Page 86 of The Deepest Lake

Then it comes to Rose. She wraps her arms around her ribs as if to protect herself from the gut punch of shame. She was drunk. She spilled her guts to Lindsay two nights ago and she doesn’t even know how much she said.

Lindsay smiles tenderly at Rose. “You don’t remember.”

“No.”

“You were really upset. It’s okay.”

“I don’t know what I told you.”

“You needed to vent. I’ve got you, Rose.”

Tears prick Rose’s eyes, because she believes Lindsay, even though she barely knows her.

“Did I mention Jules?”

Without missing a beat, Lindsay says, “Jewels? As in diamonds and rubies? No. You just said that you had a reason to keep a low profile and you needed to be here. Believe me, I pushed. I’ll push again, if you’d like.”

“No,” Rose says quickly. “There’s something we need to talk about, first.” There’s no better person to ask how to catch a thief than another thief. “I need to visit the orphanage tomorrow. I think there are big donors who are handing over money every session at Casa Eva, and I think it’s a really easy way for someone to skim money.”

“Sure, I get that,” Lindsay says with a quick nod.

“You’re not surprised?”

“That someone like Eva or her staff would siphon money from an endless flow of rich visitors, half of them grieving or traumatized, to a charity that probably doesn’t keep good records, in a country where no one pays attention? I think it’s clever.” Lindsay shrugs. “I target men, because they think with their dicks. I’ve never thought about conning women. And I’m not saying I would. But you have to admit, this is a pretty easy place to find targets.”

“Okay,” Rose says, glad to be on the right track. “Follow the money.”

“Yes, and . . .”

“And?”

“Don’t forget, money is the whole story for a short con, but not for a long con.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When it’s a long con, or any kind of long-game involving human beings and their foibles, you can’t let yourself get tunnel-focused on the money at the exclusion of everything else. You have to understand your protagonists first.”

“Are we talking about creative writing again, or crime?”

“Both. You need to understand what your characters desire. What they believe. What their stories are. When it’s a short con, you follow the money. When it’s a long con, you follow the story, and ultimately you get to the money or whatever the person is trying to acquire or protect. It isn’t always a thing.”

A tuk-tuk comes up from behind them, spewing gravel and dust. It slows down, but Lindsay waves it off.

Then she takes Rose’s hand. “You go to the orphanage, ask some questions, so you’ve got that angle nailed down and it won’t keep worrying you. But keep your mind open. Frankly, a few thousand dollars—even ten or twenty K—is pretty small stakes.”

“But do you think her staff is taking the money? Barbara, or Hans, or Astrid?”

“Astrid is a hippie do-gooder. Hans doesn’t even wear a fancy watch. Barbara looks like she bought her wardrobe at Target ten years ago and hasn’t replaced it. On the other hand, you never know when someone has an expensive addiction or too many alimony payments.”

“And Eva?”

Lindsay’s eyes narrow. “Good question. If I had to come up with a word for Eva, it wouldn’t be ‘greedy.’ It would be ‘sloppy.’ She seems too distracted to be stealing systematically. Diane would have been just as happy to donate thousands of dollars to some kind of alumni scholarship fund, and it would have been nearly impossible to track those donations. Instead, Eva was thrilled Diane wanted to give to the orphanage.”

“So, it’s not Eva.”

“She wouldn’t be my first guess.”

“And if you were someone working for Eva who knew this was happening and didn’t like it?”