Page 118 of The Deepest Lake

“You couldn’t?”

“Not if I wanted a conversation that would last longer than two minutes.”

“And how long did your swimming conversation last?”

“Longer than that,” Rose answers, sulkily.

Lindsay laughs, but Rose doesn’t think it’s funny. “I wish I’d fought. I managed to claw her face once, but that’s it.”

The women arriving by water taxi saw what looked like a heroic rescue, which makes Rose’s side of the story even more outrageous. They only saw the above-water Eva, champion lake swimmer. Only Rose can feel the hard kick in the stomach, the feet pressing against her head.

Lindsay will believe once she has the whole picture, Rose thinks, pausing to cough and reach for a nearly empty water bottle. When she’s emptied it, she tells Lindsay everything she found out from Wendy about the girl named Sahara. But Lindsay looks unimpressed.

“A rock star almost drowned here?”

“And I think my daughter swam after her.”

“You know the second part, how?”

“That’s what Jules would have done.”

“What she would have done. But nobody saw it, right?”

It’s unravelling now—the sense that Rose had just yesterday, of everything finally fitting.

“Please don’t start talking about how dumb people are—”

“My marks were rarely dumb.”

“Or about people’s fantasies,” Rose says. “This isn’t a fantasy. I’m not trying to protect anything.”

“And good thing, or you’d make an easy target.”

Rose can see what Lindsay is trying to say: She is an easy target. Someone could try to fool her even now, with the evidence to back up this latest story, or by claiming that they know something—even something as simple as where Jules’s body can be found. Rose would pay dearly for it.

Lindsay takes both of Rose’s hands. “I believe you just had a frightening experience, and you’ve had a lot to think about. Give it time. Let me get you more fluids.”

“And then what?”

“If it were me, I’d still demand an audience with Eva. On land this time, with other people around, maybe even a lawyer or a well-armed bodyguard. Whichever you prefer. You think Eva covered up some facts about the week of Jules’s drowning—the when, how and why. Am I understanding that right? I mean, you don’t think she murdered your daughter.”

The question makes Rose pause, and in that space, images spread like blood in water. Possibilities Rose has suppressed for so long overwhelm her, the expanding clouds blotting out the present, taking her back to that moment that is no longer a mere nightmare. Jules plunging into dark water, clawing, kicking, and someone at the surface, ready to strike and push Jules back under if she manages to surface. The moon, bright. The wind, calm. But none of that matters, because Jules isn’t simply trying to swim back to shore. She is being drowned on purpose.

Rose’s throat has started to close. She takes a moment to gather herself, swallowing with effort. She rubs hard at the tears on her cheek.

“I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t been out in the water with Eva kicking me and dragging me under. But now, yes. I think it’s possible.”

Lindsay doesn’t reply.

She thinks I’m the crazy one.

Rose says, “I know it’s hard to believe anyone could kill another person. You have to see it for yourself in their eyes. You have to feel it in your own body.” Rose shudders, feeling the spot across her ribs that’s starting to bruise, the burn in her scalp where Eva yanked her hair.

“This is so much worse than I thought,” Rose says, starting to cough again.

When the coughing spell doesn’t let up, Lindsay hands her the mug of tea. The ginger hits Rose first. Then the rest of it: Pepper. And fennel. It’s not just familiar. It’s unmistakable.

She has to push the mug back into Lindsay’s hands before she drops it. She can barely talk over the lump in her throat. “I don’t understand this!”