“Lake?”
“I’m on it.”
Matt took a step towards the guy. His body vibrated with barely contained rage. “Is she hurt? Did you hurt her?”
The hard Glaswegian thug licked his lips again nervously. “We didnea touch her.”
He was leaving something out. Deliberately. “Did Frank touch her?”
“Just a slap.”
The rage inside Matt turned cold. Frank Di Marco was a dead man.
“Matt.” Lake’s voice was eerily calm as it came through Matt’s earpiece. “Get over here. We have a problem.”
Matt felt fear battle anger. “If anything has happened to her…”
He watched the man pale before he turned and ran towards Lake. He barked an order over his shoulder at Jason, telling him to watch the men.
Lake was standing at the edge of what used to be a field. Now it was a series of ravines. The earth had collapsed into the old mine shafts. Matt could hardly process what he was seeing. Before the explosions there had been a grassy expanse between Jena’s and Abby’s houses. Now there was dust, rubble and holes in the earth. Beyond the field he could see Abby standing on the doorstep of her house, Katy in her arms. Matt pulled out his phone and dialled her number. He watched as she reached into her pocket and retrieved her phone.
“She was running over the field and just disappeared.” Abby’s voice shook.
Matt stilled. “Jena?”
“She fell into the mine.” It was a whisper.
Matt’s heart actually stopped as he stared at the mess in front of him. She was under this?
“Lake.” Matt looked at this friend. “Jena’s under here.”
Lake’s jaw clenched. “We need silence.” He pressed his ear and gave the order. Matt relayed the word to Abby. The whole area went deadly silent.
That was when they heard it. The best sound Matt could ever have heard.
“Help, somebody help me.”
Jena.
Jena was pretty sure her ankle was broken. From the pain she had when she took a breath, she would guess there were a couple of cracked ribs as well. She used the light feature on her still intact cell phone to look around her. She’d slid down with some earth and landed in an old tunnel. The whole area between her house and Abby’s was a warren of tunnels and shafts. Some of them quite close to the surface. From the time it’d taken her to fall, Jena guessed she wasn’t buried very deep. She looked up at the earth packed above her and swallowed hard. Okay, deep was relative—she was still pretty far under
ground.
The earth had collapsed on either side of her, leaving her in what looked like a small room. There was no way out. All she could do was hope the support beams holding up the dirt over her head would stay where they were. One of the collapsed dirt walls had an old pipe sticking out of it. A wide, rusting metal pipe that had come down with the explosion. Jena waved her hand in front of it—there was air coming through it. A slightly cooler breeze.
Her heart raced. If there was air, then the other end of the pipe had to be above the surface. She dragged her broken leg closer to the pipe, breaking out in a sweat as she did so. The pain made her sob. She clenched her teeth as a wave of dizziness swept over her. She couldn’t pass out. She wouldn’t pass out.
She checked again to make sure it wasn’t possible to ring for help, but, unsurprisingly, there was no cell reception underground. Taking a deep breath, she pressed her mouth to the pipe and shouted for help.
Someone had to hear her.
The alternative was too horrific to contemplate.
“There.” Lake pointed to a dip in the ground with an old broken pipe sticking out of it.
They ran to it. Matt sank to his knees. The pipe was wide, large enough for him to fit a hand inside. Jena’s voice came out through it. She sounded strained and terrified. Without hesitating, Matt put his mouth to the pipe.
“Jena, we’re here. We’re going to get you out.”