Latitude Zero (9 page)

16

LATER THAT
afternoon, after seeing Dr. Ellis, and after my mom returned to her studio, I paced in the living room, waiting for my friends. I kept the shades drawn tight and my phone turned off. Every few minutes, I peered out of the corner of the window shade, expecting to see shadowy figures darting in and out of the bushes with cameras. Every time I saw a car pass, I dropped the shade back in place with a sigh of relief.

When the Fingernail finally pulled into the drive, I limped out to the car as fast as I could, got in the backseat, and slammed the door. I sunk low in the seat so I wouldn’t be visible from the windows. If Darwin or someone was snapping incriminating pictures near our house, I didn’t need to be modeling for one.

“Route 2 west,” I said to Kylie.

“What am I, a taxi?”

“I thought we were doing Kylie’s mock interview here,” Sarita added.

“We can mock on the road. Now go.”

I sprawled out in the backseat of the Fingernail, breathing in the familiar smell of mildew, vanilla air freshener, and the sour milk of a thousand spilled lattes. Once we got out of Cambridge, onto Route 2, I pulled myself back up to a sitting position and relaxed a little.

/////

“YOU HAVE
to tell someone about this Darwin guy,” Kylie said when I’d finished explaining why I’d called her and Sarita in a panic, from our land line, as soon as I was home from the doctor’s appointment. “Your mom. Police. Tell someone.”

“No. He specifically told me not to. And now he could wreck my mom’s business by framing her for sexual misconduct with a juvenile. I’m not going to piss him off.”

“So is all this the reason I’m speeding down Route 2?” asked Kylie.

“If you can call going five miles above the speed limit speeding,” Sarita grumbled.

“I told you. I have to have a perfect driving record. My mom can’t afford our insurance going up.”

“I’d drive, but my leg hurts too much,” I said. “Look, the truth is, I have to go to Cabot. And I need your help. Three of us can search better than one.”

“Cabot?” Sarita twisted around to stare at me. “Where the bike thing was?”

“What are we searching for?” Kylie asked.

“I need to go to the woods where I found the bike and ran into Darwin. If I can at least get a lead on Juan Carlos’s stolen bike, and prove I had nothing to do with it, then he’ll leave me—and my mom’s business—alone.”

“You mean get a lead on Juan Carlos’s
twice
stolen bike, right?” said Kylie.

“Right,” I said.

“Wait, what?” said Sarita. “Twice stolen? Head spinning. Explain.”

“A thief took it from the team trailer to leave it for the fence,” I reminded her. “And then I think while Darwin was interrogating me in the woods, someone else found it and swiped it, screwing up his plan.”

“So after he let you go, you think he went to find the bike where you told him it was, and it was gone? And now he blames you?” Sarita asked.

“Exactly. And now he must think I’m hiding it somewhere or I know someone who is. That’s why he tracked down my house and went through the garage. And sent someone to my mom’s studio to set her up, as more ammo against me.”

“Maybe the original thief took it back,” said Sarita. “Like, to make a fast buck for himself and cut out the middleman.”

“Maybe. So then how could that bike still be in the woods, Tessa?” Kylie asked, as the speedometer needle inched up a notch. She was now seven miles over the limit. I could tell she was getting excited about all this, despite her skepticism

“Actually I’m pretty sure it’s
not
,” I said. “But maybe there’s some clue there. Something that might tell us who Darwin really is. Or something that would point to the person who messed up his plan and took the bike out from under him.”

“Or a clue that points to the original thief,” Sarita added.

“I don’t know,” said Kylie. “It’s not really our job, is it? It’s not like we’re trained forensics experts. And we probably shouldn’t tamper with a crime scene.”

Sarita sighed. “It’s not an official crime scene. There’s no ‘official’ crime. Nothing’s been reported. Come on, Kylie. Remember when we all used to read Nancy Drews? If we were in a Nancy Drew book, we wouldn’t even be debating this. We’d just go look.”

“If this were a Nancy Drew book,” said Kylie, “we wouldn’t have to poke around in the woods. The clues would be more obvious. Like a sign of a twisted candle or something.”

“Or the Inn of the Poison Oak,” Sarita said in a spooky voice.

“How about the Grove of the Poison Ivy?” I said. “There was a lot of that in the woods.”

“Great. That’s what we all need. Poison ivy,” grumbled Kylie.

But she shifted to the right lane, and took the exit to Cabot at ten miles per hour over the limit.

/////

IT WAS
eerie, driving through Cabot again. The parking lot by the elementary school where Jake and I had parked yesterday was now completely empty. So was the middle school lot where the staging area had been. There were no banners, no sponsor signs, no discarded pamphlets. The only sign of a recent event was a flatbed truck pulling out with portable toilets.

I’d half expected to see crime scene tape strung up everywhere. And a sign with my face on it:
WANTED: CHARITY BIKE
RIDE BANDIT. CAUSER
OF MAYHEM.

But this wasn’t a crime scene, I reminded myself. No one knew a bike had been stolen. And no one knew—yet—that I’d made a stupid move on the route.

I clutched my seat belt as we passed the last place I’d seen Juan Carlos. “Stop here,” I said. “This is near the trail into the conservation land, where Jake and I went in.”

Sarita led the way into the woods, down the walking trail, with Kylie close behind. I lingered a moment, staring at the place where I’d last seen Juan Carlos. I knelt down and looked at the grass for signs of his footprints, anything he might have dropped, any physical memory I could hold on to. I found nothing. I held the cross in my hand, pulling at the chain until it cut into my skin, forcing me to remember what it had felt like to have him put it on me.

You will call? Please? It is very important
.

“Tessa!” called Kylie, a note of panic in her voice. “Where are you?”

“Coming!” I stood up and hurried to catch up with my friends.

We spread out and looked around, off the trail, in other bushes, hoping some clue would turn up. A tire track. A footprint. I saw the bush where I’d found the bike, and the patch of poison ivy. No bike. And no sign of anyone having been there. No footprints, no trampled grass, no bike parts. Nothing. It was as if the woods had erased any secrets as swiftly as Darwin had erased all those texts.

/////

KYLIE CONTINUED
driving down Great Marsh Road, heading back toward the highway. I cringed when we passed the place where Jake and I had joined the ride. We drove a little farther and I saw the
SLOW
DEAF CHILD
sign ahead. “Can you pull over?” I asked.

Kylie did. “Whoa,” she said as we came over the hill. “Check that out.”

There was already a bike there, attached to the street sign, painted entirely white. The shrine had sprung up all around it. Flower bouquets. Flowers in vases. Living plants. Teddy bears. Angel figurines. Cycling jerseys. EcuaBars. Votive candles flickering softly in jars.

“Why’s the bike all white?” Kylie asked in a hushed voice. “It’s beautiful. But kind of haunting, don’t you think?”

“It’s supposed to be haunting. It’s a ghost bike,” I said. My voice was hushed, too. Ghost bikes were things of beauty and dread. Reminders of cycling’s freedoms and dangers.

I’d seen a ghost bike once before, on a busy Boston street, where a college student had been hit by a truck. A sign at that memorial had explained how ghost bikes were constructed by mourners, bolted to signs or fences near where a cyclist had been killed. They were meant to raise awareness of the need for bike-friendly streets. My heart raced. This had to be the memorial shrine that Darwin had mentioned in his text message that morning. The place where an “associate” would expect me to hand over the bike on Thursday evening.

“I want to go see it close up,” I said.

“Do you want us to come, too?”

“No. That’s okay. I just need a moment.”

“Be careful,” Sarita urged as I got out. “There’s a lot of traffic here.”

I approached the shrine. I reached out and touched the bike. Then I knelt down for a closer look. What if this was Juan Carlos’s twice-stolen spare bike?

No. That would be too easy. And I could see, beneath the coat of white paint, that this was an older-model Cannondale, not a Cadence. Just something the Ghost Bikes organization had donated to the cause.

While I was kneeling down, I read personal notes and hand-painted signs, in both Spanish and English.

¡Eres un ángel más en el cielo ahora!

You ruled the roads, el Cóndor. Rest in peace.

Que descanses en paz.

I let my tears fall and wiped my nose on the back of my hand. I wished I’d brought something to leave for him there, some way to pay my respects.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. To Juan Carlos. Or the air. “I’m sorry for crashing and for making you crash. And I wish I knew what you wanted to talk to me about. After the race.”

Birds twittered. Traffic whooshed. I guess I’d been hoping for some kind of sign, an otherworldly communication. But Juan Carlos’s spirit didn’t speak to me, in any language.

I saw a dark brown streak on the pavement. I hugged myself and looked away. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, and listened intently, as if the breeze or the rustling trees might send back a response, a reassurance.

Instead all I heard was the indifferent rush of passing cars.

I shuddered as I turned away, wondering what—and who—Thursday would bring. Would I return to this spot with a bike? With information about who really had it? Or with nothing at all? And what would happen to my mom if I showed up empty-handed?

/////

KYLIE DROVE
a couple of exits east and pulled up at our favorite farm stand, which had the best ice cream in New England. “We need a break from all this,” she said. “You’re a wreck.”

We sat at a picnic table and ran Kylie’s mock interview.

“You don’t need two weeks. You could face Preston Lane today,” said Sarita once we were done. “Especially with all your answers about ethics and business and corporate responsibility.”

Kylie swatted her arm. “You should like them. You wrote them.” She grinned, then looked worried. “Maybe I shouldn’t use your words so much. Isn’t it kind of cheating? I mean, what if Preston asks me some follow-up question that I can’t answer?”

“The ideas are yours, Kylie,” I said. “Sarita didn’t say anything you wouldn’t say yourself. She just made it all concise and sequenced, and threw in some business vocab. You’ll do great.”

“Just win this thing. Okay?” said Sarita.

“Okay.” Kylie smiled nervously. “I just hope I don’t freeze up when I meet Preston Lane. He’s kind of intimidating.”

“What do you think, Tessa? You’ve met the man. Is he intimidating?” Sarita asked.

I thought a moment. He shouldn’t be. Preston Lane represented everything Shady Pines stood for. We wrote letters to our state reps starting in second grade. We lobbied to get products with non-sustainable palm oil out of our vending machines, to save chimpanzees in Indonesia. We were highly advanced recyclers. Our whole school was in love with the guy because of the good work EcuaBar did. From afar, he seemed totally down-to-earth. Up close, I knew from my
KidVision
interview with him, he seemed less approachable. Distracted.

“He seems like he’s always thinking of a million other things, like you’re not sure if you have his full attention,” I admitted. “And powerful people can be intimidating, I know. But he’s a pretty regular guy.”

“Who just happens to be one of Boston’s ten wealthiest men,” added Sarita. “And
Forbes
magazine’s top pick for this year’s most socially responsible executive. Did you see that article?”

Kylie and I shared a knowing smile. Sarita, obsessed with business, had subscribed to magazines like
Forbes
and
The Economist
since she was thirteen. “Um, I think I missed that one,” I said. Then, to Kylie, I added, “Imagine Preston Lane in cycling clothes. You can’t possibly be scared of someone in spandex.”

Then I remembered how scared I’d been with Darwin in the woods. He’d been a man in cycling gear. Nothing funny about him.

Thinking of Darwin, and his texts, I remembered my phone, which had been powered off for hours, a record amount of time for me. Hopefully Darwin hadn’t left me any more messages. But maybe Jake had. Maybe having my phone off this long was driving Jake crazy.

I pushed the power button, even though I knew I shouldn’t. I just wanted to check to see if anything had come in from Jake. I wouldn’t reply. And I’d turn off the phone immediately.

The text that buzzed in shocked me. Darwin. He was back.

ANY NEWS?

“Who’s that?” Kylie asked, leaning over to see. “Not Jake, I hope.”

SO HOW’S THAT ICE CREAM? YUM.

Darwin.
Where was he?
I looked around wildly, at happy families at picnic tables, and kids lining up at the ice-cream stand. I saw no one with aviator sunglasses, a buzz cut, a thick neck.

I HAVE OTHER EYES AND EARS.

My God. It was like he was reading my thoughts! I spun around again, scanning the crowds for anyone who looked like a potential associate. I didn’t even know what I was looking for. Trench coats? Fedoras? Darwin had tried to dress like a cyclist at Chain Reaction. Any of these moms and dads mopping ice cream off kids’ faces could be working for him. Or anyone serving up ice cream. Or maybe there was some kind of webcam trained on us!

The texts vanished, all at once, as before.

“Tessa? You okay?” asked Sarita.

“Darwin’s back. Texting me. He knows we’re here.” I stood up so fast I knocked over my ice-cream dish. “We have to get out of here. Now.”