Elle winced. “Mom, it wasn’t careless disregard. Mom, I had to jump off the ship. I was a mile off the coast and barely made it to shore... Mom, I swear, I was in bad shape. No, Mom, listen! I lost my memory!”

He heard another explosion of language from the other end, and the words he could pick out made it clear Elle’s mother was worried and angry.

Elle held the phone away and looked at him apologetically. “She’s excited.” She brought the phone back to her ear. “I was pulled from the ocean by a man named Adam Ramsdell. He saved me. He’s been wonderful through the whole ordeal... Mom, he hasn’t done anything to me. It was...it was Stephen Penderghast. He tried to kill me. Yes, I know you said something was wrong about the job. Yes, Mom, you were right.” Elle looked at Adam as if she knew he would understand her exasperation. “Yes, I’ll say it again. You were right. He tried to strangle me... Yes, that’s why I jumped off the ship. Oh, you want to know that, do you?” Elle was teasing now, and she chuckled at her mother’s low murmur coming from the phone. “Yes, I found the treasure. No, seriously! All of it? I don’t know. But the gold Moche heads were there, staring at me through the camera. It was a moment like none I’ve ever experienced.” She glanced at Adam. “Mom, not to worry. He’s not going to kill me for the find. He is such a great guy... In his thirties?”

Adam nodded.

“Good looking.”

Adam nodded again.

“Once, yeah... Okay, once today.”

Adam didn’t want to nod, to look, to find out what he had done today that Elle had told her mother about. But he couldn’t help it. He turned.

Elle was listening to her mother and grinning at him. “It’s okay, Mom. I’m going to marry him.”

Adam turned back before he ran off the road.

“I’m in this little town on Big Sur—yeah, Big Sur, California—just up from the beach. It was really quiet when I first got here, but they’re having a psychic festival and... Yes.” Startled, Elle asked, “How did you know that?”

Adam surmised her mother knew the name of Gothic.

“I can’t get on a plane and get out of here. For a lot of reasons. For one thing, I’m still kind of beat-up. For another... Mom, why? Well, for instance, why do you know Gothic, and why don’t you like Gothic? It’s a great little town... That’s right, the City of Lost Souls.” Elle listened to her mother’s explanation with an increasingly puzzled expression.

She listened long enough that Adam’s interest became active curiosity.