We went into the waiting room. "Hey," I said in a wobbly voice. "Look who I found."

Jack was immediately surrounded by his family, Haven reaching him first. I stood back, still breathless, my heartbeat galvanized.

There were no wisecracks as Jack embraced his sister and Liberty. He turned to his father and hugged him, his eyes glittering as he saw the runnel of a tear down Churchill's leathery cheek.

"You okay?" Churchill asked in a rusted voice.

"Yeah, Dad."

"Good." And Churchill touched his son's face with a sort of gentle cuffing pat.

Jack's jaw quivered, and he cleared his throat roughly. He seemed relieved to turn to Hardy, with whom he exchanged a manly half-hug back-pat.

Gage was last, taking Jack by the shoulders and surveying him intently. "You look like shit," he commented.

"Fuck you," Jack said, and they embraced each other roughly, the two dark heads close together. Jack gave him a few forceful thumps on the back, but Gage, mindful of his brother's condition, was far gentler.

Jack swayed a little and was immediately pushed in a chair.

"He's dehydrated," I said, going to the water dispenser in the corner and filling up a paper cup.

"Why aren't you on an IV?" Churchill demanded, hovering over him.

Jack showed him his hand, where an IV needle was still inserted and anchored with tape. "They used a fourteen-gauge needle, and it feels like a six-penny nail was shoved into my vein. So I asked them for something smaller."

"Pussy," Gage said affectionately, rubbing the top of Jack's rough, salt-stiffened hair.

"How's Joe?" Jack asked, taking the water from me and drinking it in a few gulps.

They all exchanged glances—not a good sign—and Gage answered carefully. "The doctor said Joe has a concussion and a mild case of blast lung injury. It may take a while for the lungs to get back to speed, maybe up to a year. But it could have been a lot worse. Joe's in respiratory distress and has borderline hypoxia—so they're treating him with supplemental high-flow oxygen. He'll be spending some serious time in ICU. And he can hear out of one ear, but not the other. At some point a specialist will tell us if the hearing loss is permanent."

"That's okay," Jack said. "Joe never listens anyway."

Gage grinned briefly, but sobered as he stared at his younger brother. "He's going in for surgery right now, for internal bleeding."

"Where?"

"Abdomen, mostly."

Jack swallowed hard. "How bad?"

''We don't know."

"Shit." Wearily Jack rubbed his face with both hands. "I was afraid of that."

"Before they corral you again," Liberty said, "can you tell us what happened,Jack?"

Jack gestured for me to come to him, and he pulled me into his warm side as he spoke. It had been a clear morning, he said. Fishing had been decent, and they had gotten an early start back to the marina. But on the way they'd seen a huge brown seaweed mat, about an acre in size. The mat had formed its own ecosystem with algae, barnacles, and small fish, all living amid the accumulated driftwood and mermaid purses.

Figuring there was good fishing around or under the mat, the brothers had killed the engine and glided up to the seaweed. In just a few minutes Jack had hooked a Dorado, the rod nearly doubling and the reel screaming off a bunch of line as the acrobatic fish took off. It leapt from the water, revealing itself to be a five-footer, a monster, and Jack had followed around the boat to keep the line from catching. He had shouted to Joe to start the boat and go toward the fish, otherwise it would gain too much line. And just as he started to reel it in, Joe had started the engine and there had been an explosion.

Jack fell silent at that point, blinking as he struggled to recall what had happened next.

Hardy murmured, "Sounds like a buildup of fumes."

Jack nodded slowly. "Maybe the bilge blower cut out? Hell knows with all that electronic crap . . . anyway, I don't remember anything about the explosion. All of a sudden I was in the water, and there was debris everywhere, and the boat had turned into a fireball. I started looking for Joe." He looked agitated, his words coming in choppy bursts. "He'd grabbed on to a floating cooler—remember the orange one you got me, Gage—so I looked over him. I was afraid he'd gotten a leg blown off or something—and he was all in one piece, thank God. But he'd gotten one hell of a knock on his head, and he was struggling. I got hold of him and told him to relax, and I towed him to a safer distance from the boat."

"And the weather came in," Churchill prompted.

Jack nodded. "Wind picked up, water got rough, and we were getting pushed away from the boat. I tried to stay with it, but it took too much energy. So I just held on to Joe, and the cooler, and I swore I wouldn't let go no matter how long it took for someone to find us."

"Was Joe conscious?" I asked.

"Yeah, but we didn't talk much. The waves were too rough, and Joe was having a hard time breathing." Jack worked up a rueful smile. "The first thing he said to me was, 'Guess we lost that Dorado?' " He paused as everyone chuckled. "And later on he asked if we should worry about sharks and I said I didn't think so, since it was still shrimp season and most of the sharks go offshore to pick off throwbacks." A stark, endless hesitation. He swallowed hard. "After we'd waited a while, I could tell Joe was getting worse. He told me he didn't think he was going to make it. And I said—" His voice broke, and he dropped his head, unable to finish.