‘What is it?’
Her steps stalled.
‘When? What do you mean? How can you—?’ Her voice was tight and high-pitched. ‘I’m coming right now! No, don’t worry about the wedding! Who cares about the wedding! We have to find him!’
That was all it took for the breath to whoosh from his lungs. His stomach seized and the edges of his vision went hazy. He wanted to vomit – or run away. Both. His brain spat out a list of worst-case scenarios on dot matrix paper, reams and reams of it, and the thought that something actually might have happened to Cillian, alone somewhere in this village or the wild hills around it, was so much worse than the prospect of another breakdown. Cillian was out there, in the impending darkness, and that was all that mattered.
He didn’t vomit or run away. When Toni rushed up the stairs in the direction of the resort, he went after her, following her up the path to the cabin where he’d brought Daphne and Cillian home the other day.
Toni swiped at her hair as she rushed along the flagstones quickly enough to catch her toe and trip, but he steadied her with a light grip on her upper arm.
‘We’ll find him, Toni,’ he said, his voice bewilderingly steady for all the churning going on inside him. ‘We’ll go looking for him and we’ll find him.’
Despite the panic making his vision blur and his throat close, he believed those words with all his heart, because they were a promise. Even with the disturbing visions in his head, his heart ripped with worry – for Cillianandfor Toni, who looked close to breaking – he wouldn’t stop looking until he found the boy.
29
‘Half an hour ago?’
There was a terrible echo in this room – or in Toni’s own head. She heard the conversation between Gabri and her mother, but it was a struggle to make any sense of it.
‘Yes, I thought he was upstairs on the bed. He was listening to an audiobook with his headphones on and I thought he must have just fallen asleep, but when I went up to check on him, he wasn’t there!’
‘Has he run away before?’
Toni snapped back into the present. ‘No! He wouldn’t be running away.’ Despite the warm evening, she rubbed her arms against the cold on her skin. ‘He must have gone somewhere – to the beach? Did he come looking for me?’
She whirled around and headed for the door again, taking off for the beach at a run, but when she got there, the wedding guests were still milling – laughing and sharing hugs and kisses, oblivious to how little it all mattered if she didn’t find Cilli – and she couldn’t make out individual figures in the small crowd.
Reshma approached, her gaze full of concern, but Toni swiped at her eyes and moved away, unable to say anything. Sheheard Gabri’s low voice behind her, explaining the situation to Reshma as she moved down the beach.
‘Can you get Donatella and any of the staff she can spare?’ A moment later, he called, ‘Toni?’ and jogged up to her.
She hadn’t realised she’d come so far up the beach, staring at the driftwood and pebbles and the rocky hills with endless shrubs that could conceal the prone form of a lost, injured boy.
‘Toni, the turtles! Maybe he’s gone to the turtles.’ The hope in his voice was tangible and when she turned to face him, the world came back into focus, starting with his drawn features. ‘Come on.’
He snatched her hand and they rushed for the other end of the beach. Her nose was blocked and her heart in her throat and she seemed to be expending all her energy on breathing, so she struggled to match his pace, but it didn’t matter. When they arrived at the tapes marking the location of the nest, there was no one there.
A sob worked its way up her chest and out in an ugly snort and then she was wrapped up in a pair of comforting arms, a familiar body that held warmth and the scent of lemons – and memories of better times. A shudder went through him and his hand clutched the back of her head tightly, but when he took a deep breath and spoke, his voice was steady.
‘He won’t be far. There are people to help look for him?—’
She tore out of his grip, heading blindly for the path around the headland. ‘We have to find him! He doesn’t speak Italian! He doesn’t know this place – the rocks. It’s getting dark. I should never have brought him along – or I shouldn’t have agreed to come here at all. If I hadn’t taken that week off, I would only have been gone a week and none of this would have happened. Gabri, if he’s?—’
She turned back in a fresh panic to find Gabri right behind her. He clutched her face in his hands and trained his gaze onhers until she was forced to return it. ‘I’mgoing to go and find him, okay?’
‘What?’
‘I know you’re scared, but you need to stay at the cabin with your mum in case he comes back. Most likely, he’ll come back and he’ll want to see you.’
She managed a faint nod as his words slowly formed a picture that made sense through the fog of her fear. ‘Right.’
‘Just in case he’s not on his way home already, I’m going to head out to find him. You need to call me if he comes home, or if any of the staff at the hotel find him.’ His fingers stroked through her hair. ‘He’s going to come home soon and he’ll need a hug from his mum.’
Hot streaks down her cheeks were the first indication that her tears were falling.
‘I’ll bring him back.’
