We rounded the spit. There was the cliff wall. There was our wooden speedboat, moored at the foot of the steps.

Elsa was frowning. Where was Vee?

As we drew level with the speedboat Elsa hooked an arm across the side of it, passed a rope through a metal ring and back. She stood up, looked down into the boat. Her hand brushed my shoulder.

I stood up, cautious. There was Vee, crouching low in the boat, hands across her face, rocking backward and forward.

“Vee,” I said.

I felt Elsa slide past me, saw that she was securing the boats at the bow. I swung a leg across, stood, finding my balance as the speedboat gently rocked.

“Vee.”

When I crouched beside her I could hear the rapid in-in-and-out of her breaths. I put a hand across her shoulder. She leaned in toward me, and I held her very tightly. A tiny, sighing sound, then another, as she gulped air.

I heard a splash, heard chain links on the fiberglass hull of the little white boat, looked up to see Elsa letting the anchor rope run through her fingers.

Vee took her hands from her face. Her eyelashes were matted and wet. I kissed the hair on top of her head, held my palms against her cheeks.

“Dad,” Vee whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“My poor tired horse.”

She looked guiltily at me. Her eyes were shot with blood.

“I wanted to see.”

I nodded. Last known whereabouts.

“I get it,” I whispered. “We both get it.”

“Dad, I want to go on land.”

We followed a short distance behind Vee. I walked along the cliff edge toward the sheer wall of the staircase, looked down to where the girl matching Licia’s description had hidden from the gunmen. The churning fjord was still now, mirror flat.

Elsa trailed her fingertips across the palm of my hand.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

You would never know, I thought. When you looked about you, the island was perfect. The neat lines of the cabins by the lake, the straight-sided path: the placing of man-made objects in nature, everything simple and rational. Ahead, Vee was walking the path toward the cabins.

“So it was Vee,” I said. “The Knights Templar websites. Looking for answers, she said. Been going there for months.”

Elsa watched Vee for a time. Then she turned to me. “And if we freak out about that we make things worse.”

“Yeah. I resisted making a point-by-point breakdown of why everything those people believe was wrong. Figured it would make it more attractive. We should catch up with her, though.”

She put a hand on my shoulder. “Let her do this, Cal. Let her understand for herself the implications of what those men believe.”

“All right.”