The arrest played on the morning news while Raquel sat on her hotel bed. She was finishing off the soggy remains of a sandwich from the hospital cafeteria while she texted Thiago. If she did at least three tasks at once, she felt less conscious about eating so many meals this way, alone.

Do you think that man, she texted Thiago, could kidnap the rice and beans off his own plate?

She swallowed a bit more of her soggy sandwich and reread the message, regretting having sent it. Since the gun, Thiago had offered so little. He took hours to respond, and when he did, the only jokes he made were about giving her job to Enrico if she stayed away much longer—Enrico, who was so cocky and inept they’d spent entire meals making fun of him.

The police believe this arrest may lead to the return of beloved writer Beatriz Yagoda, the newscaster announced, brushing her bleached bangs out of her face, and Raquel clicked off the TV. She also kicked the remote to the floor, then her phone, which made for several desperate seconds of searching when it began to ring.

It was only Rocha, however. In his standard aloof voice, he reported that he’d received a letter from her mother postmarked from the remote island Boipeba. Her request, he said, is for you to go to her.

Raquel looked down at her filthy clothes on the floor, her tank tops wilted with sweat, her yellowed bras. The one well-cut linen dress she’d brought was now stained in two places, though she’d continued to wear it anyhow. She’d even begun reusing her underwear.

Rocha explained that the letter had been very brief, and Raquel nodded, not aware that she’d begun to cry until she wiped her face. And my mother thinks, she said, that she can just send a note through you and I’ll jump on the next ferry to Boipeba?

My dear, you are free to do with this information as you please.

Am I? I don’t feel particularly free. Raquel yanked open the desk drawer to get the notepad she’d seen there. What’s the name of her hotel?

Well, I had my assistant look into the matter and I think you might find her at Pousada do Sol. Your mother’s only remark was that she was lodging at the one with yellow umbrellas.

All she gave was the color of the umbrellas? Puta que o pariu! Raquel sank onto the bed. She knew this was just the sort of outburst that a man like Rocha would recoil from and she should calm down. He was their only savior.

And what am I supposed to do about my brother? she yelled anyway. Leave my mother’s translator in charge? Emma doesn’t understand anything about Brazilian hospitals.

The translator will be adequate, Rocha said. I really have to go, dear. Um beijo.

Alone again with the little that remained of her soggy hospital sandwich, Raquel turned to her phone to cope in the way of her generation. She tapped the screen and began to search for things.

There was a catamaran to Morro de São Paulo. Then she’d have to take a speedboat. There didn’t seem to be a direct route, but with her mother there never had been.

She scrolled down for the boat schedule but found only a single time: one chance a day at 10 a.m.

She had fifty-three minutes.