Latitude Zero (31 page)

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BACK IN
bed, I reassembled the necklace, with the flash drive nested inside, and laid it carefully on the nightstand. Then I picked it up and looked at it in the moonlight, letting the chain run through my fingers. It didn’t seem as shiny as it had before, like Juan Carlos’s spirit had flown out of it the moment it came apart. It was no longer a sentimental object, loaded with potential personal meaning or romantic implications. It was a storage case, containing a piece of electronic equipment.

I slipped it under my pillow.

Finally, I felt like a huge weight was lifting off my chest.

54

THE NEXT
morning, Lucia greeted us with warm smiles, huge plates of breakfast, frothy glasses of fresh-squeezed
jugo de tomatillo
, and an exuberant exclamation: “It is
venticuatro de julio
!”

I stared at her as she plunked Ecuadorian flags on toothpicks into our breakfast rolls.

“Um, yay?” I said. “What’s July twenty-fourth?”

Lucia frowned. “You do not know? There was no talk of this at Vuelta? It is
el natalicio del Libertador
!”

“The Liberator?” I echoed. That nickname sounded like another cyclist.

“Simón Bolivar. He helped to liberate Latin America from the Spanish Empire,” Lucia explained. He is a very important figure. On this day we have a public holiday, parades in the street, celebrations.”

Mari shot me a panicked look. “I’m sorry, Tessa,” she whispered. “My cousin told me about this this holiday, and I totally forgot about it. This could really throw off our plan.”

“If it’s a public holiday, does that mean offices are closed?” I asked Lucia.

“Government offices, yes, and most businesses. Hugo will not be at work, so he will take you to the container unload this morning,” Lucia explained as she stirred two short mugs of Nescafé.

I shook my head, struggling to keep up. “Today’s Thursday. The container unload is tomorrow.”

“No. It’s today! Wilson called early this morning to say that it is arriving today, a day ahead of schedule, despite the protests,” Lucia said, beaming. She handed Mari and me our coffee. “You must be at the Vuelta warehouse for the unload in one hour. Hugo will drive you right after breakfast. This means missing the circuit race for the PAC Tour, but I think this is more important, yes?”

Mari and I exchanged a look. “Santiago invited the ambassador to come to the container unload to see the bike tomorrow. Not today,” I whispered to Mari when Lucia disappeared into the kitchen again. “He won’t be at the container unload today. Or at the office—it’ll be closed!”

“But he
will
be at the PAC circuit race,” said Mari. “I guarantee. It’s the first PAC Tour cycling event in Ecuador, and it’s el Ratón’s debut event with Equipo Diablo. The ambassador, as a cycling fan, wouldn’t miss this for the world. And law enforcement will be a huge presence at the race. The ambassador should know which officers are trustworthy.”

“Are you saying we’re supposed to find the ambassador somewhere on the course?”

“It’s a high-speed, two-mile course making a square through the business district,” Mari explained. “The start and finish line are at the same place, since it’s a circuit. That’s where the grandstands are. El Parque Metropolitano. He’ll be there, in VIP seating. We’ll go there and give him the flash drive this morning.”

“But how, if we have the container unload? We can’t skip that.”

“So we’ll get the bike from the container and have Santiago drive us to the race as soon as we’re done,” said Mari. “We’ll find the ambassador and give him both things at once.”

“What about Preston?” I pointed out. “He said he’d be at the container unload.”

“That was back when the container load wasn’t scheduled for the same day as a race,” Mari countered. “I’m sure Preston will be at the circuit race too, with the team. Tied up in team business. We can get the bike past him and to the ambassador. I’m telling you, this early arrival of the shipping container is the best thing that could have happened.

“But what if people see us loading a bike into Santiago’s car? They might think we’re stealing a donation!”

“Can you be just a little bit positive about this?” said Mari. “God, what’s happened to you? We can get the bike into the car. If anyone asks, we’ll just say we found a mechanical problem that wasn’t caught back in Cambridge, and we’re taking it back to Vuelta. No big deal. Hey.” She lightly punched my arm. “Remember when you asked me to trust you? To go on your ride, when we went undercover at Dylan Holcomb’s place?”

“Yeah.”

“So now go on my ride. My plan will work. I’m sure of it.”

Lucia returned with a basket of fruit. “Eat up, girls! You’ll need your energy. Unloading those bikes will be a lot of work!”

I wanted to believe Mari. But I looked at the fruit, thinking of the Sports Xplor site, and suddenly felt sick.

/////

AFTER BREAKFAST,
while I waited for Mari to finish her shower, I checked my email, hoping something had come in from Amber.

It had. I called Mari over to read her note.

Hi Tessa,

Yes, I do remember you. How could I forget the girl who came to our bike school to spy on my husband? And who got that Watchdog reporter to come sniffing around, which led to the police sniffing around, which led to my husband being accused of a heinous crime? I remember you all right. And I have to say, you’re not exactly my favorite person right now. He’s been through so much, finally getting his life back on track, and this false accusation is not what he needs.

But I appreciate that now you’re trying to clear his name. I’m desperate to clear his name too. So desperate, I guess, that I decided to take your email seriously. I went through all the pre-race photos I took and found a few that looked odd. I have a bunch of Team EcuaBar riders goofing off by the trailer, like at any race, but something in the background made me look twice. I enlarged it and zoomed in on the suspicious area in the lower right corner. See the attached JPEGs.

I opened the picture file and made it full screen. Preston was removing a Cadence racing bike with white handlebars from the trunk of his Lexus SUV. The car was clearly his—the vanity plate said
ECUABAR
on it.

In the background of a second picture, taken moments later, Preston could be seen propping the bike against the side of his car, while talking to Coach Mancuso, who was also looking at the bike. In a third picture, the two men were doing something to the seat tube, it looked like. In the fourth photo, the men had moved to the back of the car, where they were looking in Preston’s trunk. The fifth image showed Juan Carlos mounting that bike while Preston and Coach Mancuso talked. In the sixth photo, almost out of the picture frame, Juan Carlos was seen riding away. And in the seventh image, the coach and Preston were back on the side of the car, Preston’s mouth wide open, aghast, and the coach making one of his wild, flailing hand gestures. If I could speed the pictures up like a movie, the sequence would show Juan Carlos taking off with a bike, surprising the team owner and coach who seemed to have other plans for it.

My heart pounded. The bike that I’d thought was Juan Carlos’s spare when I saw it in the woods might not have been his at all! That would explain why Mari had seen Juan Carlos’s spare bike on the wall at Dylan’s place. Juan Carlos’s spare bike had never been stolen. The bike was Preston Lane’s. And the money stashed inside it had to connect Preston to the death of Juan Carlos.

I went back to Amber’s email and read the end of her note.

When I zeroed in on this sequence of background images, a narrative began to emerge. Maybe you can see it too. That bike didn’t really belong to Juan Carlos. Yet. Dylan told me Preston had a new spare bike for Juan Carlos that he would give to Dylan to box up with the bikes going to the PAC Tour. That must have been the bike in the trunk. Dylan said he would want to check the fittings before he packed it, and run an inspection. Preston told him not to bother, just to pack it up the same day he got it. We both thought that sounded weird, but then Dylan said he never got the new spare bike from Preston, so he put it out of his mind. Now I’m going to show these pictures to the Cabot Police and see what they think. Clearly they should be questioning Preston and Tony. Not our boyfriends.

Our boyfriends
.

I’d stared at the word, not recognizing it for a moment. Maybe I’d been talking in Spanish so much, it seemed unfamiliar. But also the idea of Jake as my boyfriend now seemed so foreign to me. As did the idea that he was still a potential suspect. In my mind, I’d cleared him of suspicion. But until the truth about Preston and Darwin’s group came out, Jake wasn’t out of the woods. I wasn’t, either.

/////

LESS THAN
an hour later, we were in Hugo’s car, and he was driving us to a parking lot by a warehouse in a rundown area. “Why is this container delivery happening so far away?” he asked, frowning as we passed a busy long-distance bus terminal. He glanced at Amparo and Andreas. They had worn out their parents by pleading to come, and now sat in the back beside Mari.

“Because we’ve got nearly five hundred bikes coming, and we need a warehouse,” Mari explained. “There isn’t enough space to store them and organize them for distribution at the Vuelta headquarters. I’m sure it’s safe. Equipo Diablo stores their equipment there.”

Hugo pressed his lips together as we passed a row of shabby apartments. “Mm. I am not sure this is a good place for the children. I think my Lucia, she will not be so pleased.”

“So don’t tell her,” Andreas suggested.

“
Papi.
Please. We’re not babies,” said Amparo, with an impatient toss of her ponytail. The front of her hair was secured with one of Mari’s headbands, and instead of her usual frilly blouse or form-fitting T-shirt, she was wearing a Boston Red Sox T-shirt that Mari had given her. Andreas wore Mari’s Bruins shirt.

“I don’t see a shipping container or any bikes here,” Hugo said. “Are you sure this is the right place?” He pulled into a parking lot in front of a huge concrete building, where a group of about fifteen Vuelta volunteers and staff had gathered. Someone had brought a radio, and merengue music was playing. Some of the volunteers were trying to teach Santiago how to dance. Aussie Guy and Emma were cavorting around him, trying to get him to twitch his hips and move his arms, and everyone was clapping and singing while he tried to duck away from them. It was like a party. People were getting their energy up to work fast, eager to empty the container as soon as possible and get over to the circuit race. I wished I felt free to join their party, to dance and to laugh. But Mari and I had a long road ahead of us still.

“The container
will
come,” Mari assured Hugo. “And these are Vuelta volunteers.” She pointed. “There’s Wilson. Emma. The teachers. Aussie Guy. Oh, and Santiago. Honk,
Papi
!”

Papi.
Already Mari was calling him dad.

Santiago looked embarrassed and sidled away from the dancers. He jogged toward our car to meet us.

While Mari introduced the Ruizes to some of the staff and volunteers, Santiago pulled me aside. “I called to the embassy hotline, but they told me the ambassador is at the race today, and there is no one in the office because of the national holiday. I cannot get him to come to this unload. So when the bike comes out of the container, we have to get it to the circuit race.”

“Exactly. That and the flash drive,” I said.

“The flash drive?”

“We found it last night.”

“What? Where?”

I quickly told him what had happened, and showed him the chain on my neck. Suddenly panic seized me. Had I snapped the flash drive back inside this morning, before I put the necklace on? I suddenly wasn’t sure. What if the drive was still under my pillow?

I fumbled with the cross. “I just want to make sure it’s there,” I said.

“Here. Let me,” said Santiago.

I held my breath as his fingers brushed my skin, sweeping the cross off my collarbone. His warm breath brushed my cheek as he bent closer to pop out the flash drive. An unexpected electric tingle ran through me.

He held the flash drive up to the light, inspected it, then nested it back into the cross and snapped the crucifix closed again. “Everything looks good,” he said. “You are all set for delivery.”

“Thanks.” I smiled at him. Then I looked at him in wonder. “Why are you doing all this anyway, helping us out?” I asked him. “And please don’t tell me it’s an Ecuadorian custom to save girls from spies and help them bring murderers to justice. You’re not just being polite.”

He nodded. “Remember I told you, my father’s business is affected by this matter?” he said in a low voice.

“Yeah.”

“I found records of business transactions in my father’s computer systems last night. Preston Lane has given big donations to Vuelta.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Not really. I discovered all the donations were in cash. Every six months, Preston Lane donates three thousand dollars.”

My eyes widened. “That’s a lot of money.”

“It is. Especially in Ecuador, and especially for a charity. And I have heard he invests in other businesses here, too. The information you’re telling me, it scares me.” Santiago sighed. “Because if this money is from something corrupt like racketeering—even if it does good things—it could harm Vuelta.”

“How so?”

“If Preston Lane has been laundering money here, it could damage the reputation of the youth racing club. And my father, too. He will look like a willing accomplice.”

I suddenly remembered something I’d seen on Santiago’s dad’s computer screen the other day. The same black screen that I’d seen on Gage’s computer at Compass Bikes. Sports Xplor. I asked him to explain that. “You weren’t playing it, were you?”

“No,” he insisted. “I found a cookie in the computer and wanted to find out what this was. I asked around, and some Vuelta employees and volunteers had heard about this gambling website. Some person came into the Vuelta shop and gave them flyers about betting for the PAC Tour. Equipo Diablo versus Team Cadence-EcuaBar. El Cóndor versus el Ratón.”

“So people were really placing bets on those two cyclists? Before el Cóndor died?”

“Yes. Some of our staff looked into this because they were curious. Then some logged on and placed bets. Mostly on the Ecuadorian team. And even after el Cóndor died, the betting has continued.”

“I’ve tried to get onto that site. I was locked out. How did Vuelta staffers get in to place bets?”

“The password was on the flyer.
Cacao
. It was supposed to be good for the duration of the PAC tour only.”