“Into the jaws of the storm.” Rune turned to Adam. “What a woman!”

“She had no choice,” Adam said.

“I assure you, most women, most people, would die for lack of nerve.”

“I know.” Adam knelt beside Elle. “I do know.”

Elle smiled into Adam’s face and touched his cheek.

“Let’s use something that’s not my hand to help you go under. Ahhh.” Rune sounded as if she’d discovered something satisfactory. “Do you have your glass pendant?”

“I’m wearing it.” She lifted it from under her shirt and over her head.

“Elle, since you’re willing, let’s begin.” Rune spoke in that soothing voice Adam had come to equate with hypnosis and dangled the necklace in front of Elle. It swayed, back and forth and back and forth. “What do you remember?”

Elle watched the movement, but Adam could see she was fighting to relax. Her hands rested on the table, and they twitched, trying to close into fists, and he wanted so badly to help her. He was about to say, with another fair amount of logic, that this should wait for another day.

Then in a voice a little higher than before, she said, “Mommy.”

Rune exhaled with satisfaction. “Who is your mommy?”

“She’s my mommy!” Elle sounded like the child she had once been. “She loves me. She hugs me all the time. She teaches me stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Math. Spelling. She showed me how to dig. We read together every night.” Elle’s smile faded. “Sometimes she’s not happy.”

Adam sat down at the table. He would have asked about digging.

Rune went for the emotions. “Why isn’t she happy?”

“She says sometimes it’s hard to be a woman alone.” With that, Elle sounded more mature, more like her present self.

“Where’s your daddy?”

Elle set her chin. “I don’t have a daddy.”

“Your daddy isn’t alive?” Rune asked.

“I don’t know. Mommy never talks about him. When I ask her, then she’s unhappy. So I don’t ask.” Elle rubbed one eye as if she was tired—or as if the tears of long ago threatened to return.

“What about digging?” Not that Adam didn’t sympathize with Elle and her mother, alone in the world, but digging was a clue.

“It’s fun. Once I found something. Everybody gathered around. Mr. Kheifets wanted to take over, but Mommy said, ‘No. Let the child learn.’” Elle grinned. “Mommy said Mr. Kheifets was acting like an old lady, twisting his hands and walking up and down.”

Rune and Adam exchanged glances.

“What did you find?” Adam asked.

“An early Moche ceramic bird, circa 300 CE.”

“Moche?” Rune mouthed to Adam.

Rune might be the expert on hypnosis, but here Adam was on sure footing. “So you and your mommy were excavating in the Peruvian Andes?”