We drove on in silence, hands entangled, until we came to the exit for Garden Island.

We stood on the slipway. The body bags were gone from the shoreline. Farther up the coast children were swimming. Hard to believe, after what happened here. But out across the water there was nothing to suggest the violence done so close by. The fjord was mirror-still. From here the island looked inviting.

I could see the diver units farther out: the marker buoys on the surface, the boats tracking the divers under the water. Elsa watched a diver as he handed something to the man at the helm of the boat.

“Cal,” she said, “don’t bodies float in seawater?”

“I guess.”

“Then Licia is not down there.” She took my hand. “Come.” She led me along the shore to a small sandy cove. Just above the waterline lay a white fiberglass boat with a small outboard engine.

“Pull from the bow,” she said.

“You serious?”

“We’ll bring it back.”

I looked toward the phalanx of police cars on the slipway.

“We’re day-trippers,” she said. “Far as they know.”

No one was watching. “All right,” I said.

I bent down, took off my shoes, threw them onboard. Elsa stepped easily over the side as the boat slipped into the water, while I stood knee-deep, steadying the hull. She leaned forward, pulled out a pin, lowered the outboard into the water. She braced against the side of the boat, drew evenly on the start cord. I felt through the hull the tug and thrum of the engine. I jumped in, took my place in the bow, facing my wife. We pulled out into the bay, Elsa scanning the horizon, leaning forward, steering by instinct.

Halfway across she slowed the engine. “There.” She stood, hands shielding her eyes. I turned, saw ahead of us the silhouette of our wooden speedboat on the brilliant fjord, and at the helm a resolute little stick figure.

Vee turned to face us, then turned away.

I began to get to my feet.

“Cal,” said Elsa. “Down.”

I was tipping us. I didn’t have her instinct for the sea.

I hunched down, watching the little red speedboat. Vee was heading behind the dock on Garden Island.

“Did she see us?”

“Who knows?”

We continued on our course until we were past the island, then turned in. Soon we drew level with the dock, emptied now of boats. Signs in Norwegian and English warned us not to moor.

Vee had not stopped here. Elsa nodded toward a spit of red-pink rock that ran out into the sea, hiding the coastline beyond. She turned. Her eyes flicked to mine.

There?

I nodded. Out of sight, I knew, were the cliffs, and the staircase cut into them. Licia had been alive on those steps; we had seen her reaching up toward the helicopter.