Prelude: Aidan McCarron

A wave crashed over the gunwale, washing the deck in icy water and the reflection of the moonlight. Aidan strained to hear John's shouts, but the winds roaring in his ears drowned the other man out.

He'd seen worse storms, but this early in the spring, none of them was truly prepared for it. All Aidan could do was tether himself to the rail with a safety line and wait for it to blow over. And hope that everyone else had done the same.

"'Ey! Throw us a fuckin' rope!" John's voice finally carried loudly enough. He was difficult to make out in the dark -- he gripped the rail for dear life, a full ten feet from the nearest safety line, unwilling to sidle toward it for fear of being washed overboard.

Aidan glanced to one side and spotted a coil of rope hanging on the outside wall of the nearby cabin....

Aidan was terrified out of his mind and couldn't stop himself from grinning like an idiot.

He grabbed for the rope, trying to hold onto one end and toss John the other, just in case either man missed.

The end of the rope landed somewhere on the deck just in front of John. He kept a white-knuckle grip on the rail with one hand, and slowly bent forward, straining to reach it.

Another wave exploded over the starboard side, pitching the small craft at a steep angle. Gravity pinned Aidan violently to the rail, and the sea drenched him in a cascade of icy water. When he opened his eyes, most of the rope had washed back up at his feet, and John held the rail nearby. The force of the wave had thrown him across the ship, and he'd been battered around in the process -- he struggled to cling to consciousness, coughing and sputtering.

Seeing his best friend hurt, Aidan lost all concern for his own safety. As quickly as he could manage, he went to John's side and began to improvise a harness out of the rope, tying them both together and leaving a length of about ten feet between them.

"Lord, if yeh don't mind helpin' me with this rope, I'd thank yeh for yer pain!" he shouted into the wind.

Aidan managed to secure the rope around John, who gripped the rail to hold himself steady even as he slumped against it.

"Aidan," he sputtered, half-shouting over the roar of the wind and sea. "Sean and Liam... they didn't --"

The boat groaned loudly as it struck and dragged against something very large, then pitched again, throwing both men off balance. John fell flat on his back and narrowly stopped himself from sliding under the rail and falling overboard.

"They're gone!" he shouted, fighting to pull himself to his feet. "There's no one at the helm! And we've got too close to the cliffs!"

Aidan looped an arm around his friend. If John was right, the boat would break up on the rocks in no time at all.

"Hang on, John." He began to undo the safety line that kept him connected to the boat, and kept his eyes on the water, looking for an opportunity to jump.

"Hang on."

There wasn't even time to panic. The boat pitched again, howling as the rocks tore open its belly. The last thing Aidan remembered from that night was the fall from the deck and a sharp pain in his skull.

***

It was day two of Aidan's stay at a hospital in St. John's (day three, if he counted the one for which he was unconscious), and the pain was slowly subsiding. He'd been battered and scraped, lost a little blood and suffered so many bruises that purplish-brown was his dominant skin color. His rescuers -- anonymous -- had found him unconscious on a rocky outcropping. Along with John Rideout.

Liam's body had been found. Sean's was still missing.

The orderly, a quiet and humorless brunette with thin-rimmed glasses, came to check his monitors and ask a few routine questions. When the check-in was done, she left a sealed business envelope in Aidan's lap.

"This came for you today," she said before turning to walk out.

(Click here to read the letter.)