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Deputy Blackrock was having trouble keeping the media away, the show runner was busy trying to wrangle concerned cast and crew away from the critical area, and Aster Valley’s two big ladder trucks were parked on the nearest logging road that cut across the slope to the cave. They seemed to have already finished their portion of the job, but I could tell from other scattered emergency vehicles there were alpine rescuers, K-9 units, and medical personnel already hard at work.
I rushed over to the show runner and pulled her aside. “I need to know who’s missing.”
She looked shell-shocked. “I… I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention. I just remember Nolan talking to the pyro techs right before it happened. It looked like… like god. It shook the whole mountain. It scared us to death. And then the sounds of the rocks tumbling.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I hope everyone’s okay,” she said in a small voice. “I don’t think he meant for it to happen.”
I didn’t care what the fuck he’d meant to happen; I wasn’t going to rest until Nolan was arrested for this. “Who was supposed to be in the cave scene when it happened? We need to know how many people might be trapped inside.”
“I don’t know!”
I took a breath and tried not to shake her. “Call sheet. Isn’t there some kind of record like a call sheet that would say who was involved in that scene or who was in what location at a certain time?”
She looked down at the tablet in her hands. “Oh god. Yes. Yes! I have that all on here.”
Shelly pulled it up and began tapping at it until she turned the tablet around for me to see.
My eyes went straight to the name as if there was nothing else on the page.
Finn Heller.
My person was trapped inside that mountain. He’d even told me in the text message earlier that there was some shit going down on set today. He’d said he was going to handle it, but I knew from how he’d acted earlier in the week that handling it meant putting his nose down and getting through it. Yes, he’d arranged for additional climbing safety, but this hadn’t been a climbing scene. And no one had realized what Trainor was up to.
Fuck. Finn was in the damned mountain, and there was nothing I could do about it but my job. According to this call sheet, there were probably at least six people trapped behind the rocks. Finn, Crystobell, a camera operator, a boom operator, a key grip, and the DP.
I would have to work to get everyone out just as hard whether Finn was in that group or not.
When I looked back at the pile of boulders we were dealing with, my heart clenched in my chest. Machines had already begun carefully removing them, piece by piece, but it was a slow process due to safety protocols.
In the meantime, I left the excavating to the experts and helped disburse unnecessary personnel from the area. We found Mikey and had him move all media personnel off his private property which included most of the entire mountain, we helped the film crew find transportation back to their lodging or the main set area depending on where they wanted to congregate, and we finally finished processing all of the minor injuries.
At one point I tried Finn’s phone again, even though I knew he wouldn’t have had it on him during filming. It went straight to voicemail again.
I gave Shawn an update and told him not to worry Tess with the news Finn was missing. There was no reason to upset her when I was bound and determined to believe he was fine and simply bored and restless waiting for us to get to him.
There’d been no word from anyone inside the cave, but Deputy Blackrock assured me the cave was too thick for cell reception, even if someone inside had their phone.
“We don’t have any evidence they were crushed. I’ve been up here hiking and skiing many times, Sheriff, and I can tell you this cave is plenty deep for them to have gotten to safety when the rocks started falling. I’m confident they’re mostly hungry and scared in there. Shouldn’t be anything but minor injuries once we get to them.”
His words helped keep me from completely flipping out, but at dinnertime, when the light started slipping behind the nearest peak, we got confirmation he was right.
The excavation crew finally breached the mouth of the cave and found five fairly intact individuals.
But no Finn Heller.
22
Finn
I’d just arrived to the set first thing in the morning when a flood of baby pictures came streaming in over text.
“Oh my god, who’s that?” the lady at craft services squealed.
I stood shoulder to shoulder with her to flip through the shots and tried explaining that this was my boyfriend’s… friend’s baby. “So this little nugget is kind of like my nephew. Kind of. I mean, not really at all, but maybe one day.”
