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Ahead of me, a beached catamaran looms out of the darkness. I run towards it. In my mind’s eye, I picture Lottie crouched down behind it, lost and frightened, her knees pulled into her chest, her blonde hair tangled by the wind. The vision is so real that when I draw level with the fibreglass pontoons, I am fully expecting Lottie to be there.
The shout that I havefound her!dies on my lips. My disappointment is so visceral I lean on the catamaran and vomit onto the sand.
I wipe the back of my hand across my mouth and circle around the catamaran. There are so many places she could be, so many directions she could have gone. To my right is the inky sea; to my left, the bright lights of the St Pete Beach strip. Ahead of and behind me are miles of shadowed, dimpled sand. I spin in circles, panic choking me. She could be anywhere.
With anyone.
A voice calls my name. Marc is jogging down the beach towards me.
‘Have you found her?’ he calls.
‘Where is she, Marc?’
He draws level with me and squeezes my shoulders. ‘We’ll find her. She can’t have got far.’
‘There was a man,’ I say, suddenly remembering.
‘What man?’
I can’t believe this slipped my mind. ‘Yesterday afternoon, when we were down on the beach. I saw him talking to Lottie. He had his hand on her shoulder.’ I frown, trying to remember the details. ‘Mid-forties, receding hair. Thin.Smartly dressed – too smart for the beach. There was something off about him.’
‘We need to call the police,’ Marc says.
Calling the police will mean this is real. My daughter isn’t just lost or hiding from me. She’smissing.
‘Better safe than sorry,’ he adds. ‘By the time they get here, I’m sure we’ll have found her.’
There are people scattered all over the beach now, calling Lottie’s name. The atmosphere at the hotel has changed when Marc and I return, desperate for news. Floodlights have been turned on in the courtyard, tables pushed back. The hotel manager is addressing staff clustered in a small knot beside the desk in reception. They’re instructed to check inside anywhere a child could crawl or hide and possibly be asleep or unable to get out: cupboards, piles of laundry, large appliances, outbuildings and crawl spaces.
A child is missing. Everything is to be put on hold until she’s located.
Marc talks to the hotel manager. It’s been an hour already. If she was in the hotel, she would have been found. The police are being called. Already my world is splintering intobeforeandafter.
I know – we all know – that in the case of a missing person, the first seventy-two hours are crucial. Of those precious hours, the first is the most vital of all. We’ve already wasted that. Every moment that passes takes my daughter further from me. The chances of her safe return will shrink hour by hour, minute by minute, until I’m left hoping for a miracle.
Luca and I used to joke about Lottie being abducted. If anyone takes her, we used to say, they’d soon bring her back.
Zealy reaches for my hand and doesn’t let go. We sit on the sofa in the hotel lobby, waiting for the police to arrive. This isAmerica, I tell myself. The police know what they’re doing here. They have the FBI and the most sophisticated technology in the world. If someone has taken my daughter, they’ll track them down.
There’s a sudden shout from the corridor. ‘I’ve found her!’ Paul cries.
We leap up. Everyone is running towards him.
He’s holding a bundle of pink taffeta in his arms. A little girl’s blonde head lolls against his shoulder.
It’s impossible to tell if she’s alive.
