Noah grabbed his emergency gear, cursing himself for not bringing more. His field vest held the basics: first aid kit, water, radio, protein bars. But if Sabrina was seriously injured—
No. He couldn’t think like that. One crisis at a time.
“Dancer, heel. Ripley, show me.”
He followed the chocolate lab up the same trail where he and Sabrina had once found Annie Ross’s body. His mind cataloged details with professional precision even as his heart thundered against his ribs. Fresh footprints. Signs of a struggle. A spent shell casing that made his blood run cold.
Someone had fired a weapon here.
He unclipped the radio from his belt. “Command, this is Colton. I’m tracking a possible injured USFS officer in Peavine Canyon, sector seven. Evidence of firearms discharge. Request immediate backup.”
The radio crackled. “Copy that, Colton. Units en route. ETA fifteen minutes. What’s your situation?”
“Following service dog to possible location. Target is Officer Sabrina West. No contact yet.” His voice remained steady despite the fifty-ton elephant sitting on his chest. He’d done this before. Dozens of times. Find what’s lost. Bring them home.
But never when the lost person was more precious than his own life.
Ripley’s path veered suddenly into denser terrain, away from the main trail. Noah followed, noting how the dog moved with singular focus. Not random. She knew exactly where they were going.
When the path opened into a box canyon, his heart plummeted like a rock thrown from the highest cliff. The back wall was almost completely obscured by a massive pile of broken rock. Fresh rock. A rockslide.
The universe had a sick sense of irony sometimes. How many times had he thought about Sabrina being walled off, unreachable? How many metaphors had he constructed about her barriers, her defenses, the walls she built to keep everyone—keep him—at a distance? Now here he was, faced with an actual, physical wall of stone between them. The cosmic joke would have been funny if it wasn’t so terrifying.
Ripley ran straight to the pile, pawing frantically at a small opening near the bottom, her barks taking on a desperate edge—the sound of pure panic that transcended species, that primal cry that said someone he loved was in danger.
“Sabrina!” he shouted, running now, his voice tearing from his throat like it was being ripped out by force. “Sabrina!”
A faint sound came from behind the rocks—so faint he might have imagined it, might have created it from the desperate hope that threatened to crack his ribs from the inside.
Except Dancer heard it too, immediately alerting on the same spot Ripley was working, and Dancer never, ever gave false alerts.
“Sabrina! Can you hear me?” He dropped to his knees, pressing his face toward the small opening Ripley had found, gravel digging into his skin in a way that registered as nothing more than background noise compared to the thundering of his own heart.
“Noah?” Her voice was small, strained, but so unmistakably her that his chest physically ached, like someone had reached in and squeezed his heart in a vise. “Are you really here?”
“It’s me.” Relief made his voice crack, splitting open all the raw emotion he’d tried to bury. “Are you hurt? Can you move?”
“I’m okay. Cold. Can’t get out.” She sounded exhausted, each word carrying the weight of hours spent alone in the darkness, trapped and uncertain. “The earthquake—”
“I know. Help is coming.” He was already assessing the rock pile, looking for any way to reach her, his SAR training kicking in even as his emotions threatened to swamp everything he knew about trying to do this on his own. “Hang on.”
Hang on. Such a simple phrase, and yet it carried every desperate plea he’d ever made—to her, to himself, to God.Hang on. Don’t give up. I’m coming for you. I’m here.
The radio crackled again, and he updated command on her status. The response was swift—search-and-rescue teams, paramedics, equipment for extraction—all en route. But minutes mattered in cave-ins. With the temperature, the air supply, the risk of further collapse, every second counted.
He couldn’t wait.
Noah studied the pile, his mind working through the geology. The earthquake had triggered the slide, but the rocks looked stable enough now. The opening Ripley had used was too small for a person, but if he could carefully remove some of the smaller rocks above it…
“Sabrina, I’m going to try to widen this opening. Stay back from this wall.” He kept his voice calm, professional. “Talk to me so I know you’re okay.”
“I’m here.” A pause. Then, so softly he barely registered it, she whispered, “I can’t believe you came.”
She hadn’t thought he would. She’d been trapped alone in this cave wondering if he would come to save her, if he cared enough. What was left of his heart shattered.
But he couldn’t think about that now.
“Of course I came.” He began carefully removing rocks, stacking them to the side. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
