Page 88 of The Deepest Lake

The wind stirs, raising gooseflesh on my damp arms. That’s when I know: we’re not in this together. We never were.

“Barbara,” I say, keeping my voice level, “you’re taking us out too far.”

Eva’s biggest worry was her massive memoir deception. Barbara is more practical. She knows that stealing charity money would look undeniably bad. The problem is, I know about all of it.

“I want to go back,” I say.

I know. Barbara knows that I know.

As much as I hate to stop searching the lake’s waters ahead, just in case Zahara is still out there, I turn sideways, hand reaching for the gunwale so I can steady myself as I change position. I’m about to speak again when I sense movement—Barbara has risen to a low crouch, and she’s reaching for something at her feet. I look up in time to see something long and dark coming toward me. I push to a half-standing position, confused, eyes on the oar as she lifts it like a baseball bat. Then a blur. My legs buckle.

I scream, falling forward.

There’s a second horrible crack.

Fireworks blast across my skull.

The taste of metal as blood fills my mouth.

I’m grabbing for something, anything; I’m trying to keep my mouth closed though every part of me wants to inhale. There’s only water, greenish-black water, and necklaces of silver bubbles, and the dance of the moon on the surface over my head.

But you know the rest. Everyone does.

Somehow, I drowned that night, on Lake Atitlán.

Somehow, I was never found.

25

ROSE

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That night, some of the women go to a local bar to eat chicken wings and play poker with lessons from Lindsay. The talk of the evening is about K-Tap, who already packed up and left in a shuttle bound for Antigua.

“Our first defector,” Isobel whispers. “I think there will be others.”

They all swap gossipy guesses about the comedian’s true name. Scarlett thinks K stands for “Karen”—not the best name for a Black woman stand-up comic in the current era. “Unless it is,” Scarlett laughs. “She could have built a funny routine around it.”

Noelani says it has something to do with K’s abusive father, a wrestling coach who forced her to compete and practiced even more brutally with her in private, forcing her to “tap out.” Noelani thinks that was the harder story K needed to tell. “But she got cold feet.”

“I just don’t know why she had to keep it secret,” Pippa says. “Maybe it’s a drug reference. Speaking of drugs, anyone seen Rachel?”

No one has.

“I’ll peek into a few windows on my walk back to the cabin,” Rose says, looking for a way to make a quick exit while the other women stay behind, playing cards.

Through the dark alleyways, she keeps her promise, peering briefly into the pizzeria, the fish taco place, an even dingier bar where Noelani thought she saw Rachel sitting alone yesterday evening, hand wrapped around a beer bottle. Rose is worried about Rachel, ruminating in some corner booth. But the person Rose needs to find the most is Mauricio.

He said he would come find her. Where can he be?

Back at the cabin, she sits at the little table near the door, listening for every crunching footfall along the gravel path just outside, every echo of voices from the nearest alley. Nothing.

With too much time to think, she lets herself imagine. What if Mauricio was Jules’s boyfriend. What if they both knew about the mishandling of money. Eva couldn’t get rid of Mauricio—he’s her own adopted child. But Jules?