Ballard awoke to the sound of panicked voices and an approaching siren so loud she could not hear the ocean. She sat up, registering that it was not a dream, and pulled the inside zipper down on her tent. Looking out, she reacted to the sharp diamonds of light reflecting off the dark blue surface of the ocean. Using her hand to shield her eyes, she looked for the source of the commotion and saw Aaron Hayes, the lifeguard assigned to the Rose Station tower, on his knees in the sand, huddled over a man’s body lying supine on the rescue board. A group of people were standing or kneeling beside them, some onlookers, some the fretful and crying friends and loved ones of the man on the board.
Ballard climbed out of the tent, told her dog, Lola, to stay at her post in front of it, and walked quickly across the sand toward the rescue effort. She pulled her badge as she approached.
“Police officer, police officer!” she shouted. “I need everybody to stand back and give the lifeguard room to work.”
No one moved. They turned and stared at her. She wore after-swim sweats and her hair was still wet from that morning’s surf and shower.
“Move back!” she said with more authority. “Now! You are not helping the situation.”
She got to the group and started pushing people into a semicircle formation ten feet back from the board.
“You too,” she said to a young woman who was crying hysterically and holding the drowning victim’s hand. “Ma’am, let them work. They are trying to save his life.”
Ballard gently pulled the woman away and turned her toward one of her friends, who grabbed her into a hug. Ballard checked the parking lot and saw two EMTs running toward them, a stretcher between them, their progress slowed by their work boots slogging through the sand.
“They’re coming, Aaron,” she said. “Keep it going.”
When Aaron raised his head to get a breath, Ballard saw that the lips of the man on the board were blue.
The EMTs arrived and took over from Aaron, who rolled away and stayed on the sand, panting for breath. He was wet from the rescue. He watched intently as the EMTs worked, first intubating and pumping water out of the victim’s lungs, then adding a breathing bag.
Ballard squatted next to Aaron. They had a casual romantic relationship, sometime lovers with no commitment beyond the time they were together. Aaron was a beautiful man with a V-shaped, muscular body and angular face, his short hair and eyebrows burned almost white by the sun.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“He got caught in a rip,” Aaron whispered back. “Took me too long to get out of it once I got him on the board. Shit, the warning signs were out, up and down the beach.”
Aaron sat forward when he saw the EMTs react to getting a pulse on the victim. They started moving quickly and transferred the man to the stretcher.
“Let’s help them,” Ballard said.
She and Hayes moved across the sand and took sides on the stretcher behind the EMTs. They lifted and moved quickly across the sand to the parking lot, where the ambulance waited. One of the EMTs carried his share of the weight one-handed while continuing to squeeze the air bag.
Three minutes later the rescue ambulance was gone and Ballard and Hayes stood there, hands on their hips and winded. Soon the family and friends caught up, and Aaron told them which hospital the victim was being taken to. The hysterical woman hugged him and then followed the others to their cars.
“That was weird to see,” Ballard said.
“Yeah,” Hayes said. “Third one for me this month. The riptides have been off the charts.”
Ballard was thinking of something else, of a time many years before on a beach far away. The image of a broken surfboard carried in by the waves. Young Renée searching the diamonds on the surface for her father.
“You okay?” Hayes asked.
Ballard came out of the memory and noticed the strange look on his face.
“Fine,” she said.
She checked her watch. Most days she tried to get six hours in the tent after a morning on the water, whether it be surfing or paddling. But the commotion from the rescue had gotten her up after just four. The adrenaline rush with the rescue and run across the beach guaranteed she would not be going back to sleep.
She decided on an early start to work. There was follow-up to do on John the Baptist and several boxes of shake cards still to get through, whether or not the man from the Moonlight Mission turned out to be a valid suspect.
“Don’t you have a debriefing now or something?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah,” he said. “The beach captain will come interview me and we’ll write it up.”
“Let me know if you need anything from me.”
“Thanks. Will do.”
She hesitantly gave him a hug, then turned and walked back toward her tent to collect her things and her dog. The memory of Hawaii returned as she looked out at the sea: her lost father and the need to be by the water’s edge, waiting for something that could never be.