Page 97 of The Deepest Lake

I hold my breath, trying to catch the ending of that sentence, but it slips away from me. The frustration brings tears to my eyes.

“So you made a mistake and I made a mistake and now we’re even. But that doesn’t mean I agree with you.”

But Eva didn’t make a mistake, at least not at first. She saved me. I’ll be better soon, with a healed leg as proof that it wasn’t a big deal, if that’s how she wants to play it—and as I myself have played it, in the pages I wrote specifically to reassure her.

None of it matters, I realize now. Eva’s indignation brings the volume up one last time. “I’m telling you, I don’t know! It’ll be done soon, one way or another. And don’t worry. There’s no better time to dump a body than after everyone has decided there’s no body to be found.”

I am already halfway back to the bed, hobbling. Adrenaline rockets through me, my brain refusing to believe what I’ve just heard.

There’s no better time . . .

She wouldn’t say that. No one would say that.

There’s no better time to dump a body . . .

I’m hearing things, just as I’ve been seeing things. Lizards aren’t rainbow colored. Walls don’t move like ocean waves.

The last time Eva visited, she seemed addled, but she didn’t seem angry. What changed? Has someone, aside from silent Mercedes and compliant Eduardo, figured out I’m being kept here?

Mauricio. He would have wondered why I disappeared without saying goodbye. He might have thought I was just being feckless at first, but what if he kept texting? What if he refused to believe that I’d skip town and proceed to ghost him for over a month?

And yet, that can’t be the whole picture. Eva would find ways to deceive Mauricio, just like she finds ways to control the rest of her local staff. If she’s feeling pressured to do something crazy, it must be something else.

I think about Eva and her moods. She’s been getting busier. There must be a lull after the end of every workshop—a month or so when Eva recuperates. But halfway to the next one, things start amping up again, with people registering and making travel plans. That must be happening now. Visitors will be here soon. Even if I’m well in six weeks, she can’t exactly let me out while Casa Eva and San Felipe are swarming with writers.

I haven’t been thinking clearly. Why the hell can’t I think more clearly?

But I know one reason, aside from the pain.

My eye follows the curve of the temazcal wall, where the big blue five-gallon garrafón jugs of medicinal tea have been lined up. There is one full, five empties, with tiny twigs, leaves and reddish-brown sediment still stuck in the bottoms. I figured out long ago that this is the tea made by Beya for Mercedes, the sedative tea that Eva wanted more of her anxious writers to try if she ever expanded into the healing-workshop business.

I believed Eva when she said it would help knit my bones. Maybe it did. I wasn’t suspicious of its sedative qualities—I wanted to lose myself in the depths of a dreamless sleep whenever possible.

But I need to be alert now. I need to think harder.

She wants to get rid of me.

When I hear the outer latch being drawn, I grab the smaller plastic bottle of tea on the floor, next to my bed, and guzzle. I can’t risk appearing uncooperative.

Think.

I’m sitting up, tea on my lips and bottle almost empty, when the inner door opens.

Eva startles at the sight of me, sitting upright. She covers up her surprise with a wide-eyed, manic grin. “Look at you! Someone’s feeling better!”

“Except . . .” I start to say.

Think! But it’s hard to think with the burning in my mouth and the nausea building. I’m inches from needing to vomit.

The solution comes to me.

I throw myself onto my stomach, head aiming for the bucket, and I begin to purposefully retch.

The first line from Eva’s second memoir: There was one thing I wanted more than anything in the world: to hold a child . . . again.

I force myself to gag.

There’s no better time to dump a body than after everyone has decided there’s no body to be found.