He went in the cabin first and surprised Ms. Petroff in the act of lighting the gas lantern. “Oh!” she said, and knocked the lantern off the table. Liam caught it before it hit the floor. Ms. Petroff made an abortive attempt to reach the door, and only subsided when she saw Wy standing there.

“Sit down, Ms. Petroff,” Liam said, taking her firmly by one arm and guiding her to a chair at the table. Wy came in and closed the door behind her, and Liam finished lighting the lamp. He turned it up all the way, filling the little room with a warm radiance. He hung it from the hook and they both turned to look at the girl.

She was sitting with her elbows on the table and her face in her hands. The scarf was looped around her neck. “You lied to me, Ms. Petroff,” Liam said, his voice implacable. “I asked you where Erik Berglund’s cabin was and you said you didn’t know.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath, and dropped her hands, revealing a tear-stained face. She sat back and folded her hands in her lap. “Yes, sir, I did.”

“Why?”

She swallowed. “I didn’t want you to know I knew.”

“Because I’d have questions you don’t want to answer.”

She closed her eyes. “Yes, sir.”

“Did you have a relationship with Erik Berglund, Ms. Petroff?”

She bit her lip and another tear slid down her cheek. “Yes.”

“Where were you between Monday night at ten and two a.m. Tuesday morning?”

Her eyes flew open. “What?”

“Where were you between—”

“Stop!” she shouted. It was the first loss of self-possession Liam had observed in her. “Just stop. I didn’t kill Erik. I was nowhere near his dig that night or even that day. My aunt and uncle had a family picnic on the beach and we were out there until after sunset.” She let out a long, shuddering sigh. “Yes, I had a relationship with Erik, but it’s not what you think.”

“What was it, then?”

“He—” She twisted her hands together. “He was my father.”

They stared at her, speechless.

She’d taken an online genealogy course because she’d thought it would be fun if she constructed a family tree for her parents’ anniversary. When the instructor suggested all the students take a DNA test from 23andMe, she didn’t hesitate. When the results came back, she didn’t believe them, and submitted a second sample, which came back the same.

Alexei Petroff wasn’t her father.

What felt even weirder was that she was half white. She had been raised as a full-blooded Sugpiaq. It was how she was down in the tribal register.

She had confronted her mother, who had confirmed this unwelcome news but wouldn’t tell Sally who her birth father was. Alexei, her mother said, didn’t know.

Liam thought of the barely repressed rage he’d observed in Alexei and wondered if that was true. Sally Petroff unconsciously confirmed that feeling when she said, “I don’t know if she’s right about that. Dad always treated me a little differently than my brothers. I thought it was because I was a girl and they were boys. Dad’s a really traditional guy and he’s all about the men doing the providing and the women catering to them. He was mad at me when I decided to go away to school.”