Celine

Celine Watkins is a sixty-eight-year-old private investigator who works out of her loft near the Brooklyn Bridge. She comes from old-money East Coast aristocracy and grew up partly in Paris, but she has devoted her career to reuniting birth families, working largely pro bono with a 96 percent success rate. When the novel opens in September 2002, one year after the September 11th attacks, Celine is exhausted by grief: Her sister Mimi died that May, her sister Bobby died of a brain tumor in July, and then the Twin Towers fell within sight of her home. She has emphysema caused by decades of heavy smoking and usually refuses to wear oxygen out of vanity.

A phone call from Gabriela Ambrosio Lamont, a Sarah Lawrence alumna who saw a profile of Celine in their alumni magazine, changes everything. Over dinner at the loft with Celine and her second husband, Pete, a laconic former Wall Street architect from Maine whom Celine met in Alcoholics Anonymous, Gabriela tells her story. In the novel's prologue, set years earlier at Jade Cove on the Big Sur coast, Gabriela's Brazilian mother, Amana, drowns when rogue waves sweep the beach. Gabriela's father, Paul Lamont, a National Geographic photographer, pulls his daughter from the surf and scrambles up the trail with her. As Gabriela later narrates, a stranger on the trail drove the injured girl to the hospital while Paul dove back in after Amana but never reached her. Amana's body is never found.

Over subsequent visits, Gabriela describes the aftermath. Paul collapsed into alcoholism, forgetting to feed Gabriela or get her to school. He married Danette Rogers, a manipulative nurse who grew jealous of Gabriela's resemblance to Amana and banished the eight-year-old to her own apartment downstairs. Paul communicated his love covertly, slipping hidden photographs behind framed pictures and telling Gabriela a fairy tale about an "Ice Mountain" near Canada with a green lake and a castle for princesses. During Gabriela's college years, Paul went to Yellowstone to photograph grizzly bears and never returned. His truck was found at a bridge outside the park with his wallet and keys inside. The official determination was death by bear attack, based on bear tracks, blood, and torn clothing, but no body was ever found and the death certificate was signed with unusual haste. Gabriela has never believed the bear story, and she has an eight-year-old son she wants her father to meet.

Celine agrees to take the case. She and Pete drive north from Denver in her son Hank's truck and camper, equipped with guns and hunting clothes as backcountry cover. Hank is a magazine journalist dealing with a marital separation. Pete has already researched Paul's background, uncovering a draconian prenuptial agreement that prevented Paul from divorcing Danette. However, Paul's will and a one-million-dollar life insurance policy both named Gabriela as sole beneficiary, leaving Danette furious when the documents were read after Paul's disappearance.

Flashbacks illuminate Celine's deep connection to the case. At fifteen, she became pregnant at the Putney School, a progressive boarding school in Vermont. Her mother, Baboo, arrived with Fleet Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey Jr., Baboo's longtime companion, and convinced the school to let Celine return after she had the baby. Celine carried the child to term, gave birth to a girl she named Isabel, and the baby was taken from her almost immediately. This loss drove Celine into the work of reuniting birth families. Hank suspects he has an older sibling, and his Aunt Bobby confirms the sister's name on her deathbed but dies before revealing any lead. Flashbacks to Celine's childhood on Fishers Island deepen the parallel: After her parents' divorce, her father rarely visited, and seven-year-old Celine, distraught at his absence, launched a catboat alone into rough seas and capsized before being rescued. These experiences forged her fierce empathy for children abandoned by their parents.

As Celine and Pete travel through Wyoming and into Montana, sinister signs multiply. A truck scouts their campsite at night. Celine spots the same young man at two different diners. Gabriela reveals her apartment was broken into: Her research file was stolen, and a hidden passport bearing Paul's photo under a false name was taken. Celine deduces Gabriela's phone has been tapped for years and that their investigation triggered the theft. At Jackson Lake, Celine confronts the young man, concealing a Glock under her bathrobe and planting GPS trackers on his truck and in a coffee grinder she offers him. He identifies her concealed gun through her robe, revealing expert training. She learns his name is William Tanner and confirms through a contact that he is a former Navy SEAL sniper.

Near the park's northeast entrance, Sheriff Cam Travers shares his long-held doubts about the official story: Lamont's truck faced the wrong direction, no bear photographs were found in his cameras, and the bloody evidence matched details from a National Geographic article on bear attacks that Lamont would have known. A Dartmouth-educated tracker named Elbie Chicksaw confirms the bear tracks were unnaturally consistent, suggesting carved wooden replicas rather than a living animal's prints.

The breakthrough comes at the Red Lodge library, where Celine and Pete discover that Lamont's 1974 feature on Chilean Patagonia was shot during the same season as the U.S.-backed coup that overthrew Chile's President Salvador Allende. Celine concludes Lamont witnessed something incriminating. A rifle shot shatters a streetlight above their heads while they eat ice cream, a clear warning. Chilean artist Fernanda de Santos Muños confirms Lamont attended elite social gatherings in Santiago; Celine deduces he gained access to the presidential palace. At the Beartooth Bar in Cooke City, a co-owner named Sitka confirms Lamont spoke of an "Ice Mountain" with a green lake that "sounds like a bird," a day's drive north.

Celine instructs Gabriela to open the frame of the ferry photograph of Amana that Lamont gave her. Hidden behind it is a photograph showing the body of Francisco Peña de la Cruz, a Chilean minister of finance murdered during the coup, alongside a now-prominent American official. On the back, in Lamont's hand: the man's name and "La Moneda," Chile's presidential palace. Celine tells Gabriela to take her son and flee immediately. Using the fairy-tale clues, Celine and Pete identify the area near Glacier National Park: Duck Lake and Goose Lake near Chief Mountain, on the Blackfeet Reservation close to the Canadian border.

They use Tanner as an unwitting guide, reasoning his handlers have always known Lamont's location but left him alone as long as he stayed dead. By driving toward Lamont, they force Tanner to race ahead. Following his GPS signal through the night, past Duck Lake and Goose Lake, they reach a smaller lake with a single cabin. On the trail, Tanner fires at Celine, but a bull elk crashes across their path and jolts her sideways, causing the shot to miss. She drops, tracks the fleeing shooter through her rifle scope, and hits him in the shoulder. She bandages him and delivers her terms: Lamont stays dead, the Chile photographs stay buried, but if any harm comes to Lamont, Gabriela, or Celine's family, the evidence goes to the press.

Celine and Pete cross the meadow to a small log cabin on the shore of a green lake beneath Chief Mountain. Paul Lamont emerges with a rifle but lets them approach. Inside, he describes how he staged his death by carving bear tracks and drawing his own blood, knowing the CIA would cooperate because he possessed the incriminating photographs. Celine tells him about Gabriela and her grandson, and Lamont listens with desperate hunger. She tells him bluntly that he was weak and caused immense pain, but advises him to get another chair and coffee cup because Gabriela will want to visit.

In the epilogue, Hank flies to Helena and Gabriela arrives soon after. The four share dinner, and Hank and Gabriela fall into easy conversation. Gabriela will drive to her father's cabin the next day. That night, Hank tells Celine he knows about Isabel. Celine confirms the story and tells him she has been searching for Isabel every day and never stops.