“These people are destroying your mind. They’ve made a murderer of you.”

Her scream echoed out across the square. “Let go of me!”

A small crowd gathering around us, faces filled with concern.

“Licia,” I said, keeping my voice as low as I could. “Licia, I need you to come back.”

“What’s going on?” someone said. “Hva skjer?”

She leaned very close to me. “There’s more . . .”

A half smile.

Then she was pulling violently away. “Attempted kidnap. Call the police!”

I reached for her but she was gone. The crowd closed between us. Arms restrained me. I could not follow. And I realized with a shuddering lurch that my daughter had rehearsed precisely this moment, that her lines had been chosen with care.

“Please,” she was saying, “protect me from that man. I’m scared of what he might do.” Then the same words in Norwegian. And all the time she was slipping farther away, and all the time people were closing around me.

“That’s my daughter,” I kept saying. “I’m Cal Curtis. She’s Licia Curtis. The hero of Garden Island. Don’t you recognize her? Don’t you know who we are?”

But people simply stared at me as I stared after her.

She had been here. I had held her. She was gone, lost in the Sunday crowds.

Then Tvist was standing in front of me, dark eyes blazing. His voice rang out across the park. “Hva er nå dette?” What’s all this?

From the crowd someone said, “Trakasseringssak.” Harassment.

He turned to me. “Explain.”

In my pocket my phone rang. I began to reach for it. Strong arms locked around my torso.

“I need to answer my phone,” I said. “Please.”

Tvist glared about him. “This crowd is to disperse. At once.”

He turned slowly, locking eyes with each of the men at the front. Such authority he had. Such total command.

The arms released me. I raised the phone to my ear.

“I have not been entirely honest with you,” said the voice.

“Bror,” I said, “what did you have her do?”

“What did I have her do?” he repeated.

I pressed loudspeaker on the phone. Laughter in Bror’s voice. “Alicia Curtis really is the most uniquely dutiful girl. She wanted so badly to be exceptional. She packed explosives and set fuses without regard to her own life. When the day came, she made the call that began the countdown that detonated the bomb that drew the police into town.” Even through the phone speaker his voice was full of honeyed warmth. I knew he was telling me the truth. “In time, perhaps you would have understood our position, but given recent developments . . . Tell your wife that your daughter Alicia is lost to you. We are severing ties.”

And he was gone.

I looked up into Tvist’s dark, dark eyes. “Will you arrest him?”