Bill and Rafe were sitting on some of the sound equipment when a fresh team went in, and a Red Cross worker offered them both Styrofoam cups of coffee. Rafe took one gratefully but Bill just couldn't.

Rafe had asked Bill no further questions about his relationship to Maddy, but as the night wore on, it was obvious that he cared a lot about her, and Rafe felt sorry for him.

“Hang in there. They'll find her eventually.” The question that still pounded through both their minds was if she'd be alive when they did.

And as they waited for the rescue teams, Maddy was crouched in a ball, clutching the baby, but Anne hadn't spoken to her in hours. She didn't know if she was sleeping or dead, but none of her efforts to make her talk to her had been fruitful in a long time. Maddy had no idea what time it was, or how long they had been there, and then finally, when the baby stirred and started to cry again, his mother heard him.

“Tell him I love him …,” Anne whispered, and startled Maddy. The voice next to her sounded ghostly.

“You have to stick around and tell him that yourself,” Maddy said, trying to sound optimistic. But she wasn't anymore. She was short of air, and drifting in and out of consciousness herself as she held the baby.

“I want you to take care of him for me,” Anne said, and then grew quiet again. And then after a while, “I love you, Maddy. Thank you for being here with me. I would have been really scared without you.” Maddy was scared herself, even with Anne and the baby, but tears rolled down her cheeks as she leaned over and kissed the injured girl on the cheek, thinking of Lizzie.

“I love you too, Annie…. I love you a lot … now you have to get well. We'll be out of here soon. And I want you to meet my daughter.” Anne nodded, as though she believed her, and then smiled in the darkness, and Maddy could sense it if not see it.

“My mom used to call me Annie. She still loved me then,” Anne said sadly.

“I'll bet she still loves you now. And she's going to love Andy when she sees him.”

“I don't want her to have him,” she said, sounding stronger and very determined. “I want you to take care of my baby. Promise you'll love him.” Maddy had to gulp back sobs as she answered, and she knew that neither of them could afford the air or the energy it would cost them. And just as she was about to say something to her, she heard voices in the distance, strong ones, loud ones, and as she listened, she realized they were calling her name.

“Can you hear us, Maddy? Maddy? … Maddy Hunter … and Anne … can you hear us? …” She wanted to scream with excitement as she listened and called to them as loudly as she could.

“We hear you! WE HEAR YOU!!! We're here …” The voices came closer as she spoke rapidly to Annie. “They're coming to get us now, Annie … hang on … we'll be out of here in a few minutes.” But in spite of the noise Maddy made, Annie had drifted off to sleep again, and because of it, the baby started crying loudly. He was tired and hungry and frightened. But so was Maddy.

The voices continued to approach until they sounded only inches away, and she identified herself to them. She described the cave they were in, as best she could, and Annie's circumstances, without terrifying her completely, and she said she was okay and holding the baby.

“Is the baby hurt?” another voice asked, wanting to know what kind of rescue team they needed.

“I don't know. I don't think so. And I'm not either,” except for a ferocious bump on the head and a whopping headache. The baby's mother was another story.

But even once they knew where they were, it took them another hour and a half to free them. They had to move the dirt away inch by inch, and the concrete just as slowly. They were afraid that the whole structure would collapse on them if they moved too quickly, and Maddy gave a scream of relief and pain when they shone a powerful beam into her eyes through a hole the size of a saucer. She couldn't stop herself from sobbing and she told Annie what was happening, but she didn't answer.

The hole grew bigger as Maddy watched and they talked to her, and five minutes later, she passed Andy through it, and she saw how filthy he was when they shone the flashlight on him. There was dried blood on his face from a small cut on his cheek, but other than that, his eyes were wide and he looked beautiful to Maddy. She kissed him as she handed him through and a pair of powerful male hands took him and vanished. But there were four others left to work on freeing her and Annie, and in another half hour they had made a space big enough for Maddy to crawl through, and she turned before she left and touched Annie's hand. The girl was silent and sleeping, which was merciful. It was going to be ugly work to free her, and Maddy slid past the men at the entrance to the hole they'd made, and two of them moved in to work on Annie, as one of the men led Maddy back through the crawl space they'd made, and she crawled on her hands and knees back to the entrance. From there, powerful hands lifted her up and she was carried over concrete and debris and steel pilings that were twisted everywhere like an evil forest, and before she knew it, she was in bright daylight.

It was ten o'clock in the morning, almost fourteen hours after the mall had collapsed and she had been trapped there. She tried to ask someone if the baby was okay, but there was so much chaos around her that no one seemed to hear her. Others were still being pulled out, and there were bodies under tarps, crying people waiting for news of their families, rescue workers shouting to each other, and suddenly in the midst of it all, she saw him standing there, waiting for her. It was Bill, and he was almost as filthy as she was, from his efforts to help the others. But as he saw her, he was wracked by sobs, and grabbed her from the man who was holding her. All he could do was cling to her and cry, as she did. There were no words to tell her what he had felt, how vast his fears had been, how terrible her terrors. It would take years to explain it to each other, and all they had now was the single instant of love and relief of this unforgettable moment.

“Thank God,” he whispered as she clung to him, and he handed her gingerly to a team of paramedics. But she appeared miraculously undamaged, and then forgetting Bill for an instant, but still holding tightly to his hand, she turned to one of the rescue workers.

“Where's Annie? Is she okay?”

“They're working on it,” he said, looking grim. He had seen too much that night, as they all had. But each survivor was a victory. Each one saved a gift they had all prayed for.

“Tell her I love her,” Maddy said fervently, and then turned back to Bill, her eyes filled with everything they felt for each other. And for one terrible instant, she wondered if this was her punishment for falling in love with him, if she had no right to this. But she pushed the thought away as though it had been a boulder trying to crush her, and she wouldn't let it, as she hadn't let the walls of their tiny cave crush Annie or the baby. She was Bill's now. She had a right to be. She had lived for this. For him. And for Lizzie. And with that, they put her in an ambulance, and without hesitating, Bill climbed in with her. And as he looked out the window at the back of the ambulance as they drove away, Bill saw Rafe, watching them, and crying. He was happy for both of them.





Chapter 21




WHEN MADDY GOT TO THE HOSPITAL, they put her in the trauma unit where the others were who had been rescued from the mall, and she asked instantly about the baby. She was told he was doing fine. And the doctors were amazed to find she had no broken bones, no internal injuries. She had a concussion, a few scrapes, and minor bruises. Bill couldn't believe how lucky she'd been, and as he sat with her, he told her what he knew of what had happened. All anyone knew so far was that a group of militants had exploded the bomb. In a message to the President only an hour before, they had said it was their statement against the government. They sounded like lunatics. And they had killed more than three hundred people, almost half of them children. The sheer horror of it made Maddy shudder.

She told Bill what she'd seen as the ceiling collapsed, and what it had been like being trapped with Annie and the baby. And all she hoped now was that they would both survive it. She was worried about Annie, but not nearly as worried as Bill had been about Maddy. It had been just as bad as what he had gone through with Margaret, and Maddy told him sympathetically that no one should have to go through that twice in a lifetime.

They talked for a few more minutes then, and the doctors wanted to do some more tests on her, just to be thorough in their evaluation, and she and Bill agreed that he should leave, in case Jack came to see her. Bill didn't want to cause her any trouble at this point.

“I'll come back in a few hours,” he said, as he leaned over and kissed her. “Take it easy.”

“You too. Get some sleep.” She kissed him again, and could hardly bring herself to relinquish his fingers. As soon as he left, the doctors took her away and completed their examination. And when she was brought back to her room, Rafe came in with a news crew. Jack had sent them. Rafe didn't tell Maddy what a bastard he thought Jack was for not coming to see her himself, and he didn't ask her about Bill. He didn't need to. Whatever else might have been happening between them, it was obvious to the producer of her show that the guy really loved her, and just as obvious to him now that Maddy loved him.

She told them what she could about what had happened, from her perspective, and told them, on camera, how brave Annie had been. “She's sixteen years old,” Maddy said, impressed and proud, and then she saw an odd look in Rafe's eyes, and when they turned the camera off, she asked him a question.