Page 5 of The Deepest Lake

“I’ll pass.”

On the boat, they learned that their guide, Ana Sofía, is a recent college graduate from Mexico City—not Guatemala, but at least her Spanish is perfect. Now she hops from cluster to cluster, stepping over bags, approaching each new participant with a strained smile.

Rose steps closer and with the most sympathetic voice she can muster, says, “I hope they’re at least paying you well for this?”

Ana Sofía says only, “Not exactly.”

So she, too, is probably working for tips.

“Are you a writer?” Rose asks.

“No.” Ana Sofía doesn’t bother to look up, too busy focusing on the damp sheet of paper in her hands. Her smooth black ballerina bun has begun to escape its pins. Rose feels bad for distracting this young woman who is busy doing the sort of thing her daughter would have done—a thought that makes Rose both uncomfortable and determined to keep talking to her.

“Have you been doing this job long?”

“Two weeks. Eva only has full staff when the workshop is running,” Ana Sofía says, distracted, moving her finger down a list of names. “This is all wrong. Pippa can’t do the stairs, so we’ll have to switch her with someone. Diane, you wanted a private room, but the bathroom is broken, so I think you would be happier in a double.”

Other women huddle closer to hear what Ana Sofía has to say. One of them, an older woman with gray-blond hair done up in an elegant twist, says, “Will you be staying at Casa Eva with us, honey?”

“No,” Ana Sofía says, focused on her sheet. “I am the town enlace. How do you say? Contact.”

“Liaison, yes,” the old woman purrs. “But whenever I’ve come, Eva has a nice girl helping—”

Rose asks, “Were you here for the last session?”

“No.” The woman frowns, shaking off Rose’s interruption. “Ana, I need to ask someone about my massage, and last year, they gave me a special chair in the classroom. I can’t sit on the hard ones.”

Ana Sofía shakes her head. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Eva, later, or maybe Barbara.”

Rose butts in again, stepping closer to Ana Sofía. “If you’re in town, do you stay in the cabins with us?”

The assistant looks up, visibly annoyed. “I have a friend who lives here. I stay with her. Now please. I have to solve this.”

Rose backs away, making a mental note. A Girl Friday works in town. Other helpers work at the house. Also: Ana Sofía is not a memoirist wannabe, which makes her situation slightly different from Jules’s.

They’ve always known where Jules stayed during her first nights in San Felipe: a local hostel. But then there was a week-long gap until she was last seen, swimming away from shore. If she was working for Eva in town, Jules must have transferred to another small hotel or some informal town lodging. Rose has a list of all the places their bilingual investigator checked. He could have missed something.

Rose hopes the frustration isn’t written on her face. She can’t even nail down the simplest things, like where her daughter slept once she started working for Eva, but Matt and the PI didn’t do any better. She doesn’t know if she is asking too many questions, but at least the other needy women give her some cover.

Rose notices that Isobel has moved to the shady back of the garden, where she’s chatting with a tall, fine-boned woman with spiky platinum hair. The woman’s linen pants and matching vest are somehow unwrinkled. Her red lipstick is still fresh.

Rose would prefer to find a corner where she can take out her e-reader and finish the Eva Marshall memoir she started reading on the plane, a book with such a heart-wrenching premise that she didn’t hear her zone being called for boarding at her second gate, in Houston. But meeting her fellow workshop participants is research, too. She rouses herself to appear more social.

“This is Lindsay,” Isobel says as Rose approaches. “She arrived too late for the Antigua dinner.” Isobel introduces them with eyebrows raised, as if she expects Rose to attach a story to the name, but she can’t just yet.

Lindsay is striking: half-corporate, half-rebel, if it’s really possible to be both. An Emma Thompson lookalike. She has good hair. Isobel, with her black-purple sheen, has fun hair. Rose’s shoulder-length brown lob is okay, at best.

“Sorry I missed the dinner. I’ve still got jet lag,” Lindsay says.

Isobel winks. “I thought you said it was a hangover.”

“That’s how long you can keep a secret? Two minutes?”

Isobel laughs and glances back to Rose again. “Now, Lindsay on the other hand . . .”

Rose is trying to decode the comment. Then she gets it. Lindsay’s essay was the one about bluffing and conning people. It was probably the best among the half dozen manuscripts forwarded to them.

“You wrote the piece about being a card sharp,” Rose says. “Or is it card shark?”

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