She waded back to the shore and dried her face with her towel. Then she grabbed a drink from her bag, shading her eyes from the setting sun as she squinted towards the horizon. She needed to go back and call her mother. That was the adult thing to do. She couldn’t put it off any longer.
There was no point in beating herself up. No point in wasting time on regrets. What’s done was done. What she had to do now was deal with the fallout.
With a sigh she put her drink back into her bag and picked up her towel again.
She glanced at the young family and saw the mother bent over the baby, presumably changing a nappy. The little girl had wandered to the water’s edge and Abby frowned.
The waves were bigger than they’d been half an hour before.
She glanced at the mother again, wondering if she was aware that her other child was by the water. Should she say something? No. She shouldn’t interfere. It would make her look judgy. After all, what did she know? She didn’t even have children.
She glanced back at the water again, sure she was overreacting. The little girl was gone.
Abby’s pulse doubled. Gone where? Was she by the rocks playing hide-and-seek? She’d been there just a moment ago. She couldn’t have gone far.
The two teenagers nearby were chatting and lazing on the sand and didn’t appear to have seen anything out of the ordinary.
And then Abby saw the briefest flash of pink bobbing in the water close to the rocks.
Her heart almost stopped.
And then she ran, scooping up one of the bodyboards from the two boys as she raced across the sand. “Call 911!”
It was only as her feet hit the water that she realised it wasn’t 911 here. It was 999. She hoped the boys had the sense to figure that out.
A panicked scream came from behind her as the mother realised what had happened.
“Holly!! Oh my God, Holly!Help, someone help.”
Abby fixed her gaze on the spot by the rocks where she’d seen the child, gripped the board and plunged into the water.
The current grabbed her instantly and it was immediately clear to her how the child could have got into trouble that quickly. It tugged at Abby, pulling, and she swam with the board to the rocks, scanning the surface for more signs of pink.
Nothing. There was nothing, and the waves pummelled her relentlessly, pushing her onto the rocks.
Her heart was pounding and she forced aside panic and tried to think clearly. Was the child under the water? Had she been dragged down? She hauled the board onto the rocks so that it didn’t float away, wincing as a jagged edge ripped at her skin. Then she dived under the water. She surfaced, gasping for breath, and then dived again and each time she came up for air she scanned the surface.
There was no sign of the child. Nothing. And the foaming white waves were making it hard to spot anything.
She was about to paddle further out to sea when she saw the briefest flash of pink a short distance away from her. Had she imagined it? Was it wishful thinking?
No, she’d definitely seen something.
Keeping her focus on the exact spot she grabbed the board and swam towards it. A wave crashed over her head and she spluttered and gasped, barely catching her breath before it happened again. Where had she seen the pink? It was here. She was sure she was in the right place. But maybe the child had been swept further out.
Feeling a mix of desperation and despair, she looked around her. She saw a crowd forming on the beach and a vehicle crossing the sand.
The relief she felt in knowing that help was on its way lasted only seconds. By the time they made it into the water it would be too late.
She trod water, increasingly tired, and then she saw pink again, just a few strokes from her current position.
She dived towards it and grabbed it, screaming in frustration as it disappeared under the water out of her reach.
She wrapped the cord from the board around her wrist and dived down, stretching out her arms, searching. Water slid through her fingers. Water and more water and then finally when her lungs were bursting for air and she was about to give up, her fingers brushed against something and she grabbed fabric and then a limb. She held on with grim determination, pumping her legs hard to bring herself and the child back to the surface.
Her lungs were bursting and for a moment she was disorientated. All she could see were waves. She had no idea where the shore was.
She grabbed the edge of the board and heaved the child onto it, lying her on her stomach, gripping her firmly.
