Alex burst from the break in the trees frantically enough that, had she left the woodland a little way further up the roadside, she might have missed him altogether. Any other time it would’ve been odd, him just sitting there in his cab, pulled over awkwardly on the track running up towards the house. But not today. It was as if he were waiting for her, his unmistakable battered blue tow truck a beacon of hope where it sat in the dusty layby. Her burning lungs had gasped at this meagre stroke of luck, if luck had any part to play here. His being there had saved vital minutes. Precious time reclaimed by not having to make it all the way back up the lane to the house.

Ted Foster’s hands were already braced on the steering wheel, as if by some sixth sense he knew what was coming to find him moments before his daughter slammed herself, wild and startled, against his truck bonnet. Alexandra had looked crazed, unrecognisable when she’d sprung in front of his windscreen, the vein in her neck jumping with the emergency pulsing through her lean frame. Her eyes had been too white, as white as Ted’s knuckles had been while he’d sat there, solemnly regarding the truths he couldn’t take home.

Ted had made the call as they’d started through the small copse of trees and across the farmland beyond, calmly relaying to the operator the information Alexandra had managed to unscramble as her voice had cracked and her legs momentarily buckled.

Help is coming! The thought screamed through Alex’s head. Dad’s coming, Dill, Dad’s coming.

Her pumps were no longer squelching against the dusty earth. Alexandra Foster had been the fastest runner in her year group ever since St Cuthbert’s sports days, but she couldn’t swim like she could run, and Finn knew it. People didn’t run at all in college, she’d found. They ambled. Everywhere. To the cafeteria, the art block – allowing the effortlessly honed muscles of youth to slacken. Alex hadn’t run anywhere since leaving high school last year, but dormant muscles had responded to her demands and she was flying. Ted was flying too. His own burst of adrenalin allowing a man of over fifty to keep pace with his seventeen-year-old child as they rushed in panicked determination to where she had left them.

Alex could hear Rodolfo’s heavy barks guiding them back to the water’s edge, rudely echoing above the peaceful gushing of the river. The Old Girl, the locals called it, Mind the Old Girl and her changing moods. They’d all had it drummed into them as kids. Dill too. He knew, he knew! Alex felt her throat tighten again, her heart twisting as they burst through the long grasses back into the clearing by the alder trees.

Finn had nearly reached Dillon further downstream when he’d turned and screamed at Alex across the water, screamed at her not to come in any deeper but to run! Run for help! So she had, back to the house, instead of floundering on uselessly against her own panic. She thought they’d still be in the water now, but they were back in the clearing, Finn kneeling in the dirt crouched over two wet gangly legs, dripping indifferently where they poked out from under him. Dill looked tiny beneath Finn’s teenage frame, as if the water had shrunk him. A mischievous little boy, playing possum.

Ted skidded in beside them on the floor, Finn moving instinctively from where he had been desperately pressing a rhythm into Dill’s sodden chest. Alex watched her father, useless again as Rodolfo’s barking turned to whimpers and Ted took over the task of thudding urgent hands into his boy’s chest.

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12th September 2004

Letting You Go. Anouska Knight
Чтение книги онлайн.

12^th September 2004