His heavy hands on her seemed to cement her feet back on the ground and her rational brain managed a few pulses. She knew he couldn’t promise he’d bring Cillian back, but he was right; this was too big a problem to solve herself, so close to dark.
‘Get back to the cabin and I’ll call you soon.’
She managed to find her way back, even though most of her brain was consumed with doom scenarios or impossible questions about where Cillian could have gone – and why. Only when she’d plonked herself in a chair and clutched Daphne’s hand did it occur to her how strange it was that no-strings Gabri, who’d insisted he didn’t like children, was out there searching for her son.
The little beach around the headland was deserted, with no sign of recent footprints. Gabri couldn’t rule out that Cillian had been there, but it seemed unlikely, which was a relief, given the way the surf was crashing on the rocks to the south.
Even picking his way along the gravel path back to the main beach was treacherous in the low light and he rushed back to the car park to fetch a headlamp and a torch and see if Donatella had managed to find help.
The hotel gardener, two waiters and Donatella herself agreed to fan out from the beach and divided up the surrounding areas. Gabri took the headland to the south, near the place he’d just left. He didn’t know the area as well as the others, but he remembered the cliffs on the other side of the hill where the older kids sometimes jumped into the water and his resolve wobbled again at the prospect of finding the boy in that area – in a state he didn’t want to imagine, much less explain to Toni.
But while his heartbeat was erratic and his blood fizzing with alarm, his head was clear and there was nowhere else he wanted to be than battling through the shrubs on this isolated hillside, yelling Cillian’s name.
He followed the path doggedly, as fast as he dared in the conditions. His shirt tore on the bushes and he wasn’t wearing the right shoes. His throat was dry as a summer on the isola, but he hadn’t thought to bring a bottle of water – had assumed he wouldn’t be gone long enough to need it.
The path joined the road again and he stopped to think. Surely Cillian wouldn’t have left the dirt path. The soothing rush of the sea could be heard close by. Maybe he’d wanted to find the next cove.
Gabri gritted his teeth against the fear that prospect instilled in him. The cliffs could be dangerous at any time of day, but in the dark? Pulling out his phone, he dialled Toni’s number.
‘You have him?’
‘No.’ Saying the word cost him a year of his life. ‘He hasn’t come back?’
‘No.’
‘All right. I’m still looking. There are more places to search. I’ll call you again soon and you call me if he comes back.’
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he spoke. If Cillian was going to return on his own, surely he would have already done so. Gabri couldn’t understand why he’d left the resort in the first place. The only reason that had made sense – the turtles – they’d already ruled out.
He remembered Cillian’s wide eyes the day he’d first seen Toni’s son, his concern for the turtles. His next thought made him pause. They’d checked the nest, but if Cillian wanted to see the turtles hatching, he wouldn’t have been at the nest. He’d been stricken at the idea of disturbing the vulnerable creatures.
If Cillian wanted to watch for hatching turtles, he would have to find an observation point a safe distance away.
Heading back into the scrub at a jog, he retraced his steps, still calling out Cillian’s name at intervals, listening desperately for a response. Following his progress on the Maps app on his phone, he peered over the bushes when he reached the headland above Innamorata, searching for a view of the corner of the beach where the female turtle had laid her eggs.
There was a little copse of juniper obscuring much of the view, but at one point – yes. He caught a glimpse of the tape on the beach. There would be a better view from the other side of the rope?—
He slipped, tumbling onto his backside and groping for the nearest handhold, which turned out to be a scraggly olive tree. The slope was steep, which would have been obvious in daylight, and thick with underbrush – the reason he hadn’t fallen any farther. When he’d found a stable position with his feet dug into the hillside, he squeezed his eyes shut and waited for his breathto return, only to slowly become conscious ofothersounds of breathing, then a rustle.
‘Cillian?’
He almost didn’t believe it when a response reached his ears after a short pause. ‘Shh,’ was all he heard at first.
‘Grazie al cielo,’ he muttered, dropping his head back against the soil as the adrenaline leached from his body. ‘We were so worried something had happened to you.’
Almost camouflaged in the bushes to his left, he made out the pale face of Toni’s son and a thousand different feelings coursed through him. Christ, this wasn’t over yet.
He flinched and Gabri hurried to switch off his headlamp.
‘You need to stop shouting,’ Cillian said urgently.
‘All right,’ Gabri said in a whisper, pulling out his phone.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked with a wild hand gesture.
‘Your mamma has been out of her mind with worry,’ Gabri said, unable to keep his exasperation out of his voice. ‘I have to tell her straight away that you’re okay.Areyou okay? No limbs missing? Still have your head on? No bleeding to death?’
‘No bleeding to death,’ the boy repeated in a tone that reminded him again of his mother. ‘But call her quietly.’
