Caddie said nothing. She focused her attention on the picture of the nudibranch. She’d already identified it as Phidiana hiltoni, pleased with herself for not confusing it with the more common Hermisenda crassicornis. She was getting good at recognizing the sea slugs and could ID at least a dozen without having to look at the guidebook. Now she studied the Phidiana’s rhinophores, waiting for Angela to go away.

“Take a look at this,” Rhodes said. He was sitting at the computer beside her and turned his monitor so that she could see it. The screen was filled with the image of a long black nudibranch. It was unlike any Caddie had ever seen, its skin speckled with white and two lines of electric orange and blue running in an hourglass shape from its wide head to its strange bisected tail.

“Navanax inermis,” Rhodes announced. “The cannibal nudibranch. It eats the other ones. Isn’t it cool?”

“Actually, yeah,” Caddie admitted. “It’s beautiful.”

“You should see the other nudibranchs try to get out of its way,” said Angela. “That sucker is vicious.”

She left the room, and Caddie looked again at the Navanax. Everything about it screamed danger, from its color to its name. Navanax, she repeated soundlessly, feeling the shape of it, long and poisonous. That’s what I feel like.

Ever since her confrontation with Hudson, she’d been having moments of guilt. But what you said was true, she told herself. He needed to hear it. He didn’t know. It’s not your fault he ran away.

No, it wasn’t her fault. Nonetheless, she’d wanted him to do exactly that. With Hudson out of the way, she was the focus of her father’s attention. There had been the awkward moment when he’d come downstairs from his shower and had asked where Hudson was. But she’d handled that well, she thought, telling him that Hudson had received a phone call—something to do with the house he was staying in—and had to go take care of it. Her father, unsuspecting, had accepted this explanation without questions.

It was only later, after several calls to Hudson had gone unanswered, that he had started to change. After dinner, he went to his study, remaining there until he went to bed, often well after midnight. Although they talked, their conversations were stiff, seldom veering beyond questions about Caddie’s friends, her studies, her taste in movies. She’d tried to pique his interest by bringing up Cannery Row, but her father had talked only for a few minutes before pushing his plate away and changing the subject to something impersonal.