AllFreeNovel
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chapter 08
alex
‘She was just here,’ Zealy says, pulling away from Paul and glancing around the courtyard. ‘We saw her a few minutes ago.’
‘Did you see where she went?’
‘Sorry. But it can’t have been very far,’ she adds.
Paul slings his arm around Zealy’s shoulders. ‘She was headed back towards the ice-cream station with some of the other kids,’ he says. ‘It was literally only about three or four minutes ago.’
I thank them and head over to the buffet tables. As Zealy said, Lottie can’t have got very far in a couple of minutes. I’d have seen her as I came in if she was anywhere near the ocean side of the courtyard.
I must have just missed her at the ice-cream station. The waiter manning it shrugs when I ask after Lottie, and a quick recce along the buffet tables tells me she’s not helping herself to wedding profiteroles or softening tortilla chips either.
I turn back to the courtyard, wondering where she can have got to, and catch a glimpse of pink skirts disappearing around the corner. There’s a small section in the rear of the courtyard devoted to kids’ games: air hockey, a pool table, a pinball machine and whack-a-mole. Lottie spent an hour hereyesterday, before I ran out of American quarter coins and had to drag her away. No doubt she’s begged or borrowed some more money from Marc or another guest, which is slightly embarrassing. Clearly, I need to set firmer boundaries.
But when I round the corner, there’s no sign of Lottie. One of the pre-teen bridesmaids is setting up a rack of balls on the pool table; it must have been her skirts I saw.
‘Have you seen Lottie?’ I ask.
She looks at me blankly.
‘The little flower girl. The one with the blonde hair.’
‘Oh, the fat one?’
The smart one, you buck-toothed human haemorrhoid.‘Yes,’ I say.
‘Nah. Not for ages.’
A faint wisp of anxiety curdles my stomach. We’re probably just missing each other in the crowd, that’s all. But it’s a lot less busy than it was; quite a few people have already left the reception, and waiters are beginning to clear plates away.
I scan the courtyard for a glimpse of blonde hair. Lottie must be here somewhere. She can’t have got out to the beach; there’s a waiter on duty at the exit gate checking security bracelets, and anyway, I’d have seen her as I came in that way myself.
I skirt the pool, refusing to acknowledge the depth of my relief when I verify its turquoise waters are undisturbed, and then go inside the hotel. There are three receptionists behind the desk and a doorman at the front entrance; one of them would have noticed if a three-year-old wandered out of the hotel on her own.
But when I ask if anyone’s seen her, they all shake their heads. One of the receptionists offers to look for her with me, but I decline. Escalating the search would be admitting something is wrong. And everything’s fine.
I just can’t find my daughter, that’s all.
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