“Well, like weather, for example. We’ve been following the forecast very carefully—a meteorologist is advising us—and there’s absolutely no reason to expect that Flynn will encounter rough weather. But if there were a storm or something else that knocked the ship’s navigation and communication systems out, this bag has a GPS-enabled radio beacon that could send a signal to the nearest rescue coordination center.”

“Okay,” Holly said, “I get it. I don’t want to hear about this stuff. This is a conversation for Ted, not me.”

“Got it,” Zanne said, zipping the bag shut.

“It’s so silly, the things we ask you guys to do sometimes. You must think we’re nuts.”

“Not at all,” Zanne said, the earnestness in her voice masking her genuine shock at this rare moment of awareness on Holly’s part.

“My dad would roll over in his grave if he knew how much fuss we’re making over a fishing trip. He used to take me out on Castaic Lake in a little dinghy on Sunday mornings. We’d let my mom sleep in. I had my own coffee, even when I was six or seven. We never told her about that part.”

“Sounds nice,” Zanne said instead, and it did—fishing with a dad, a good one.

Erin had dismissed the rest of the staff when the ditch bag came out, so it was just the two of them now, or the three of them depending on whether Erin wanted to join the discussion or stay in the background. Erin had started working for the Stablers around the same time as Zanne. Unofficially, there were two tracks on staff, the Ted track and the Holly track. Zanne and Erin had taken different paths into the inner circle of the Stablers’ trust, to the extent that trust was possible when one person paid another to be loyal. So it was not unusual for Zanne and Erin to find themselves crammed into a closet or pantry together at odd hours, standing by through a fundraiser or a family gathering, staring at rows of San Pellegrino bottles awaiting refrigeration and making their own dinner out of caviar and Goldfish, ready to be a lifesaver or a ghost, whichever Ted and Holly needed most. Erin had a three-year-old son, Luca, and Zanne often wondered when she saw him.

Ted popped his head into Flynn’s room and then headed back toward the stairs.

“Oh, honey!” Holly said, darting after him.

“I came to say goodbye to Flynn,” Ted said. “He hasn’t left yet?”

Zanne and Erin lingered at the doorway, out of sight but in earshot.

“You’re not coming to the marina?” Holly asked.

“Was I supposed to?” Ted asked.

“Don’t you want to?”

“Agh, I don’t want to get into it with Vic.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t blame you.”

“What choice did we have? There was a tape.”