Allison (A Kane Novel) (4 page)

Blood pounding in my ears, I struggled against the terrible sucking force of the wave, its power weakened by my depth but still strong enough to drag me into its churning maw.  My lungs burned.  My legs ached.  My thighs were beginning to cramp.

I couldn’t stay down much longer.  Making one last effort, I kicked another few yards, chest skimming the bottom, hands pulling to either side, fins raising billows of sand behind me.  And still the wave pulled at me, unwilling to release its grip.

If I get out of this, I thought, I’ll never go out in big surf again.

An eternity passed.

And then it was over.  Aware I had only seconds before the next swell arrived, I shot to the surface.  I choked down several gasps of air, the crash of the passing wave roaring in my ears.  I peered seaward.  The next wave looked even larger.  There would be no rest if I were to make it over.  And I had to make it over.  Another dive like the last was out of the question.  I didn’t have the strength.

I started out once more.  Though tempted to check the approaching wave, I kept my head down and swam for all I was worth, knowing even a few feet could make the difference between safely topping the swell and being swept backward over the falls.  Moments later the toe of the wave began to lift me.

Keep swimming, I told myself grimly.  Keep swimming.

Panic roiled in my chest as I clawed up the rising face.  For a sickening instant my momentum slackened as I reached the crest.  I was certain I would be pulled over backward.  Then, with an overwhelming flood of relief, I felt myself descending the backside, the power of the wave sliding harmlessly beneath me.

Another minute of hard swimming brought me to a position of relative safety, at least for the moment.  Treading water, I searched for the third girl.  Another swell passed, raising me high in the air.  Using my temporary elevation, I scanned the waters around me.  Nothing.

Did I miss her?

Though fearing the girl might have already slipped beneath the surface, I continued searching.  Shivering and exhausted, I was beginning to think I had lost her when I spotted a small shape in the water thirty yards toward shore.

The girl was lying facedown when I reached her.  Apparently the rip current had carried her through the breaking waves, but not without cost.  I threw an arm over her shoulders and rolled her onto her back.  She was unconscious.  Her lips were blue, her skin pale as death.

Now what?

Try to get her breathing.

With an arm across the girl’s chest, I used my free hand to tip back the youngster’s chin and force open her jaw.  Legs scissoring to keep our heads above water, I blew awkwardly into the girl’s mouth.  I felt the youngster’s chest inflate slightly.  And again.

Other than the involuntary lift and fall of the girl’s ribs in response to my breath, there was no effect.

This isn’t doing any good.

All at once I sensed danger behind me.  I turned.  Another giant wave was approaching, this one easily the largest of the day.  In swimming toward shore to reach the girl, I had forfeited precious yards I’d fought earlier to gain.  And while attempting to revive the youngster, I had drifted even closer to the beach.

With a renewed surge of panic, I realized that I was inside the break line again.

I tightened my grip on the girl.  Pulling with my free arm and kicking with both legs, I started swimming toward the approaching wave.

I’ll never make it, I thought.  Not dragging the girl.  Drop her.

The wave rocketed skyward, dwarfing me with its size.

She’s probably dead, a voice inside me insisted.  Let her go.

Despite a paralyzing surge of fear, I held on and kept swimming, my breath now coming in ragged gasps.

Drop her, my voice insisted.

No, I thought grimly.  We’re making it together or not at all.

And then we were climbing the impossibly lofty face.  The wave began to curl as we neared the top.  For an instant I was certain we were going to be sucked backward over the falls and buried beneath tons of water.

Don’t give up.  Keep going . . .

Spurred by a nauseous rush of adrenaline, I rallied my last bit of strength.  Kicking furiously, I teetered on the wave’s summit, marveling in a detached portion of my mind at how high the swell had raised us.  I could see more waves marching in past the tip of the Newport breakwater, a flash of yellow emerging from the mouth of the rock jetty . . .

Keep going.  Don’t stop!

Another kick . . . and another . . .

And we were past.

Though trembling with exhaustion, I kept swimming, determined not to be caught inside the break line again.  Despite being impeded by the girl’s body, I eventually put a comfortable distance between us and the beach.  It was then that I heard the roar of an engine farther out.

I saw the yellow lifeguard vessel as the next wave lifted us, concluding that the approaching boat must have been the flash of color I had spotted at the mouth of the breakwater.  As the boat neared, I saw that it was one of several Newport Beach rescue craft I’d noticed on previous visits to the Wedge.  At the time I had never imagined I would ever be so grateful to see one.

Its seven-hundred-horsepower engine revved up full, the lifeguard vessel slammed through the waves.  Twenty yards from us it abruptly veered left, catapulting a rescue swimmer from its stern.  The guard’s high-speed entry and a series of strong overhand strokes quickly put him at my side.

“She’s not breathing,” I gasped as the guard began securing a rescue tube around the unconscious girl.

The guard finished clipping his flotation tube beneath the girl’s shoulders.  Then, treading water, he turned to me.  “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I answered, my teeth chattering.

The guard shook his head, giving me a look that said he couldn’t believe I was out there.

By now the yellow boat had turned and was backing toward us, the operator keeping a wary eye on the waves.  An incoming swell forced him to retreat to deeper water.  After recircling, he waited for another break in the waves, then backed toward us once more.  When he reached us, the guard in the water slithered onto a submerged swim-step at the stern, hauling the girl’s body with him.

Another wave approached.  As I attempted to pull myself onto the swim-step, a blast of prop wash from the boat thrust me back.  “Move away!” the guard on the stern yelled, fighting to maintain his grip on the girl.

Though puzzled, I released my hold on the boat and let the prop wash sweep me a dozen feet away.  An instant later the swell rolled beneath the boat, first raising the bow, then the stern.  As the keel seesawed over the crest of the wave, the rudder came completely out of the water, then sliced down like a guillotine.  Shaken, I abruptly realized why the guard had warned me to stay clear.

“Now!” the guard shouted.  “Get on!”

Wasting no time, I kicked toward the boat, squirmed onto the swim-step, and tumbled over the transom.  Once I was aboard, the boat operator levered the throttles open wide.  The guttural sound of the engine roaring in my ears, I braced myself as we picked up speed and crashed through the oncoming waves.

For the first time since entering the water, I began to relax.  The wind felt raw and cutting on my skin; the bone-rattling shock of the waves beneath the keel occasionally blurred my vision; the pitch and roll of the boat was starting to make me feel sick.  Nevertheless, I had never been happier to be anywhere in my life.

A throng of medics, police, and Newport Beach lifeguards were waiting for us on the Orange County Sheriff Harbor Patrol dock when we arrived.  Passing an eighty-seven-foot Coast Guard cutter and a several smaller harbor-division craft, our rescue boat nosed into its designated berth.  Deeper in the harbor, safe from the waves battering the beach outside the jetty, a thicket of sailboats and yachts swayed in dockside slips, their naked masts a forest of spars and booms and rigging.  At the top of a metal ramp leading up to a parking lot, a fire-department ambulance idled at the curb.

I stepped over the gunwale of the rescue boat, fins in one hand and a woolen blanket clutched around my shoulders with the other.  As I made my way up the dock, I noticed that in addition to the medics and lifeguard personnel, apparently a gaggle of onlookers had driven over from the Wedge.  Standing near McKenzie, I saw a nearly hysterical woman whom I assumed was probably the mother of the drowning victim.  I also saw the young cameraman who had been staring at me earlier.

A paramedic team quickly offloaded the girl.  Working on her all the way back, the rescue boat lifeguards had performed cardiac resuscitation, administered positive-pressure oxygen, and treated her for hypothermia and shock.  Though they had managed to restore the girl’s heartbeat and breathing, she still hadn’t regained consciousness.  Praying the youngster would recover, I watched as she was bundled onto a stretcher and carried to the waiting ambulance.

A moment later McKenzie pushed through the crowd.  “Jeez, Ali, I was so worried about you,” she cried, throwing her arms around me.  “You scared me half to death.  Are you all right?”

“Just cold and tired,” I answered, noting that the young cameraman, having finished shooting the medics loading the girl into the ambulance, had now shifted his attention to me.  Irritated, I turned away.  “Did you drive over here, Mac?”

“Yes.”

“Good.  Let’s go.”

“Miss?  May I have your name, please?”

I turned back.  The request had come from the cameraman, who had closed the distance between us.  Powerfully built, the man appeared to be in his mid-twenties.  He had thick black hair and dark, surprisingly kind eyes, along with a slightly taunting smile that seemed misplaced on an otherwise open, handsome face.  “Can I have your name?” he repeated, training his camera on me.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s already taken.”

“C’mon, miss,” the man chuckled, continuing to shoot.  “Our viewers will want to know who the hero was out there today.”

“The lifeguards were the heroes,” I said, again starting for the parking lot.  Seeming reluctant to leave, McKenzie trailed behind.

Not giving up, the cameraman followed and kept shooting.  “Don’t be so modest, miss,” he continued.  “If it hadn’t been for you, that girl wouldn’t have had a chance.  Aside from the guards, no one else on the beach made a move to help.  Not even the men.”

I turned.  “Not even the men?” I said.  “Is that what this is about?  You think that because someone is a girl, she can’t—”

“No, of course not,” the man backpedaled.  Though he lowered his camera, I noticed that he had kept his finger on the trigger and was continuing to shoot.  “I’m simply saying that no one else on the beach,
man or woman
, had the guts to go out there,” he continued.  “Only you.”

Though mollified, I suddenly felt naked under the cameraman’s gaze, my gooseflesh skin bare and exposed.  I clutched the woolen blanket even more tightly around my shoulders.  “Well, going out in big surf isn’t for everyone,” I said, a little embarrassed at my on-camera outburst.  “It isn’t for sane people, for instance,” I added with a shrug.

Again the cameraman’s eyes lit with a mix of amusement and admiration.  “No argument there,” he laughed.  As he was about to say something more, one of the lifeguards from the rescue boat placed a hand on my shoulder.  “Excuse me, miss.  Would you come with me to the Sheriff’s office, please?” he asked politely, pointing to a gray building overlooking the dock.  “There are some people who need to talk with you.”

Twenty minutes later, after relating my version of events to several Sheriff’s officers and a Newport Beach marine safety supervisor, I rejoined McKenzie in the parking lot.  By now most of the crowd had dispersed, with the notable exception of the dark-haired young cameraman.

“What’s
he
still doing here?” I groaned as I saw him walking toward us, this time without his camera.

“His name’s Mike Cortese and he’s with Channel 2 News,” McKenzie replied, as if that explained everything.  “He just wants to talk with you.  I don’t understand why you’re being so nasty to him.  He’s only doing his job.  Besides, he’s cute.”

“If you like him, you talk to him,” I said.  “Where’s your car?”

“Miss Kane?” the man called.  I gave McKenzie what I hoped was a withering stare, realizing where he must have learned my name.

“I apologize if I seemed pushy before,” the cameraman continued pleasantly, joining us.  “And I didn’t mean to imply that a woman might be any less capable than a man.  In fact, I think you showed exactly the opposite.”  Then, extending his hand, “I’m Mike Cortese.”

I shook his hand but said nothing.

“And you are Allison Kane,” Mike went on, filling the silence.  “I admire what you did out there.  That took guts.”

“It was probably more a lack of good sense than anything else,” I said.

“Right,” Mike agreed, his eyes saying otherwise.  “Listen, your friend McKenzie says you’re studying to be journalist.  Have you ever thought of interning at one of the local news stations?”

Once more I squinted my displeasure at McKenzie.  Clearly convinced that she had my best interests at heart, McKenzie smiled back, her brow as untroubled as a newborn’s.

“Channel 2 usually has a couple of interns on staff at all times,” Mike continued.  “There might be a position open.  I could check for you if you want.”

“I don’t know,” I replied suspiciously.  “Right now my schedule’s pretty full.”

Mike shrugged.  “I’ll look into it anyway.  If it works out, fine.  If not, nothing’s lost.”

“Don’t go to any trouble on my account.”

“No trouble at all.”  With that, Mike turned and started across the parking lot toward a late-model Toyota pickup with a sticker on the rear bumper advising:  “Earth first.  We’ll mine the planets later.”

“Damn you, Mac,” I said once Mike was out of earshot.

McKenzie grinned.  “Hey, somebody has to take an interest in your love life.  As it obviously isn’t going to be you, it has to be me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The guy
liked
you, Ali.  Although considering the way you acted, I can’t imagine why.”