one reason for calling.
“The answer is no,” Dax said.
Undeterred, she laughed. “Dax, honey, you don’t even know what I want.”
“Oh, yes, I do.” But he had to smile because he loved her. He loved all his sisters, even if they drove him crazy. “It just involves a teensy, weensy favor, right? Just a teensy, weensy desperate favor’for a friend?”
“She’s not desperate. ”
Yeah, right. “We’ve discussed this, remember? No more setting me up.” He’d told each of his well-meaning, meddling, older sisters that he refused to go out on any more blind dates.
So he was thirty-two and not married, it didn’t bother him any. It wasn’t as if he hurt for female companionship. But still, his sisters hounded him with friends. And friends of friends. And sisters of friends of friends.
He’d put his foot down long ago, but in their eyes he was still the baby of the family. A six-foot-two-inch, one-hundred-and-eighty pounder with the physique of a man who’d been a firefighter for nearly ten years before he’d become inspector.
Some baby.
“I’ve got to go, Shel,” he said, cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder as he maneuvered the winding road.
“No, you don’t. You just don’t want me to bug you. Come on, Dax, your last date looked like a twenty-something Dolly Parton and spoke in that stupid whisper no one could understand.”
He felt only mildly defensive. Why dispute the truth? So he was partial to blondes. Buxom blondes. Buxom, bubbly blondes, and last he’d checked, there wasn’t a law against that. “Hey, I don’t bug you about your dates.”
“That’s because I’m married!”
“You know what? I’ve got to go.” He simulated the sound of static through his teeth. “Bad connection.”
“Where are you?” she shouted, which made him grin and feel guilty at the same time.
“On Route 2, by the old mill.” Dax frowned as he slowed. Up ahead was the milling plant and warehouse. Isolated from town by at least ten miles and surrounded by woods, the place served little purpose.
It hadn’t been used in years. The land was on his list of dangerous properties, a potential disaster just waiting to happen. It was his job to keep properties such as these vacant of homeless people, mischievous teens and desperate lovers.
A small, sleek sports car was parked in front of it, empty. “Dammit.”
“Dax McCall!”
“Sorry.” He pulled into the lot. “Gotta go, Shel.”
“No, don’t you dare hang up on me’”
He disconnected and chuckled. She’d stew over that for at least half an hour before calling him back. Long enough, he decided as he got out of the truck, for him to hassle whoever was snooping where they shouldn’t.
The door to the building was locked, with no sign of damage or break in, which meant the trespasser had a key.
A real-estate agent.
He knew this with sudden certainty and shook his head in disgust. The bricks were crumbling. Some were missing. The place could collapse with one good gust of wind.
Who could possibly want to buy it?
And why would anyone go wandering around in it? Muttering to himself, he pounded on the door, waiting to face whatever idiot had decided to go into an unsafe building.
No one answered.
Curious now, Dax walked all the way around the building, calling out as he went, but only silence greeted him. Even the woods seemed empty on this unseasonably warm autumn day.
With a resigned sigh, he moved back around to the front, and examined the weak lock. “Juvenile,” he decided with disgust for whoever the owners were.
With a pathetic barrier like this, they were asking for trouble. It took him less than thirty seconds to break in. The large door creaked noisily as he thrust it open and peered inside. “Hello?”
Complete darkness and a heavy mustiness told him there was little to no cross ventilation, which probably meant no alternative exit.
It was every bit as bad as he’d thought’a hazardous nightmare.
He propped open the front door with a rock and entered. If no one answered in the next minute, he’d go back to his truck for a flashlight, but he figured by now, whoever had been inside would be more than happy to get out.
“County Fire Inspector,” he called loud and clear. “Come out, this place is dangerous.”
A door opened on the far side of the warehouse, and he frowned. “Hey’”
The door slammed. Swearing, he ran toward it, yanked it open.
Stairs.
Far below, he saw the flicker of a light and swore again. “Wait!” He stepped into the stairwell, angry at himself now for not stopping to get his own flashlight, because he couldn’t see a thing. “Stop!”
Those were the last words he uttered before the quake hit, knocking him to his butt on the top steel stair.
Born and raised in Southern California, Dax had experienced many quakes before. He considered himself seasoned. Still, it was unsettling to be leveled flat without warning, his ears echoing with the roar of the earth as it rocked and rolled beneath him.
The shaking went on and on and on, and he lost his bearings completely. He could see nothing, which disoriented him, and he hated that. Beneath him, the stairs rattled and shook violently. He held onto the rail for all he was worth, not even attempting to stand.
“Don’t give,” he begged as he clenched onto the steel for dear life. “Just don’t give, baby.”
At least a six-point-zero, he decided with some detachment, as he waited for the world to right itself again.
But it didn’t. He upgraded mentally to a six-point-five.
He heard a roar, then the crash of tumbling bricks, which was a bad thing.
Very bad.
As he ducked his head to his knees, protecting the back of his neck with his hands, heavy debris tumbled down around him.
A new fear gripped him then’the building couldn’t withstand the movement. The whole thing was going to go and, in the process, so was he.
Dax prayed fervently for the place, mostly the staircase that he sat clinging to, hoping, hoping, hoping, but with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew the ancient building couldn’t hold up to this kind of jarring.
It was going to collapse and there were two floors above him.
Dead meat sitting, that’s what he was.
A metallic taste filled his mouth and he realized he’d bitten his tongue, hard. Half expecting his life to flash before his eyes, Dax was surprised that all he could think of was his family. They wouldn’t know where to find his body, and that would destroy his mother.
His sisters would never be able to set him up again.
Then the bottom dropped out from beneath his world, and he fell.
And fell.
As he did, he heard a scream.
2
D AX LANDED HARD , on his already bruised butt.
The hit jarred him senseless for a moment, and the all-consuming dark further confused him. He remembered the destruction of the stairwell he’d been on and knew that meant big trouble when it came to getting out.
He also remembered