I moved a dozen yards away, indicating for Pita and Pepper to join me. Jesus got up and hobbled over on his good foot. When we were out of earshot, I said, “I found her beneath a bed in what I think must have been Solano’s house.”

Pita frowned. “What was she doing?”

“Hiding from you?” Jesus said.

“Not me exactly,” I said. “She told me she came here with her brother, Miguel, and her brother’s girlfriend, Lucinda. Yesterday, by the sound of it. Anyway, she says she was catching frogs or something when she heard her brother scream. He told her to run, and she did. She hasn’t seen him since.”

They stared at me like I’d just told them I’d been abducted by aliens.

“That’s what she told me,” I insisted.

“My God, Jack!” Pepper said. “Do you think she’s telling the truth?”

“Why would she lie?”

Pita said, “Maybe she’s mad at her brother so she made up this fantasmal story?”

“Fantasmal?”

“Jack!”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. She seems genuinely frightened. Besides, wouldn’t her brother have gone looking for her? The island is big, but not that big. Wouldn’t we have crossed paths with him by now?”

“We didn’t know the girl was here,” Jesus pointed out.

“She was hiding. If her brother was looking for her, he’d be calling out and stuff.”

“Okay, hold on a minute,” Pepper said. “We’re jumping ahead. We need to slow down. What happened to her brother? What made him warn her away?”

I hesitated. “She thinks a ghost attacked him.”

“A ghost?” Pita’s eyes widened. “You mean, the ghost of the little girl who haunts this island?”

“Come on, Pita,” I said.

“Come on, what?”

“This is serious. Something’s happened—”

“I am being serious, Jack.”

“You think a ghost attacked Rosa’s brother?”

“Why not?” she said defiantly.

“She’s entitled to her opinion, Jack,” Jesus said.

I looked at Pepper for support. He might like to debate the existence of ghosts and spirits and whatnot, yet he was a pragmatic guy, and I didn’t think he really believed what he preached. It all went part and parcel with his act.

Nevertheless, he was looking at his shoes, unwilling to back me. He knew how religious Pita was, how superstitious. He wasn’t going to reveal himself as a false prophet, rain on her parade.

“Okay, whatever, ghost, no ghost,” I said. “Bottom line, we know one-eighth of fuck all right now. We’re just speculating. So what’s important, what we have to do, is find Rosa’s camp. We can figure out what happened then.”

“Easier said than done, Jack,” Jesus said. “This island has to be a couple of hundred acres easily. And it’s all jungle.”

Pita had taken her mobile phone from her pocket and was holding it up in the air. “No reception,” she said.