally he couldn't stand it. He picked up his coat and his car keys, and hurried outside. He didn't even know if he could get near the scene, but he had to try. He didn't know why, but he knew he had to be there. Maybe he could find her.

It was after ten o'clock as Bill sped the entire way, an hour and a half after the blast that had destroyed two city blocks, killed a hundred and three at last count, and injured dozens of others. And this was just the beginning.

When he got there, it took him twenty minutes to pick his way past the emergency vehicles and debris, and there were so many volunteers on hand to help that no one asked him for passes, badges, or ID, they just let him through, and he stood outside the toy store with tears in his eyes, praying he would find her in the crowd outside.

And within minutes, someone handed him a hard hat, and asked him to help carry debris from inside. He followed them in, and it was so terrifying just being there that all he could hope was that Maddy was anywhere but there, and had just forgotten to turn on her cell phone.

And inside her cave, Maddy was thinking of him, as she braced her full weight against a piece of concrete, and was stunned when she moved it. She tried again, and it moved another few inches, and every time it did, Anne's ever-weakening voice seemed to grow closer.

“I think I'm getting somewhere,” she said to Anne, “keep talking to me. I need to know where you are. I don't want to make things worse … can you feel anything? Is there dirt falling on you anywhere?” She wasn't sure if she was near her head or her feet, but the last thing she wanted to do was drop a piece of concrete on her or her baby. But it was almost as much work moving the concrete as it was to keep Anne talking.

Maddy was even talking to herself now as she pushed and shoved and clawed, and she gave a shove so mighty that she nearly hurt herself, and much to her amazement, as she did, a huge chunk of concrete gave way, and she was able to move it aside, and create a hole big enough to accommodate her upper body, and she started to crawl through it. And as soon as she did, she knew she had found Anne. Her voice was so close to her, and the first thing she touched was Andy. He was lying near his mother's hand, just out of reach, and squirming freely. Maddy couldn't see him, but she could feel him and she pulled him to her. And he howled in terror as she did. She had no idea if he was hurt or not, but she set him down again, and crawled through the hole toward Anne. But for a moment, the girl said nothing, and then Maddy touched her. She wasn't even sure if she was still breathing.