Sure enough, Turnbuckle ended in Telltale, this time after two switchbacks and a decrepit wooden bridge over a narrow creek.

“Did your ears just pop?” Wy said.

“Uh-huh.” Liam wrestled the truck around another hairpin turn and up another switchback. He checked the indicators for engine temperature. Nothing in the red so far. “If they lost some of these trees…”

“I was thinking the same.”

Here the houses were smaller and closer together and built only on the right, or up side of the street. “Developer must have run out of money,” Liam said.

Backstay had no homes at all on it that they could see, but the amount of fill necessary to put in a foundation would have beggared anyone who wasn’t a billionaire. The ground now fell so steeply away from the road that they caught glimpses of the view they had both imagined and it promised exceedingly fair.

There was no street sign at Crow’s Nest but it was the only turn remaining so they took it, another hard hairpin right. The grade was so steep Liam shifted into low and let up on the gas very slowly. “I don’t think they have to worry about being burglarized.” He wondered how big a turnaround there was at the top. He was definitely turning in his miles for this case.

They rocked and rolled for another interminable five minutes. It was a relief when they finally topped out on a narrow flat of gravel carved from the wall of the bluff. The top of the bluff and Heavenly Drive were less than a hundred feet above.

A tiny log cabin was built flush against the face of the bluff. To the right there was an outhouse and to the left a six-by-six garden plot where the cabbages and Brussels sprouts were doing well.

Liam had stopped and Wy reached for the door handle. “Wait,” Liam said. He backed and filled until he had the truck pointing downhill again. “Okay, you get out and stay here. Crow’s Nest went a little way the other direction at Backstay. I’m going to leave the truck there and walk back up.”

Wy nodded. If Ms. Petroff saw the truck in front of the cabin she might run for it. She got out and Liam inched over the edge of the rise and out of sight. He’d left the truck in low and she could hear it grinding its way down the hill. Better his truck than her Subaru.

Before her Chungasqak Bay stretched from left to right with the Kenai Mountains lining the southern horizon in full relief. It was very nearly the same view out their new front window, just a little lower, and she wondered if custom would ever stale its infinite variety. She couldn’t imagine it. She knew in her head that the mountains were four and five thousand feet higher than where she stood, but her eyes told her she was level with their summits. Every white-topped crag and crest was clearly outlined against a sky going a rich, deep blue. The lagoon, inlets, bays, and fjords that lined the coast below cast dark, mysterious shadows on their waters. Lights twinkled from only a few far-flung locations. There were more lights scattered about the Bay, boats on the way home after a day’s fishing.