“Hold up!” Linnet called as they rounded the southern headland of the long northwestern side of the island and the west cove opened up below them.

Chester halted at the top of the path-little more than a goat track-that led down to a strip of coarse sand. Beyond the sand lay rocks, exposed now that the tide was mostly out, a tumbled jumble of granite from fist-sized to small boulders that formed the floor of the cove. The cove wasn’t all that wide; two promontories of larger, jagged rocks enclosed it, marching out into the lashing gray waves.

Looking down, Linnet saw three bodies, two flung as if carelessly discarded on the rocks. Those two were dead-had to be, given the contortions of limbs, heads, and spines. The third she could only catch glimpses of; Will and Brandon-another two of her wards-were crouched over the man.

Aware of Chester’s pleading look, Linnet nodded. “All right-let’s go.”

He was off like a hare. Linnet kilted her skirts, then followed, leaping down the familiar path with an abandon almost Chester’s equal. As she descended, she scanned the cove again, noting the flotsam thrown up by the storm; to her educated eyes the evidence suggested that a good-sized merchantman had broken up on the razor-sharp rocks that lurked beneath the waves out to the northwest.

Reaching the sand, Chester bounded toward Will and Brandon. Suppressing the urge to follow, Linnet carefully made her way out onto the rocks and confirmed that the other two men were indeed dead, beyond her help. Two sailors, by the look of them, both swarthy. Spanish?

Leaving them where they lay, she picked her way through the rocks back onto the sand, then walked to where the third body lay close to the cliff.

His back to her, Will looked up and around as she neared, his fifteen-year-old face unusually sober. “He was on the planking, so we lifted it and carried him here.”