The storm had cancelled every ferry out of Port Briar, but no one had gone home.
Passengers crowded beneath the iron roof of the terminal, listening to rain hammer the glass walls. Families guarded their luggage. Dockworkers drank bitter coffee from paper cups. A tired station clerk kept repeating that the sea was too dangerous and that no vessel would leave before morning.
Near the shuttered ticket counter sat six men who looked as though they belonged to the storm.
They wore dark waterproof jackets marked with a faded silver emblem: a diving helmet surrounded by seven waves. Years ago, the emblem had belonged to the most respected rescue team on the northern coast.
The Blackwater Seven.
They had pulled fishermen from burning boats, recovered children from flooded caves, and searched wrecks no sane diver would enter. Newspapers had once called them heroes.
Now only six remained.
Their former captain, Gideon Rusk, sat apart from the others. His broad shoulders were bent beneath an old navy coat. A white scar crossed his chin, and a broken-anchor tattoo disappeared beneath the sleeve of his left glove.
He was watching the black water beyond the terminal windows when a voice spoke beside him.
“Are you Captain Rusk?”
Gideon turned.
A girl stood there alone.
She could not have been older than ten. Her yellow raincoat was several sizes too large, and water dripped from the ends of her dark hair. A canvas backpack hung from one shoulder. Her hands were red from the cold, but she did not appear to notice.
Gideon glanced behind her.
“Where are your parents?”
The girl ignored the question.
“Are you the man with the broken anchor?”
The other divers looked over.
Gideon slowly removed his glove.
The tattoo on his wrist showed an anchor split through the middle by a jagged black line.
The girl released a breath she seemed to have been holding for hours.
“My father said you would show me that.”
Gideon’s expression hardened.
“What is your name?”
“Mira Vale.”
The coffee cup slipped from the hand of the man sitting beside Gideon.
It struck the floor and rolled beneath a bench.
No one moved to pick it up.
Gideon stared at the girl.
“What did you say?”
“Mira Vale.”
“I heard your first name.”
The girl hesitated.
“My father is Elias Vale.”
The six men became completely still.
Outside, lightning flashed over the harbor.
Thirteen years earlier, Elias Vale had been the seventh member of the Blackwater team.
He had also been Gideon’s closest friend.
Elias had disappeared during a rescue operation aboard the cargo vessel Morning Star. The ship had gone down five miles beyond the breakwater. Gideon and the others had searched for three days, but they had found only Elias’s torn diving harness and a bloodstained glove tangled in the wreckage.
The sea had never returned his body.
The Coast Guard declared him dead.
The town carved his name into a memorial wall.
Gideon had delivered the eulogy.
Now a ten-year-old girl stood in front of him and claimed Elias was her father.
“That isn’t possible,” one of the divers said.
His name was Mercer Flint, the youngest of the original team, though gray had begun to appear in his beard.
Mira faced him.
“He told me you would say that too.”
Mercer’s face lost its color.
Gideon leaned forward.
“Where is your mother?”
“She died two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
Mira gave a small nod, but her expression did not change. Grief had already become something familiar to her.
“Where is Elias?” Gideon asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Then how did you get here?”
“He put me on a bus in Stonehaven this morning. He bought the ticket with cash and told the driver my uncle would meet me in Port Briar.”
“You don’t have an uncle here.”
“No.”
“Did your father come with you?”
Mira shook her head.
“He said someone was following us. He stayed behind so they would follow him instead.”
A gust of wind rattled the terminal doors.
Gideon studied the child’s face. He searched for uncertainty, confusion, or some sign that she had been coached.
He found none.
Her eyes disturbed him most.
They were pale green, almost gray.
Elias had possessed exactly the same eyes.
Mira opened her backpack and removed a small object wrapped in a wool scarf.
It was a brass compass.
The glass was cracked. One side had been blackened by fire. Seven tiny waves were engraved into the lid.
Gideon reached for it but stopped before touching it.
He knew the compass.
The Blackwater team had given it to Elias on the night he became their captain.
Gideon had watched him carry it aboard the Morning Star.
“Where did you find this?” he whispered.
“My father gave it to me yesterday.”
Mercer stood.
Another diver, Isaac Rowe, approached the girl and examined the compass.
“It could be a copy.”