By the film set.”
I blinked, and my blood instantly ran cold. On the film set? The film set where Finn had an early call?
I had to work to keep my hands steady as I called Penny back, vowing to replace my broken phone as soon as possible. “What’s going on?” I demanded. “Shawn said there was an accident on the set?”
I couldn’t bring myself to say the word explosion. I couldn’t bring myself to ask about Finn.
“Sheriff, thank god. It’s a 10-80. There’s a report of an explosion on the mountain that triggered a rockslide.” She sounded harried, and I heard several phones ringing in the background. “Multiple 911 calls for medical and fire response. I called in Janine for backup and all hands on deck.”
My brain couldn’t even process what she was saying. I met Shawn’s eyes. “The film crew wasn’t supposed to set off their pyrotechnics until late next week, and the structure they were demo-ing shouldn’t have been close enough to the side of the mountain to trigger a slide. How the hell did this happen?”
“Initial reports are saying it’s not the temporary structure that exploded. It was the cave.” Penny’s no-nonsense voice quavered. “And it caused… hold on…”
I could hear her talking quickly, and I recognized the voices of Deputies Farmer and Kenton in the background. When she came back, she said, “Witnesses are reporting a rockslide and a cave-in. Missing persons from the cast and crew. Not sure who or how many. The director was hit with flying debris, and no one’s able to tell us if there are any other charges set. We might need a bomb squad.”
“I’ll get back there as soon as possible. In the meantime, do the best you can. Tell Farmer to take the lead until I get there. I’ll call the bomb squad here in Denver County, then I’ll call Cort and get Routt County to give us a hand. Tell Kenton to call in mountain rescue if needed. Give me updates as often as you can.”
I felt my training kick in—observe, assess, delegate, execute—and I was grateful for it. It held me together despite the fear gripping my chest.
I called the state folks and arranged for a bomb crew. They had access to a helicopter and told me to be ready on the hospital’s helipad in ten minutes for departure.
I declined Shawn’s offer to come with me and said a quick goodbye before making my way to the helipad and dealing with hospital security. While I waited, I made all the necessary calls to arrange extra support from the neighboring county and continued to touch base with Penny and the deputies onsite. When I finally had a minute on the helicopter to try and get Finn on the phone, the call went straight to voicemail. I tried again and again with no success.
I told myself it didn’t mean anything. In an emergency like this, cell signals were jammed. For all I knew, a tower had come down in the explosion.
As much as I tried to focus on helping organize the emergency response, my thoughts kept spinning with thoughts of Finn missing, maybe trapped in that cave-in. I knew he was on set today, but I didn’t know where he was supposed to be filming. Was it at the cave?
When we finally touched down on a meadow near the scene, I saw right away the response was still in chaos. Cast and crew wandered around in a daze, some with injuries and debris on their hair and clothes. I was desperate to find Finn, but I had to keep my focus on the job. Doing my job was the best way to get to Finn as fast as possible.
I found Deputy Farmer. “Do we know how many people are trapped?”
He was the most experienced deputy in the department. As a father of four and grandfather of fifteen, the man had no interest in the responsibility of being sheriff, but he certainly had the personality and know-how for the job. I’d felt confident putting him in charge, but I hated seeing any small-town deputy have to handle something of this magnitude. We simply didn’t have the resources.
“No. The closest we can guess is at least six people. We’ve sent two buses to the hospital with fairly minor injuries so far and have one waiting here in case of a more serious injury. The rest are scrapes and bruises from what we can tell. One of the EMT crews is setting