Latitude Zero (22 page)

“Thanks. I guess. But . . . you really thought Juan Carlos was cheating?”

“He wouldn’t be the first pro to do it.”

“How would he cheat?”

“Stash an unapproved bike in the woods until after the pre-race bike inspections were over. Then pretend to have a mechanical failure, pull over, and have someone swap his regulation bike for a tricked-out one, with enhancements. He’d need an accomplice. Like your old buddy Jake. That’s what I thought anyway.”

“Jake wasn’t an accomplice. He suspected Juan Carlos of cheating, too.” I shook my head. Picturing Juan Carlos as a cheater was almost as hard as imagining him caught up in shady business with a drug cartel. “But why would he even consider cheating? He was an amazing rider.”

“He was,” Mari agreed. “But he felt tons of pressure ever since Cadence came on board. Chris Fitch was really on his case about needing to win.”

“Juan Carlos
had
wins,” I pointed out. “Have you seen his race stats this season? He was on a streak.”

“He needed
big
wins,” said Mari. “Record-breaking times. Juan Carlos told me, the day before the race, that Chris wanted world champions riding on Cadence brand bikes.”

“Why?”

“Because people love to buy what champions ride. Look what Lance did for Trek.”

“Dylan said something about that.”

“Sure. That’s what consumers want. The bicycles of champions. I hear it all the time at the shop.”

“So Juan Carlos was supposed to do well at Chain Reaction, to kick off the Cadence-EcuaBar partnership?” I guessed, remembering the team photo, the unfurled banner.

“That’s what Juan Carlos told me.”

I sank into a nearby chair. I’d known el Cóndor, the character. Not Juan Carlos, the person. He’d made everything look so effortless, but clearly it wasn’t that way. He had pressure, too, to fit other people’s expectations. To exceed them, even.

“Chris was so mean about Juan Carlos, when he didn’t show for the photo shoot,” I recalled out loud. “It seemed like he didn’t like Juan Carlos, or care if he missed the team photo. Wait. Mari!” I suddenly remembered Chris’s TV interview with Bianca Slade. “Chris Fitch’s brother died.
In a bike crash.
Don’t you think it’s a little weird that the CEO of Cadence knows two people who died in bike crashes?”

Mari tipped her head, considering this. “It is a pretty big coincidence. But you don’t really suspect Chris as the bike saboteur, do you? He wouldn’t kill his star cyclist—someone he was making money off of—in a public place. On a bike that his company manufactured. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No. I guess you’re right.” I scratched the back of my neck and let my gaze drift to the statue’s aluminum patchwork, while I tried to piece all this new information together. So far, Darwin was the more likely missing link between the bike theft and Juan Carlos’s death. For a moment I’d let myself hope that I wasn’t being stalked by a murderer on the loose. That hope was fading fast. I glanced behind us again. The tourists from the bus were approaching now. I talked faster, in case “eyes and ears” were among those tourists. “So what happened? You found the bike in the woods. Did it seem enhanced in any way?” I thought of Jake’s motor-in-the-seat-tube idea. “Heavier, maybe?”

“Heavier? No, I don’t think so. And everything looked regulation on the outside. I didn’t get a chance to take stuff apart, though, because then I heard voices.”

“You must have heard Darwin and me talking. After he chased me down the path.”

“I’m sure I did. But at the time, I just thought I’d stumbled into a cheating scam, and I didn’t want Juan Carlos to get into trouble. I grabbed that bike and ran like hell. Then I stashed it in the back of the Compass Bikes van.”

I held my breath. So Mari was the one who’d foiled Darwin’s plans! While Darwin was threatening me in the woods, Mari had found Juan Carlos’s spare bike. And all the time Darwin was searching the woods, based on the information he’d gotten from me, Mari had been putting that bike in her van. And then I’d ridden in that same van, with his bike—and whatever was in it—smuggled in the back.

“Where did you take the bike?” I demanded. “Did you return it to Dylan? Is that why it was at the Open Road school?”

“Not quite.” She shoved her hands in her jeans pockets and sighed. “I went looking for Juan Carlos. To tell him I’d taken his bike back, and to talk him out of cheating. But there wasn’t enough time, and no one could find him. The race started without him. And then . . .” She looked down. “He joined the recreational ride and tried to catch his team. But he didn’t get far. And there I was with this bike on my hands.”

“So then you turned it over to Dylan?”

“No. I thought about it. But I couldn’t.”

“How come?”

“All these TV people were hovering around the team trailer. I didn’t want him to look bad. I did not want cheating to be his lasting legacy. Not when all those kids looked up to him. So I hid his bike in the Compass Bikes basement, under a bunch of tarps, thinking I’d just return the bike to Juan Carlos when I saw him next. When he recovered”—she kicked a piece of litter on the ground—“which he didn’t.”

Santiago, Jim, and Liz jogged back in our direction. “Are you two coming?” Santiago called to us. “There is an entrance to the observation deck. We can climb up inside the statue.”

I waved them forward. “Go ahead! We’ll catch up in a sec!”

“Bueno,”
said Santiago. He looked at us—at me, it seemed—for just a moment longer, the wind ruffling his wavy hair and lighting it up almost gold. Then he turned to follow Liz and Jim, who had disappeared into the statue.

“He’s really nice,” said Mari, watching them go. She elbowed me and gave me a sly grin. “See, didn’t I tell you another guy always comes along?”

I ignored her comment, in no mood to dish about Santiago. “Here’s what I don’t get,” I said, pacing back and forth. “Juan Carlos’s spare bike, the one I saw in the woods, was in Dylan’s storage room, hanging on the wall. You even filmed it. How did it get back there if you didn’t take it?”

“No idea,” Mari admitted. “It confused the hell out of me when I saw the bike there, but I didn’t think I could tell you why. Back at Compass Bikes that same afternoon, I checked, and the bike
I’d
taken was still under the tarps in the basement. So whatever bike I saw hanging at Dylan’s had to be an extra bike—maybe Juan Carlos had more bikes than his teammates—or it didn’t even belong to Juan Carlos. Then, Friday morning? When I went back to work to pick up my last paycheck? I thought I’d take the bike back to Dylan, and tell him what I’d done. But I looked in the basement and it was gone.”

“Because it was put into the shipping container!” I exclaimed, remembering what Balboa had told me. “The girl spy, Balboa. And the other guy, Pizarro. They snuck it on the day we did the load, either when we were busy and didn’t see them, or when we all went inside.” Then I frowned. “But wait a second. How would they have known to look for it at Compass Bikes? I thought they picked up the bike from Dylan’s storage room.”

“Did they say that’s where they got it?” Mari asked.

I thought a moment, mentally replaying texts and conversations. I shook my head. “Darwin said they’d found it, but he didn’t say where. I assumed he got it from Dylan’s because he found it the same day we went there. Then Balboa said I’d led them right to the bike, so I assumed they’d followed us there.” Then I groaned. “My stupid cell phone. Darwin was tracking me on it. I was near Compass Bikes, with my phone turned on, on Wednesday. They probably followed my trail of electronic crumbs and poked around the shop until they found the bike you hid in the basement. Then I bet they took advantage of the container load the next day to get it shipped under the radar. This is all my fault. I should never have turned my phone on near the shop.”

Mari patted my arm. “It’s
not
your fault. I bet they would have come by the shop eventually to check it out, knowing Juan Carlos volunteered there. But let’s think about what this all means. The spare bike I saw at Dylan’s place, hanging under Juan Carlos’s name? That couldn’t have been the bike they were looking for. It must not have really been Juan Carlos’s spare, because I had that in the basement right up until the container load. I bet it was someone else’s spare, just as a place holder. You know? Maybe Dylan was trying to make it look like he didn’t screw up and give someone a chance to break into the team trailer.”

I nodded excitedly. “You could be right! Dylan didn’t want to lose his job. He loved that job, and he needed the money. He wouldn’t want to risk an inspection of all the team bikes. That’s why I don’t think he’s the killer. I think Dylan was framed by Darwin.”

“Or Dylan could have been paid off to help in some way, if he needed money so badly,” Mari suggested. “I could see him being bribed to look the other way. Maybe to leave the team trailer unlocked to let the saboteur in.”

“He might not have known what was going to happen,” I added. “Maybe that’s why he felt so broken up about what happened to Juan Carlos. I mean, the guy was practically crying.”

“So if Dylan’s not the real killer, who is?”

I thought for a moment. “Darwin has to be involved,” I said. “And the bike that’s in the shipping container might help us to understand the why and the how, especially since Balboa started to tell me that something was inside it. That’s possible, right?”

“Sure,” said Mari. “But what do you think it is?”

“Money from drug deals? Could you fit a lot of cash in the handlebars or the tubes?”

“It’s possible,” said Mari. “The carbon fiber could be hollowed out. And the cash could be rolled up small.”

“Well, if Juan Carlos was trying to take or hide a bike stuffed with cash, and not following some kind of order, that could explain why someone wanted him dead,” I said. “I know one thing for sure, though. We have to get to that bike before Darwin does. Once he moves it to its final destination, wherever that is, it’ll be lost for good.”

“You’re right. But we won’t see that bike for five more days,” said Mari. “Maybe more, if the protestors block the highway from the coast. I wish we could figure out what kind of information Darwin is looking for. Maybe that would be enough to take to the chief of police here, or to the U.S. consulate or something. And then we could get authorities to intercept the bike—and Darwin—at the container unload.”

The note from Darwin crinkled in my pocket. “I have an idea—” I ventured. Santiago’s voice, calling to us, interrupted me.

“Mari! Tessa!” he shouted. Jim and Liz were waving to us from the observation deck. “The view is amazing. Come up!”

Glancing at the rapidly approaching throng of tourists—or possible spies—I winced at the sound of my name being shouted. I figured now was a good time to vanish, so I muttered, “I’ll tell you later.” Mari went into the statue ahead of me, scampering up the narrow staircase. I was about to follow when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I turned to find a girl with a Panama hat, sunglasses, and flaming red hair. She handed me an envelope, then turned and ran off, weaving through the growing crowd of tourists.

40

STILL AT
the base of the statue, I tore open the envelope. Inside was a bad printout, unevenly inked. An invitation.

BAILA BAILA BAILA!!
DANCE PARTY HAPPENING SOON!!!
PARTY LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!
CALL THE NUMBER BELOW TO RSVP AND
RECEIVE DETAILS OF TIME AND PLACE

The invitation was decorated with bad clip art—outlines of people dancing—and a phone number was typed at the bottom.

I pulled out the note from the Ruizes’ gate this morning.

The phone number was the same.

So this was Darwin’s new cover. Sending old-fashioned notes to me on paper, since I wasn’t using my cell phone here. And email was probably too traceable, too risky.

This communiqué looked, at first glance, like an invitation to an underground party. I’d gotten something like this before in Boston, walking down Newbury Street, and also in New York City. Back then I was flattered that someone thought I was hip enough to invite. Now I was just creeped out. Because of course there was no dance party. This was a not-so-veiled threat.

Clutching the invitation, I ran after Balboa. She was easy to spot with that Panama hat, white with a black band, and her long red hair. Her hip, nightclub-style outfit also marked her: tight black jeans and a close-fitting black T-shirt with rhinestones, beneath her leather jacket. She was the opposite of undercover, standing out in this fanny-pack-wearing crowd. As if daring herself to get caught. Yet she
was
undercover at the same time, I suddenly realized, posing as someone trolling for hip young tourists, soliciting underground partiers.

“Hey!” I shouted as she headed toward a taxi queue. “I need to talk to you!”

She glanced back, then ran faster.

I knew Balboa had a scary side. She had run Mari into the street on that bike ride, and possibly helped to orchestrate Juan Carlos’s death, too. But I doubted she had a gun or a knife tucked into those skin-tight jeans. She probably wouldn’t attack me with her bare hands, at least not out here in the open. And she was close to my age. Potentially approachable. If I could convince her that Mari and I knew nothing and had nothing, maybe I could get her to talk. And get answers.

I was within four feet of her when she whirled around. “Get away from me,” she hissed. “I’m just here delivering a message. I’m not supposed to interact.”

“Did you guys take my friend Mari’s laptop? And follow her around?” I demanded.

I took her tight-lipped glare as a yes, and I fired off more questions. “What are you looking for? Why are you after Mari now? And me?”

“You’ll have to talk to Darwin. Call that number.”

I glanced at the paper.
Party like your life depends on it!

She turned and ran again, back toward the street. I chased her, heart pounding. “Hey! I’m not done with you! Did
you
kill Juan Carlos?” I called after her. “Did
you
run him off the road so he’d crash on a sabotaged bike?”

“No!” she called back over her shoulder. “Are you kidding? That’s way out of my job description. I’m in communications!”

I caught up with her and grabbed her arm. “Then start communicating. Did
Darwin
kill Juan Carlos? Or Pizarro? Or some other creep in your shady spy operation?”

“No. No one in our group killed him. I swear. Let go of my arm!”

She tried to wrench it free. I held tighter.

“Does Darwin know who did it? Did he have anything to do with it?”

“I can’t talk to you! I already got in trouble for talking to you at the shipyard.”

“You seemed happy enough to talk to me then.”

“I felt sorry for you, okay? You weren’t supposed to go poking around in there and get yourself locked in. You almost screwed everything up. Your dying in there would have been a disaster. Now leave me alone. You’re compromising my mission!”

“I will not leave you alone. Tell me about this ‘mission.’ What do you know about how Juan Carlos died? And what is up with that bike in the shipping container? We know you’re trying to smuggle something into the country that customs can’t find out about. Is it money? How much? And where is it going? If you’re going to follow me around and pass me these little notes, I have a right to know.”

Her head snapped to the right. “Help! Help!” she shouted toward a newly arriving group of tourists, hikers, coming up a path a few yards away. “I’m being mugged!”

I let go of her arm, fast. Balboa fled and jumped into a yellow taxi parked by the curb. The taxi sped away, rubber streaking the pavement.

I swore under my breath. I’d blown it. I’d watched Bianca Slade enough to know that badgering or intimidating the source was not the way to get information. I should have eased my way in, warmed her up, gained her trust.

Two men from the tourist group jogged over to me. “What’s going on?” one man asked, in a German accent. “I’m going to call the police!”

“No, please don’t!” I protested as he pulled out a phone. “She’s my sister. We were just having an argument. She was being dramatic.”

The men looked at me with suspicion, then at each other. “Okay,” said the German reluctantly, pocketing the phone.

“You should be careful,” said the other man, more kindly. “There have been muggings up here lately. And worse. Our hotel concierge warned us about this. El Panecillo is no place for girls to come alone.”

I raced back to the statue. Darwin was the missing link between the crimes. There was now no doubt in my mind. Even if he didn’t kill Juan Carlos directly, he had to know who did. He’d likely been the one to arrange it.

Mari greeted me at the observation deck of the statue, wide-eyed and worried. “I was about to go look for you!” she whispered. “I saw a taxi peel out of here. I thought you’d been kidnapped!”

Keeping my voice low while Santiago talked to Jim and Liz, I told her about Balboa, and showed her the “invitation.” “I’m going to find a pay phone after we leave here, and call him,” I said. “I’m not going to let him chase us all over the city like this. I want to find out what he wants.”

“Tessa, you can’t!” she protested.

“I have to meet with him,” I insisted. “But I’m going to videotape our conversation. If I can get some kind of confession from him about how he’s connected to Juan Carlos’s death and the bike theft, I’m going straight to the embassy.”

She shook her head. “It’s way too dangerous, Tessa. You’re getting in over your head. Police do this kind of work.”

“And how far have you gotten with the police here?” I countered.

She had no response.

“Exactly. Look, I’ll be okay. I do interviews all the time. That’s how I’m thinking of this meeting. Just an informational interview.”

/////

SANTIAGO DROPPED
off Mari, Jim, and Liz, and then headed back to the Ruiz house. “That was fun,” he said. “Or at least I thought so. You and your friend seemed worried. I am not so sure you were having fun.”

“No, we had fun, too,” I said absently, scanning the stores that we passed for any sign that one had a pay phone. Then I saw a sign in the door of a convenience store.
Teléfono públicó.
I was already unbuckling my seat belt. “Would you mind stopping at the store on the corner?”

He pulled over. When he started to get out of the car with me—Ecuadorian manners again—I held up a hand. “I’ll just be a moment. I need to get some . . . personal products.”

“Ah. Of course.” Reddening, he sat back down and closed the car door.

I ran in and asked the old woman manning the tired-looking
tienda
if I could make a call. I handed her some coins, and she put the receiver of an antique-looking rotary-dial phone in my hand, I felt her staring at me while I dialed the number on the “party invitation.”

Turning my back to the woman, I walked to the other end of the counter, stretching the coiled phone cord as long as I could. I stood by a shelf filled with bins of delicious-smelling gold-brown rolls and bread loaves.

While the phone rang, I felt something tugging at my shirt. I looked down and saw two small boys standing there, staring at me with dirt-streaked faces that seemed hardened beyond their years.
“¿Señorita? ¿Limpieza?”
asked one of them, pointing at my shoes.

A shoe shine? Were they kidding? I was wearing sandals. Maybe they just wanted money. I dug in my pocket for some coins, gave them to the children, and pointed to the bread bins.

But the woman at the counter shooed them away before they could buy any bread, and I couldn’t run after the kids because another woman’s voice was talking in my ear.

“¿Hola? ¿Quién habla?”
She cleared her throat.
“¿Hola?”

It wasn’t Darwin. Maybe this was some kind of secretary I had to go through first. “Um, my name’s Tessa. I got an invitation,” I finally said, in Spanish. “I’m calling about a dance party.”

There was a pause, and then a different person came on the phone. “Tessa Taylor?”

Of course it was Darwin. His voice was harsh and raspy, just like I remembered. Remembering our brief, scary encounter in the woods—the last time we’d spoken in person—I almost hung up.

Instead I channeled my inner Bianca Slade, and continued. “I’m willing to meet with you, but only if you’ll quit following my friend Mari. She came here to volunteer, not to be stalked and harassed. You leave her alone, or we don’t talk.”

He laughed. “You have a knack for negotiation. You’re a lawyer’s kid, all right. I admire that. All right. But this meeting is serious. If you fail to show, our deal’s out the window, and all of my previous warnings apply. Remember those warnings?”

I clutched the receiver with both hands. I remembered them all too well.

“I can spread more dirt about you online, and destroy your mom’s business in an instant,” he reminded me. “I can ruin your dad, while I’m at it—I know the defense in the case he’s working on now would be very interested to hear about his radical activist past. Including allegations of links to cold cases involving arson. I can make that happen.”

My whole body went cold. My dad needed his job. And I couldn’t imagine him holding up well under the stress of such horrible, career-killing false accusations. I pictured the calendar in our kitchen, the boxes darkening with doctors’ appointments. “Leave my dad out of this!” I burst out. “Don’t you dare make up a story about him!”

The woman minding the cash register looked over at me.

“Then you’d better do what I say,” said Darwin. “Oh, and about your friend Mari? Let’s just say, among other things, her college financial aid package hangs in the balance. One anonymous tip from my organization about her work as a drug mule, and all her federal support will be gone. Felons don’t get financial aid. In other words, Tessa, you’d better follow through, and you’d better not sing out. ¿
Comprendes?
”

My grip tightened on the phone receiver. “
Comprendo
. I got it.” The ground seemed to buck and sway beneath my feet. There was no limit to the ideas this creep could think up.

“Now listen carefully. I am going to give you an address. Write it down. I’ll see you at six
P.M.
tomorrow. A man will ask you about mangoes. You’ll tell him they’re best at this time of year, and he’ll let you in.”

I shivered. The mango code. I’d guessed right. It was used to identify personal contacts, people in their ring.

“And Tessa,” Darwin finished, “make sure you come alone. Or else.”