Latitude Zero (17 page)

“A motor?” I laughed. “Come on.”

“It sounds crazy, but believe me, it’s possible. It’s called mechanized doping. With enough money sunk into developing a product, and with a willing team of accomplices, a pro could get away with it. I thought if I could find any proof, I could take it to the cycling board. When you said his spare bike was hidden in there—and a guy was there—I felt like it had to be a cheating scheme with a swapped-out bike. Catching him in the act was more important to me than finishing the ride—or taking care of you. And I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I guess I just lost myself that day. And now I’ve lost you.”

“So why did you lie to me again, and tell me you made it to mile twenty? You didn’t.”

“Because I didn’t find the bike in the woods. Or the guy you mentioned. And I felt like a total idiot. It seemed easier to say I’d made it to the checkpoint. Now I see that was wrong. Look, I’m telling you I’m sorry. For everything. What more do you want from me?”

“Right.” More lies, more explanations, more apologies. I’d had enough. I stood up. “I think you should just tell all this to the police. I can’t help you.”

“I can’t. My word counts for nothing with cops. So I’m just going to tell them I was riding with you. The whole time. Please, Tessa. Come back me up. I swear it’s the last thing I’ll ask from you.” He took a step toward me. I turned, backed away, and crashed into the swing.

Jake reached for me. He bent low, and I felt his breath on my cheek.

I swatted at him. “No! Get away from me!”

“Jesus! I’m just trying to help you up, Tessa. Why are you acting all—”

The front door flew open. “Tessa?” said my dad, as Jake and I both sprang apart from each other. “All right. Get the hell out!” he shouted at Jake. “You are not a welcome visitor!”

“Okay, okay! I was just leaving.” Jake scrambled to get on his bike.

My mom joined Dad in the doorway, and together they watched him ride off.

“Your mother and I had reached a decision,” said my dad. “We were going to let you go to South America next year, after graduation. But now?” He glared at Jake’s departing figure, then gave my mom a long look. She nodded. Firmly. “We’ve changed our mind,” my dad said.

My heart sunk.

“We think some perspective in another country, and some time away from that loser, would do you a whole world of good.”

31

I GAZED
out at the darkening sky and the jagged peaks of the Andes. As the plane began its descent, soft yellow-gold lights winked through thick clouds. Then trickles of lights, and then streams spilled down from the sides of mountains, pooling into a valley. Quito, Ecuador’s capitol city. My home for the next three weeks. As we soared over el Cóndor’s homeland, I imagined an Inca sun god had scattered gold across velvety hills.

I rested my forehead against the window. Somewhere, among those lights, my host family waited for me. I’d wanted to stay with Mari in her cousin’s apartment, but my parents had laid down the law. “That girl is eighteen,” my dad had said. “You’re not. Homestay or nothing.”

I hadn’t argued. I was grateful they’d let me go at all. They’d gifted me credit-card flier miles and paid the Vuelta program fee. That’s how desperate they were to get me away from Jake. Not to mention the unfolding criminal investigation into Juan Carlos’s murder.

Now Juan Carlos’s death was officially considered foul play, and Jake’s future was on the line.

After Jake’s unannounced visit, I’d had to confess to my parents that Jake was a person of interest in a homicide case. They freaked out. Then they took action. It turned out my dad knew a detective in the Cabot PD. He took me there personally the next day to tell Detective Lauren Grant about the morning of Chain Reaction, especially the two brief periods of time when I couldn’t account for Jake’s whereabouts. I knew they’d use this information against him in his questioning. But I turned my heart into steel. Jake had deceived me since April. I owed him nothing.

Once I got started talking, I’d wanted to tell Detective Grant even more. About Darwin’s threatening texts. About Pizarro threatening me at knifepoint, demanding “information.” About Juan Carlos’s stolen spare bike and its secret contents, now en route to latitude zero. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the spare bike and its contents had some link to the saboteur of the main bike, or would help to explain the reason behind Juan Carlos’s death. Two bike crimes against the same person, at the same event, had to be connected somehow.

Yet when Detective Grant had said, “Anything else you want to tell us today, Tessa?” I’d gone silent. I remembered Balboa’s warnings about what else Darwin might do to destroy my family and me online. Who knew what other dirt Darwin had dug up—or could make up?

Still, every day that the investigation focused on Jake brought detectives one step closer to me, I was sure. That dropped glove didn’t look good for Jake. At all. Police were looking into Jake and Juan Carlos’s history of rivalry on the junior team, just as Jake had feared. In a
Boston Globe
article about the case, a reporter described the whole doping scandal and Jake’s possible motives for vengeance.

“Only a matter of time before reporters come sniffing around here,” my dad had muttered, flinging that newspaper straight into recycling.

Then, about a week later, a startling new development emerged.

A ball peen hammer and razor—the tools Mari had said were likely used for the bike sabotage—had been found on the Team Cadence-EcuaBar trailer floor. Forensics tests showed the razor had paint flecks matching the paint on Juan Carlos’s spare bike. And the fingerprints found all over the tools? Not Jake’s.

Dylan Holcomb’s.

That was not so surprising. They were, after all, his tools—as Dylan explained tirelessly in news interviews. Dylan also insisted he hadn’t seen any signs of sabotage upon his inspection. Then he changed his story. He admitted that upon his post-race inspection, he’d noticed indications of sabotage, but he’d been afraid to report it for fear of losing his job. He’d left the trailer for a few minutes on a bathroom break, and hadn’t double-checked the lock. That lapse had given the saboteur a small window of time in which to enter the trailer and do the job.

With a shifting story line, no other fingerprints but his on the tools, and no alibi, Dylan had replaced Jake as the prime suspect. While he was being questioned, Dylan wasn’t allowed to leave the country. He couldn’t even go on the Pan-American Cycling Tour with the team. I was relieved the focus was off Jake. But I felt bad for Dylan. Maybe he was a flake about security, but he just didn’t seem capable of hurting Juan Carlos.

That shipping container unloading date couldn’t come fast enough. If the smuggled spare bike contained evidence to help get the right person into custody—even fingerprints or a strand of hair from the thief—Dylan could be a free man.

The pilot interrupted my thoughts, announcing that we’d be landing soon. From my backpack, I took out a printed copy of my host family’s introductory email and family photo. I studied the printout of the Ruiz family’s smiling faces.

My pretty host mom, Lucia Ruiz, looked to be in her early forties. With her sharp suit, sleek updo, and perfect makeup, she had the polished look of a news anchor, but her letter said she was a stay-at-home mom. My host dad, Hugo, was an economist. He wore delicate wire glasses that made him look intellectual, and he had an athletic build. They both looked way younger than my own parents. Fifteen-year-old Amparo had a heart-shaped face and long, dark hair, brushed straight and glossy. The letter mentioned (twice) that she was the second runner-up for Miss Teen Quito. She posed with careful posture, as if balancing an invisible tiara on her head. Andreas, my twelve-year-old host brother, had long, tousled hair that hung in his eyes and wore a soccer uniform. He held my host poodle, Peludo.

I reread the letter. They were “so exciting” to have me come as a “last-minute replace” for someone who’d had to cancel. They would “eagerly to meet me at airport on 12 Julio.” My room “was preparation and waited for me.” They had “many exciting actividades planning.”

I hoped they weren’t planning too many
actividades
. I had plenty of
actividades
of my own planned. Like volunteering for Vuelta, and doing interviews for my vlog. Like finding out why Juan Carlos’s spare bike was supposed to end up in Quito, and getting my hands on it in the hopes it would help unravel the mystery of Juan Carlos’s death.

The plane bucked from turbulence. The woman next to me clutched her armrests and murmured prayers in Spanish. As we were pushed through the cloud cover, the lights of Quito rose up to greet us.

Wheels skidded onto the tarmac, and the passengers burst into applause.

32

IN THE
airport, I confronted only stress and chaos. Sputtering white fluorescent lights. Endless lines at customs. Tired babies shrieked and wailed, ignored by exhausted mothers. Dazed tourists fumbled with fanny packs. Recorded announcements in Spanish and English, at regular intervals, urged travelers to hold on to bags, and not to carry anything on behalf of a stranger.

I couldn’t wait to get out of that scene and find my host family. For the first time, it hit me: this was serious travel. I’d been to eco-resorts—Costa Rica, Aruba—and on a school band trip to Montreal. Always with parents or chaperones. Now I had to do all my own navigating.

After finally clearing customs, I went to a restroom to splash water on my face. Scraping my tangled hair into a ponytail, I made a face at my reflection. Everyone around me wore full makeup, cute outfits. Elaborate footwear—lots of high heels—peeked out from under the stalls. I wore a pair of old Chuck Taylors and a hopelessly wrinkled T-shirt. I’d spilled tomato juice on my jeans. I probably wasn’t going to make the most stunning first impression on the Ruiz family.

Leaving the secure area of the airport, I passed through a long metal tunnel, like a cage. People were pressed up against the other side of it, calling out to family and friends. Boys my age—and some older men—stared as I passed through. Some whistled or clicked their tongues. Others murmured catcalls.

“¡Qué guapa!”

“¡Qué rica, la gringa!”

I wanted to run or hide my face. But I thought of my mom, younger, cowering in a hotel room, afraid to go out in the streets in Juárez, Mexico. I wouldn’t be like that. And this was Quito, a cosmopolitan city. I turned my skin to steel, imagining words and stares glancing off.

Then I realized, as the men called to some other girl walking behind me, that nobody here knew who I was. In Quito, I wasn’t Tessa Taylor, the fallen star of
KidVision
. I wasn’t “Jake’s girl.” And I definitely wasn’t an overgrown Dora the Explorer. I was just some gringa to whistle at. Just a person walking by.

That thought was incredibly freeing.

I made three loops around the waiting area at the airport. I scanned the crowds of travelers reuniting with loved ones, businesspeople meeting associates. Everyone got whisked away in taxis and waiting cars. I kept my eyes out for a sign with my name. I passed lots of people holding signs for strangers they were meeting. Not one of them said “Tessa Taylor.”

Had the Ruizes forgotten me?

I rummaged for their letter in my pack. I hadn’t brought my cell phone to Quito—my parents cheaped out on the international roaming charges, which was fine by me. I didn’t need Darwin staying in touch.

I could probably find a pay phone—I’d read on an Ecuador travel site that pay phones could still be found at some stores and Internet cafés. But the letter wasn’t in my pack. With a groan, I realized it must have fallen out on the plane, probably during that turbulence, which had knocked my pack over. I wished I could call Mari—she’d know what to do—but she had no cell phone in Quito either, and her cousin had no landline—too expensive, Mari had explained when I asked. It was almost eight p.m. on a Friday evening, and the Vuelta offices would be closed by now. None of the taxi drivers looked like people I really wanted to jump into a car with. The drivers stood with arms crossed, or paced back and forth, or lit up cigarettes, looking hungrily in my direction.

I sat down on a curb, zipped up my hoodie, and rubbed my arms to keep warm. So much for summer. It was cold here up in the Andes Mountains. The tropical paradise part of Ecuador, and the steamy jungles and cloud forests promised by the brochures, must be far away.

I looked up, as if for a map in the stars. I blinked back tears. And caught my breath. Oh my God. Those stars! Diamonds flung on black velvet. I wanted to reach out and grab them.

The airport crowds began to thin out. A boy approached me, holding a sign.

“Excuse me? This is you?” The sign had my name on it, misspelled:
TERESA TYLER.

The voice jolted me. The accent, the pitch, the musical lilt—it sounded so much like Juan Carlos! I scrambled to my feet, half expecting to see him.

It was not Juan Carlos standing there, of course, but a different guy. He was tall—probably over six feet—with milky-brown skin, light brown, curly hair, and deep blue eyes that made me think of those pictures of earth shot from space. He wore dark wash jeans, a pale blue polo shirt, and a brown leather jacket. He didn’t look like anyone in the Ruiz family photo. He also seemed around my age—too old to be my host brother. Good-looking, I couldn’t help noticing, but smiling eagerly, in a way that made me cautious.

“Who are you?” I held my backpack tight.

“Santiago Jaramillo,” he replied with a warm smile. As if I was supposed to know who he was.
“¡Bienvenidos a Ecuador!”
He leaned forward—or lunged. I thought of Pizarro with his knife and turned my head at the last second.

Santiago’s nose bashed my ear.

I backed away, crashing into a garbage can.

“Oof,” said Santiago, rubbing his finely arched nose. “Sorry. Here in Ecuador, we greet each other with
besos
. In the United States, you are accustomed to handshakes, I think? Okay, then. We can shake hands.” He grinned and extended his right hand. “We start over. Yes?
Mucho gusto
.”

I shook his hand, still wary. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Yes, I can understand the confusion.” He laughed. “I wasn’t expecting me, either. I was at my home, studying for my TOEFL.”

“Your what?”

“Test of English as a Foreign Language. A very important exam for study in the United States. But then the Ruiz family called to my father. They said they could not get to the airport.”

“Wait—who’s your father?”

“Wilson Jaramillo. The director of Vuelta?”

Of course.
Jaramillo.
That’s why his name sounded familiar. But I’d just talked to Wilson on the phone the other day, and he hadn’t mentioned a son.

“He sent me to get you,” Santiago went on. “There is a road problem. Our house is closer to the airport, and I am an excellent driver. I know all the back roads here.”

Wilson hadn’t mentioned road problems, either.

“The main road, it is blocked,” Santiago explained. “A protest has closed down the Pan-American Highway.”

“Who’s protesting what?”

“
Los indígenas
, Ecuador’s native population. They are protesting our president’s decision to open more rain forest land for multinational oil companies and to make roads to the pipelines.”

I’d seen something about that on an EcuaBar wrapper. EcuaBar donated part of its proceeds to combat rain forest deforestation in Ecuador’s Amazon Basin. And Preston Lane had mentioned something about this issue in his commencement speech. “Should I be worried?” I asked.

He made a dismissive gesture. “It is mostly an inconvenient. Ready to go?”

I still felt unsure about trusting him. Being harassed by thugs and lied to by your boyfriend will do that to you. Your inner compass goes off-kilter, your instinct a spinning arrow.

“Do you know Mari Vargas?” If he had anything to do with Vuelta, he should know her.

He shook his head.

“She’s a Vuelta volunteer. A friend of mine. She got here about two weeks ago.”

“The TOEFL prep has been taking all my time. I have not met the new volunteers yet.”

He could be telling the truth. Still, I’d feel better if I could get in touch with my host family. “Can you call Mr. and Mrs. Ruiz? I had to leave my cell phone at home.”

“Of course.” He patted his jacket pockets, then his jeans pockets. Then he shrugged, with an apologetic smile and empty hands displayed. “
Ay.
I left it in my car. Shall we walk?”

“Is it far?”

“Not far.” He pointed in a vague direction. He might have pointed to a distant star.

I glanced at the taxi queue again. Not appealing. He offered to carry my suitcase and backpack, but I shook my head. Gripping my suitcase handle tightly, I followed him around the corner to his car, a white Nissan Pathfinder.

Santiago opened the door and reached in for his cell phone.

I stood a few feet away, ready to bolt.

Santiago spoke to someone on the phone in Spanish. I could hear a man on the other end. The two of them laughed about something before Santiago passed the phone to me.

My host father spoke in a mix of Spanish and English, slowly apologizing for the confusion. He sounded warm. Fatherly. I clutched the phone with two hands, grateful for the kind reassurances, suddenly aching for my own dad.

My host mother talked, too. There was food and a comfortable bed awaiting. I heard yipping in the background. Peludo the poodle.

That dog sealed the deal. The dog existed. The Ruizes were legitimate. Santiago must be who he said he was. I was going “home.” I slid into the passenger seat and closed the door.

Then I noticed a figure under a streetlight about ten yards away. A tall, thin guy with a ponytail. He turned toward Santiago’s car. Under the streetlight’s glare I saw dark eyes glinting beneath one dark eyebrow.

I gasped and sank low in my seat.

Pizarro? No. No way. Balboa had promised me that Darwin would leave me alone, now that the spare bike was heading to Quito. He wouldn’t go back on his word, would he? Were they monitoring me for some other reason? Maybe this was just someone who looked like Pizarro.

I stole another glance out the window.

Damn. It
was
him! He looked right at me and
beckoned
. I slid down in the seat again.

“You are not well?” Santiago cast me a worried look.

“Not so much,” I mumbled, feeling dizzy. I poked my head up and looked again.

I saw a black Honda Civic. Headlights winked on. Pizarro got in the passenger side. I saw a shape in the backseat, a mass of hair, glinting red beneath the streetlight. Balboa!

And the driver of the car? Darwin. I could see his broad shoulders, his thick neck, through the open window. He was still wearing aviator shades, even though the sun had set.

Come here,
he mouthed, looking right at me.

I hunched low in my seat, breathing hard, my heart pounding. All three of those creeps were here in Quito. Together. They hadn’t been on my flight—I’m sure I would have noticed them—so they must have arrived before me. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t gotten a text from Darwin in five days. How had they figured out I was coming here? And, more important, why did they care? I clearly had nothing to do with that bike! Did they still think I had some kind of “valuable information”? Or were they onto my plan of intercepting that bike—and its secret contents—in the shipping container, and here to make sure that I didn’t?

I turned to Santiago. “You look like someone who loves to drive fast,” I told him, even though he didn’t look like that at all. He looked exactly like the kind of guy who’d be studying for a TOEFL exam at home on a Friday night.

Santiago grinned. “I do like to drive fast. How did you guess?”

He cranked up the radio—a maniacal merengue song with blaring trumpets and a rhythm the pace of a heart attack. He put the car into gear and laid rubber. A Virgin Mary picture swung wildly from the rearview mirror.

I looked at the picture, then reached up and held tight to Juan Carlos’s necklace. If Darwin had it in for me, I’d need all the protection and backup I could get.