Page 12 of Waters that Drown Us
“Yeah, food poisoning," I explain, wiping the back of my hand against my mouth as we reach Jimmy’s boat,La Estrella Fugaz. I have one foot on the hull when I feel Emily’s hand around my elbow, pulling me back.
“Oh my god, you’re sick? Why didn’t you call me and cancel? You can’t go on the water sick.” Her expression is filled with so much genuine concern, and I think it’s the first time since I saw my uncle, nearly ten months ago, that someone seemed like they cared if I lived or died.
“No phone, remember?” I reply, shaking her hand off my arm, fairly embarrassed that she can probably feel how gross and sweaty my skin is, even after my shower. “And it’s just food poisoning, I’m not contagious.”
“I’m not worried about you getting me sick,” she says, her eyebrows furrowed. “Won’t the waves make you feel worse?”
I scoff at the thought as I climb into the boat, reaching my arms out to signal for her to slide me the equipment. I can’t lift those black boxes, but I’m strong enough to maneuver them as gravity does most of the work for me.
“I’m more at home on the water than I am on land,” I reply honestly, feeling steadier even now as the soft waves of the harbor rock the boat. “And the sea air is good for you when you’re sick.”
Emily stands with her hands on her hips, her expression disbelieving. Despite the fact that I was desperate to crawl back into bed only an hour ago, I’m now glad I don’t have a phone. I probablywouldhave called to cancel or reschedule. But I would have missed this—talking to someone like I’m not a criminal on the lam.
I might be putting Emily at risk by spending so much time with her. Actually, I’m certain I am. And it’s probably immoral, maybe even evil, to want to spendmoretime with her, and to be even more forthcoming about who I am. It could get her killed.
But as she surveys me up and down, I can’t help but think that this is the last person on Earth who I might be able to truly get to know. Even if I succeed in my ludicrous plan, I’ll likelybe dead at the end of it. And if by some miracle I’m not, I’ll be running and hiding for the rest of my life.
This charming, smart, seemingly perfect woman doesn’t deserve to die because I crave the comfort of being known. But I’ve always felt more free on the water, and she asks so many questions. It’s a perfect storm, and one I don’t want to fight. I want someone to remember me. I want someone to have known who I was.
I can’t tell her everything. I’ll still have to lie more than I want to. But as she rolls her eyes and starts loading the equipment onto the boat, as the remnants of rattlesnake venom both destroy and fortify me, I realize I want to be Alisa for just a little bit longer.
Until she has to die again.
Chapter 6
Emily
I’ve been keeping a log of all the lies and truths Alice has told me.
I moved from Estonia about six years ago. Partially true. Thewhereis a lie, obviously, but her timeline is not. I imagine she chose Estonia as her cover because her mother was from there.
She passed away when I was a child. Also true. I didn’t push for details there, though I’m curious if she knows how much of a hand Konstantin had in her death. It would be uncouth and suspicious for a stranger to pry about the circumstances, though.
My father died in a car accident last year.
She’s created a persona of emptiness. A woman with no one, nowhere, nothing to hold onto.
I’m surprised by how many of the things she tells me I can’t categorize. Did she really learn English from her nanny and grow up fluent? I know she spoke English, Russian, and Mongolian by the time our paths crossed, but did she grow up learning them all in tandem? Is her biggest fear truly snakes? Is strawberry actually her favorite ice cream flavor?
Every minute with her is a reminder that my infatuation with her all these years was built on nothing but my imagination.
She’s witty. Not quick to laugh, like I imagined she would be when I watched a recording of her giggling behind a delicate hand at something Ilya said. But she catches onto every slip of the tongue, every opening for a double entendre or barb. The more we talk, the less she openly smiles. But working for the tiny twitch in her deadpan expression is much more of a gift than the grins she shares with patrons.
She’s also wildly brave. Once she allowed the dam holding back her personality to split a little, it became obvious why she was flabbergasted by my fear of…well, everything. When the ROV signal became compromised, she was the one who leaned over the side of the boat and hoisted the tiny machine back up so I could fix it. She told me about swimming in the open sea, jumping off high cliffs into the ocean below, even how she dreamed of SCUBA diving, which I told her was my version of Dante’s seventh ring of hell.
I’ve tried to keep focus on my mission throughout our conversations, to ask her questions that help me understand her past and how it haunts her today. It’ll take time to convince her to open up about some things though—especially her family. She gave me the barest details before clamming up and asking me about my past research.
The threat of Clara’s clock ticks in the back of my mind every second of the day. I know I don’t have time to lull Alice into a sense of security and friendship. Six weeks will go by in the blink of an eye, and then my hand will be forced.
Sitting on my bed, I watch the video feed as Alice leans her bike against the front facade of the grocery store. She doesn’t go in, but walks around the side alley, filled with decaying cardboard boxes and broken beer bottles, to the ancient payphone near the dumpster.
Deniz pulled the call records before I even got here. Up until January, there were regular calls from this line to MikhailShevchenko, the long distance fee paid by the recipient. Since then, the calls are still placed every Friday evening. They all go unanswered.
Does she think her uncle abandoned her, or does she know her father well enough to suspect his involvement? Does she worry that her father discovered her drowning was fabricated?
Deniz has confirmed that not a single call has been placed from this payphone to anyone related to Konstantin, personally or professionally. In fact, the only calls made from that phone over the past year have been to Mikhail, other than two to a bail bond provider and one to a funeral home in upstate New York.
I haven’t had a chance to sneak back over to place a recording device in the payphone, so for now I watch Alice as she feeds coins into the receptacle and dials the burner number that her uncle will never answer. Clara and Deniz are fairly certain that Konstantin isn’t aware of the burner, but we likely will never know everything he pried from Mikhail’s throat. We can only assume that if he knew about the calls from this payphone, Alice would already be gone.