Zoe turned to him. “Maybe that’s your answer.”

“Huh?”

“Throw away all your old ways of believing and start over.” She paused. “I did. I couldn’t just hold on to a faith that was riddled with rotten fibers. I needed something new that spoke to my soul. Maybe you do too.”

He gave her an admiring smile. “You’re something else.” He was silent for a moment. “I don’t know… I’ve never felt so rudderless in my entire life… so untethered inside.”

“I felt that way when I finally realized what a sham my mother’s church was,” she said.

“But I don’t want to spend years like you did before the certainty returns.”

“Maybe you had a false certainty that’s gone now,” Zoe said. She felt her heart twist as she looked at the pain in his eyes. “Maybe all certainty is an illusion.”

“Thanks, professor,” he said.

“No, I didn’t mean—”

He gave her a broad smile. “It’s okay. Really.” He took her in his arms and they kissed.

Behind them, logs shifted with a dull thud. The snowmobile grew louder.

“Maybe getting rid of a false certainty is God’s way of telling you it wasn’t the truth to begin with,” Zoe said finally. “A new syllabus means you’d have to start looking at new ideas, searching for the truth. I think that God delights in our searching. Maybe the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth—that what we’re supposed to do is to keep on searching all our lives.”

“That’s a real comfort.”

The snowmobile engine grew very loud outside the chalet and then fell silent.

“You have a better idea?” Zoe asked.

Seth shook his head.

“Thalia has done a lot of research, has a lot of source materials and notes. She can help when she gets here,” Zoe said. “Not to mention the alabaster wheel.”

“If you can get it back.”

“Count on it,” Zoe said. “The art and database material I downloaded off the server has everything: dates, names, prices, bills of lading, shipping numbers. Everything I need to prove the art was stolen—twice—and to prove I have the right to get it back.”

“You’re going to piss off a lot of people,” Seth said. “All those prominent museum curators, those powerful buyers. That’s not going to do your business any good.”

Morgen’s footsteps made dull thuds on the outside deck behind them. They both turned.

“I really don’t care.” Zoe said. “They deserve what they get. They’re the spineless ones that sell their souls to the devil to get the art at any cost. I don’t care about the business as much as I do getting the art back to the people and the heirs to whom it rightfully belongs. If I have to close the business to do that, fine.”

“I still don’t know if I want to go back to teaching,” Seth said. “I was a pretty good detective once. Maybe I could just help you with your work.”

“So what do you know about art?” Zoe joked.