22 pages

Untitled Chapter – A nine-seat, private 2001 OSPRY 700SL plane is awaiting takeoff at Martha’s Vineyard. Pilot James Melody is British; copilot Charlie Busch is from Odessa, Texas; and flight attendant Emma Lightner is from San Diego. A Dutch holding company in the Cayman Islands has the record of ownership, while the plane reads Gullwing Air. The narrator explains that everyone has a path, has made choices, but to try to predict anything would be pointless. The plane is well-decorated. The late August night is balmy, foggy, and eighty-six degrees. The Bateman family–millionaire newsman David, his younger wife of ten years, Maggie, and their two small children, Rachel, and four year-old JJ, arrive to board the plane. David carries the sleeping JJ aboard. David works hard, and wishes he were home more. They have been at the Vineyard on vacation and are constantly watched by Gil, an Israeli security man who is part of their private security team hired after Rachel was kidnapped in July of 2008. Ben and Sarah Kipling, another wealthy couple, arrive next. Ben is a partner at a firm on Wall Street, and quietly tells David they need to talk, but David brushes it off for later. Sarah notices Maggie appears to be looking for someone. She explains she is waiting for an artist named Scott Burroughs she has invited to join them in New York. Maggie sees the captain examining the plane wing, which he explains is a routine visual inspection. Scott, in his mid-forties, then arrives. Maggie is thrilled to see him, while Scott thanks her casually for the invitation. The plane takes off, and sixteen minutes later crashes into the sea.

Part 1

Untitled Chapter – The novel jumps back in time to when Scott is six and visits San Francisco with his family. There, they see a swimming stunt by Jack LaLanne underway at Fisherman’s Wharf, where LaLanne, almost sixty, seeks to swim to shore from Alcatraz for a second time while pulling a boat. The crowd assembled discusses whether or not such a thing is possible, and whether or not anyone could have ever escaped from Alcatraz. LaLanne succeeds. Scott is impressed, and signs up for swim classes back home in Indianapolis.

“Waves” – The novel returns to the present. Scott surfaces from the water after the plane has crashed. He moves through the wreckage, seeking other survivors. Scott cannot remember much from the last few moments, such as whether or not the plane broke apart and then crashed, or broke apart on impact. Scott worries he may be bleeding, that he may have damaged his left shoulder, and that this may attract sharks.