This time, Chappy took hold of Baxter’s scruff and pulled him away from the hole. Surprisingly, the dog let him. Chappy knelt by his side and held his breath as his friends threw snow and rocks away from the hole. It widened and deepened quickly as they dug.
But still, there was no sign of Carlise.
With every shovelful of snow and debris they took out of the hole without finding her, the lower Chappy’s hopes sank.
“Are we sure this is the right spot?” Bob asked.
“Yes,” Chappy answered before anyone else could. “Baxter came straight here and started digging. She’s here somewhere.”
The threesome dug a little longer before Chief Rutkey said, “Damn, there’s a pine tree doubled over. We’ll have to dig around and free it before we can get to the snow underneath.”
Something about his words clicked in Chappy’s brain—and for the first time in almost an hour, hope soared inside him once again.
“The bunker!” he exclaimed, going over to the hole and looking into its depths.
“What? What bunker?” the chief asked.
“There’s an old prepper bunker out here,” JJ told him.
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” Alfred said. “That old guy who owned the cabin that was swept away in the last avalanche we had out here. He was a paranoid son of a bitch. Not friendly in the least. I only found out he had a bunker when his wife got locked inside and he needed help to get her out. Came to my house personally and swore me to secrecy. By the time we got her out, she was a wreck but physically just fine. I’d forgotten all about it.”
“The pine trees,” Chappy said. “That’s the landmark I use to locate the bunker when I’m out and about. They’re the only ones around here. The bunker was at the base of them.”
“The trees we’re digging around could’ve been swept down the mountain,” Cal warned.
But Chappy shook his head. “She made it to the bunker. I know she did. I showed it to her last week. And before the footprints were wiped away by the slide, she was headed right for it. And Baxter led us here. She has to be down there!”
“And the friend?” Cal asked, one brow raised.
Chappy met his gaze, instantly knowing what Cal was thinking. “I don’t know. Maybe . . . maybe they’re both in there.”
“Damn,” JJ said and started digging again, a little faster now.
Minutes later, the men had reached the forest floor. The hole they’d dug was at least six feet deep and several feet wide, and the tops of their heads just peeked over the edge. They’d uncovered the door to the bunker, right under where Baxter had first started digging.
JJ pulled, but it wouldn’t budge.
“It’s stuck,” he said in frustration as he tried to pull harder.
“Move,” Chappy said. “Let me down there.”
He and Alfred helped pull Bob and Cal out of the hole, making room for Chappy to jump in. “It’s not stuck. It’s locked,” he said, relief nearly making him collapse.
It could be locked only from the inside.
“That’s right,” Alfred said from above, reading his mind. “After the guy’s wife got stuck inside, he reconfigured the door to make it easier to open, but as a safety precaution, it could only be locked from inside. The last thing he wanted was some scavenger—his words, not mine—coming along and trapping them in there.”
Chappy went to his knees next to the door and leaned down. “Carlise? Are you in there? It’s me, Riggs! Unlock the door. You’re safe. The avalanche is done.”
When there was no immediate response, he tried, “Susie . . . ?”
All five men held their breath as they waited for some indication that someone was alive in the bunker.
Time had no meaning in the dark bunker. Carlise shivered as she huddled against one of the walls. She hoped it was her imagination, but she felt as if it was harder to breathe now than it had been when she’d first entered. Though . . . she had no idea how long ago that may have been.
Her mind wandered to places she didn’t want to go. She wondered if it hurt to suffocate. If she’d claw at her throat, trying to get air in that wasn’t there, or just fall asleep.
Her feelings swung wildly from being grateful to have found the bunker and escaped the avalanche to sorrow and anger at Susie’s betrayal. She’d managed to not think about Riggs for what felt like forever . . . but she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about him now.
Shifting so she was lying on the cold floor, she curled into a ball, swearing when the bullet hole in her shoulder made itself known once more. She’d taken her coat off a while ago and balled it up, leaned against it on the wall to try to stop the bleeding, but she didn’t have the energy to put it back on.