Chapter 8 — Cliffhanger
Danny cupped his hands around his eyes and peered through the dark tinted rear windows. Fastened in a car seat in the teetering SUV was the cutest little Gerber baby with rosy round cheeks and a wisp of brown hair curling from his forehead. The infant was properly fastened in a backwards-facing car seat in the second row of the huge vehicle on the passenger side so his mother could keep an eye on him — which meant the baby was on the side of the car already protruding over the cliff.
None of this bothered the baby. Leaning backwards was quite comfortable. He clapped and flailed cheerfully, enjoying the way the car rocked.
"Shit!" Danny scrambled around the back of the SUV, but there was no footing on the passenger side.
"I have to climb in to get the kid," Danny told Steve.
"Why you?" Steve said instantly. He was the commander. He'd take the risks.
Danny eyed him impatiently. "First, because I weigh less than you do. Second, because I have experience taking babies out of car seats."
Danny was shorter than Steve, but muscular, so he didn't weigh THAT much less than the SEAL, but he had a point about the car seat. The commander reluctantly accepted that Danny was the best man for the job.
"Let me tie off the SUV first," Steve said. "That'll help stabilize it."
There were no trees on the slope. Nothing to tie the SUV to, but Steve jumped in his truck and guided it behind the SUV, facing away from it; then he roped together the vehicles' tow hitches.
Danny looked at the heavy, eight-passenger SUV. "Your truck doesn't have enough power to hold it. If the SUV goes off the cliff, it will pull the Silverado with it."
"It can slow it down," Steve answered.
He got a hunting knife from his pack and unsheathed it. The long blade was serrated and wickedly sharp. He laid the unsheathed knife on the ground midway between the vehicles.
OK, now Danny knew why Steve had tied the vehicles together with rope instead of his tow chain.
Steve climbed in the driver's seat and started his truck, but didn't release the parking brake.
"OK, Danny, go ahead."
"Babe…"
"If you go, I go," Steve said with determination. "Now, save that baby!"
It was Danny's nature to argue, but not when a child's life was at stake. He carefully opened the driver's door of the SUV and held out his hand to the woman.
"You get out first."
"But …"
"No buts," Danny said firmly. "My partner has stabilized the SUV so we can risk moving you and, right now, the less weight up front the better."
The woman nodded understanding.
Danny carefully put his hands under the arms, keeping her from falling when she released her seatbelt. Trying to not touch the SUV at all, Danny maneuvered her out of the vehicle and set her safely on solid ground.
"Jesse?" she begged.
"He's next. Keep an eye on the cliff for us," Danny said, mostly to give the woman something to focus on.
Danny took a deep breath and slid open the side door. The latch required a sharp jerk, which made the SUV rock. It began to slip sideways toward the cliff, dragging the Silverado with it. Danny heard the pickup's engine roar and felt the towline tighten, signaling the start of a deadly game of tug-of-war.
In the Five-0 office, Lori Weston was helping the HPD dispatcher coordinate and prioritize the many calls for help after the series of aftershocks. She basically doubled the capacity of the HPD switchboard.
She decided she felt like Lt. Uhura in Star Trek, surrounded by high-tech equipment and answering the phone. She'd have to tell Max. The man who had "WARP 9" for a license plate would appreciate the reference.
When a call came in on the Five-0 line from a familiar caller, she answered, "Hailing frequencies open, commander."
To be honest, Steve only registered her voice, not her words.
"Send HPD and a road crew to this location. The road is collapsing and we're trying to stop an SUV from going over a cliff."
Lori's hands were dancing over the smart table, identifying Steve's location. Behind the commander's strained voice, she heard the Silverado's engine roar, taking on a deeper, more urgent note.
"Where's Danny?" she asked, without pausing in her work.
"In the damn SUV!"
"What? Why?"
"Because he knows how to get a baby out of a car seat!"
Lori cursed and her fingers flew faster. The location came up and she dispatched help immediately. "Help's on the way!" she shouted to Steve, but she didn't think he could hear her. His phone had clattered to the floor and all Lori could hear was a screaming engine and squealing tires.
Danny didn't dare hurry, which might jostle the SUV's precarious balance. He moved smoothly as quickly as he dared.
"My name's Danny," the detective told the woman in order to distract himself from the drop off that was right in front of his eyes as he crawled toward the baby. "My partner in the truck is Steve."
"Megan Wiggs," the woman answered.
"And this is Jesse," Danny cooed at the happy baby. The man braced his legs in the slanted SUV so he could use both hands to free the baby. "Hi, Jesse." The baby clapped at hearing his name.
"You must have a big family," Danny said to Megan, with a flicker of a glance around the huge vehicle.
"Four children, including Jesse, and a dog the size of a pony," she answered, forcing the joke past the knot in her throat.
Danny chuckled as he unbuckled the straps and lifted them away from the small body.
"Do you have kids?" Megan asked. "Since you know car seats?"
"I have a daughter, Grace. She's 10 now, but I remember the frustrations of car seats." He wrinkled his nose at the baby who laughed. Danny put his hands on either side of Jesse and lifted him from the seat.
"I … oh God! Cracks! The ground is cracking!" the woman cried.
The SUV lurched. Danny lost his balance and tumbled headfirst toward the car seat. He clutched Jesse close, rolling to land on his back instead of the baby. His shoulder and head slammed hard against the hard plastic car seat. The SUV was sliding sideways toward the cliff and Danny was head down on his back, kicking like an overturned turtle to get his balance back.
The mother's screams were drowned by the roar of the Silverado as Steve dropped his phone and jammed on the gas pedal, trying to pull his partner to safety. But the fractured ground was collapsing beneath the SUV and the weight was dragging the pickup backwards like a drowning swimmer pulling his rescuer under.
All Danny could think of what Steve said. He hoped they weren't his partner's last words: "If you go, I go."
TBC
A/N: Look, a cliffhanger with a real cliff!