The Rescue

Nicholas Sparks




This book is dedicated with love to Pat and Billy Mills.
My life is better because of you both.
Thank you for everything.


Acknowledgments
Again, I�d like to thank my wife, Cathy, who had to be more patient with me than usual while writing this novel. What a wild eleven years we�ve shared, huh?
My three sons (Miles, Ryan, and Landon) also deserve my thanks, simply because they help me keep everything in perspective. It�s fun watching you guys grow up.
My agent, Theresa Park, of Sanford Greenburger Associates, has been with me every step of the way, and it�s been my good fortune to have worked with her. I can never say it enough: Thank you so much for everything-you�re the best!
My editor, Jamie Raab, of Warner Books, has also been great to work with-again! What can I say? I�m lucky to have your guidance-don�t ever believe that I take it for granted. I hope we work together for a long, long time.
Many thanks to Larry Kirshbaum, the number one guy at Warner Books, who also happens to be a really nice guy, and Maureen Egen, who is not only a gem, but a brilliant gem. You both changed my life for the better and I�ll never forget it.
And finally, a wineglass raised in toast to the rest of those people who help me every step of the way: Jennifer Romanello, Emi Battaglia, Edna Farley, and the rest of the publicity department at Warner; Flag, who designed all my fabulous book covers; Scott Schwimer, my entertainment attorney; Howie Sanders and Richard Green at United Talent Agency, two of the best at what they do; Denise DiNovi, the fabulous producer of Message in a Bottle (the main character in this novel is named for her, by the way); Courtenay Valenti and Lorenzo Di Bonaventura at Warner Bros.; Lynn Harris at New Line Cinema; Mark Johnson, producer . . .


Prologue

It would later be called one of the most violent storms in North Carolina history. Because it occurred in 1999, some of the most superstitious citizens considered it an omen, the first step toward the end of time. Others simply shook their heads and said that they knew something like that would happen sooner or later. In all, nine documented tornadoes would touch down that evening in the eastern part of the state, destroying nearly thirty homes in the process. Telephone lines lay strewn across roads, transformers blazed without anyone to stop them. Thousands of trees were felled, flash floods swept over banks of three major rivers, and lives changed forever with one fell swoop of Mother Nature.
It had begun in an instant. One minute it was cloudy and dark, but not unusually so; in the next, lightning, gale-force winds, and blinding rain exploded from the early summer sky. The system had blown in from the northwest and was crossing the state at nearly forty miles an hour. All at once, radio stations crackled with emergency warnings, documenting the storm�s ferocity. People who could took cover insid...

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