And Then I Found Out the Truth

by Jennifer Sturman

  But that didn’t mean I could just pick up and follow him to South America. Quinn was eighteen and had his own money. I was sixteen and had fourteen dollars in my pocket. And at this point I wasn’t even supposed to be taking the subway by myself.

  “I can’t go to Buenos Aires. Charley will kill me. And I have no money.”

  “You have the ATM? And the credit card, sí”

  “Sí, I mean, yes, but Patience controls the accounts. She’ll cancel the cards if she finds out what I’m doing. And then she’ll kill me if Charley hasn’t killed me first.”

  “This is why you go now. You will be in Argentina before they can make you stop.”

  “But —”

  Carolina had been burrowing into the depths of my not very deep closet, but now she spun around and shook a shaming finger in my direction. “Not with the buts. In my country, we do not have the luxury to sit and wait for others to do for us. When we want things to be done, we do them.”

  She had a point. And the thought of finally taking action was completely intoxicating, not to mention the possibility that I’d actually get to see my mother as soon as the next day.

  And that managed to outweigh everything else. I knew Charley would be upset when she found out, but I also hoped she’d understand. She might not agree with Carolina’s methods, but I was pretty sure she’d agree with her message.

  The time had come to take a starring role.

  Twenty-three

  Once the decision was made, it was all surprisingly easy, and the fact that it was so easy seemed like an omen, a celestial nod of approval telling me I was doing the right thing. Barely ninety minutes after Carolina buzzed from the street I was at the ticket counter at JFK, booking the last available seat on an overnight flight to Buenos Aires.

  There was only one part that didn’t feel easy or right, and that was navigating the window of time between when Charley would return to the loft to find me missing and when my flight would take off and she could no longer stop me. I did plan to let her know what I was up to, but I couldn’t run the risk of her finding out before I was airborne. Still, I hoped there’d only be an hour or so during which I’d have to worry about Charley worrying about me.

  I’d thought about leaving a note back at the loft, but she might discover it too soon — I couldn’t let her know the truth until it was too late for her to do anything about it. Instead I’d switched my phone off while I was in the cab on the way to the airport, and I kept it switched off as I waited for my flight to begin boarding. I needed to make sure I couldn’t get any calls I didn’t want to respond to.

  Only at the last possible moment, when I was on the plane and the flight attendant was asking people to power down their cellular devices, did I quickly turn mine back on and text Charley:

  have 2 be star of own movie

  sorry not 2 tell u b4

  rafe will take care of me/no need 2 worry

  Then I hit SEND and switched the phone off again, ignoring both the new message icon on the screen and my uneasy conscience as the engines roared into life and the plane lifted off the runway. I’d set my course, and for the next eleven hours, there was nothing anybody could do about it, not even myself.

  It turns out that when you buy the single remaining seat on a packed flight, not only is it going to max out your credit limit, it’s going to be the least desirable seat on the entire plane, smack in the middle of the very last row, near the lavatories and galley. On one side was a family with three small children squabbling in Spanish and on the other side was a group of people who had nothing in common except their annoyance at being trapped so close to the squabbling children.

  So it looked like I was in for an uncomfortable flight, and I’d been in such a rush I hadn’t thought to bring a book or my iPod. T.K. would be horrified at the prospect of so much time stretching before me without any potential for educational use, though even she couldn’t expect me to try and do physics homework in my current circumstances.

  But it didn’t matter. Now that I was sitting quietly in one place, the surge of adrenaline that had powered me from the loft to the airport and onto the plane shut down, leaving me exhausted. And in spite of my guilty conscience and the noisy kids and the thunderous snores from a guy a couple of seats away, who’d popped an Ambien while we were still at the gate, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  I awoke to the thump of the wheels hitting the tarmac and applause from some of the passengers. A voice came over the loudspeaker, announcing first in Spanish and then in English our arrival at Ministro Pistarini Airport and informing us that the local time was shortly after seven A.M., an hour ahead of New York. At the end of the row, I could make out a patch of early morning sky through the window.

  Around me the other passengers were gathering up their belongings, though it would probably be a while before we reached the gate, and being in the last row meant it would take forever before we could actually disembark. I also noticed a lot of them were turning their phones back on, and I realized the flight attendant must have given permission now that we’d landed. My respite from guilt was officially over.

  As my phone powered up, I tried to steel myself for what was to come. I fully expected several dozen outraged texts from Charley, and I also knew she had every right to be outraged. And while I intended to text her back immediately, to assure her I’d arrived safely and would meet up with Rafe as soon as I could get in touch with him, I doubted that would do much to calm her down.

  Strangely, though, there were only three messages waiting, which showed a level of restraint that was totally inconsistent with everything I knew about my aunt. The first had a time stamp of 6:17 P.M., about a half hour before my flight had taken off. I could feel the wince already taking shape on my face as I clicked it open:

  stopping 4 coffee

  text if u need anything or want 2 join

  home 7:30ish

  So that was a small relief — Charley would’ve received my own text before she’d even arrived home. There wouldn’t have been any window at all of her not knowing where I was.

  The time stamp of the next text was 6:39 P.M., and this would inevitably be the outraged one, the response to my text. I opened it quickly, before I could chicken out, and it took me a second to realize it wasn’t even from Charley. It was from Natalie instead:

  Q’s barcode worked

  23 Navitaco visitors on day in question

  checking names now

  shouldn’t take long

  Which was good news, I thought. Twenty-three was a lot, but once we sorted out the women’s names we’d have narrowed things down significantly. Then a simple Internet search should yield enough basic background information to help us figure out if any of them could be La Morena. I texted back an effusive note of thanks before scrolling to the next text.

  This final one had a time stamp of 6:48 P.M., so it had to be Charley’s furious response, unleashing the full extent of her rage.

  But it wasn’t. Not at all. It was from Natalie again.

  And reading it temporarily put my guilt and Charley’s rage completely out of my mind:

  ran regression; r-squared at 99% confidence interval

  I wasn’t quite sure what r-squared meant, but 99 percent confidence sounded good. Particularly when I scrolled down for the rest of the text:

  La Morena = Samantha Arquero

  Head, Spec Ops, Arquero Energy

  Father = Samuel Arquero, President, Arquero Energy

  Of course was my first thought.

  My second thought was that I should’ve been able to figure this one out sooner.

  I didn’t need to run a regression — not that I had any idea how I would anyway. The words on the screen made such perfect sense I felt as if on some subconscious level I’d already known.

  And now I was hearing Gwyneth’s voice in my head, which was possibly the most bizarre thing that had happened in a while. “My mom will flip,” she’d said as she studied the pictures of the E
AROFO board. “But I was asking about the old people.”

  She’d made an interesting point, however unintentionally, and I felt sort of dense for not picking up on it then. After all, every member of the EAROFO board would qualify for the senior discount at the local multiplex. And though this entire situation had been a multigenerational extravaganza, with me orchestrating a search-and-rescue mission for my mother and Quinn’s dad being a suspect and everything, it hadn’t occurred to any of us to think about the other “children” who might be involved, and specifically EAROFO’s next generation.

  Meanwhile, if Natalie was 99 percent confident, then I was 100 percent confident, because I had a couple of other data points to throw in, not that Natalie would ever call them data points since they came from Carolina. Regardless, they should push us over the top, even if I didn’t have the statistical analysis to prove it.

  For starters, Samantha Stephens was the name of the lead character on Bewitched — that I knew for sure.

  And arcuarius was the Latin word for archer, and from there it was just a short skip through various romance languages to get to Arquero as a surname.

  So Samantha Arquero was, in fact, Bewitched meets the Sagittarius. And as the head of Special Operations for her father’s company, she was perfectly situated to play the role of EAROFO’s evildoer in chief.

  Twenty-four

  The plane had arrived at the gate by now, and I could see distant movement as people in the rows closer to the front began to make their way down the aisles. I was literally tapping my foot with impatience, eager to get to work, but I figured I still had at least a few minutes more of being trapped in my seat. It was a seriously enormous plane.

  So I hastily sent off another grateful text to Natalie, followed by another apologetic text to Charley to let her know I’d landed without any problems. That I hadn’t heard anything further from her was completely ominous — I didn’t even want to consider the possibility she was so angry she wasn’t speaking to me. But I just told myself there must be a time lag in the phone system somehow, and all of her furious texts would come flooding in at any moment.

  The next message I sent was to Rafe, to update him on my whereabouts and coordinate a way to meet up. I was hoping I might actually get to see my mother before the day was out, and maybe before the morning was over. It was even possible I’d get to introduce her to Quinn, and that thought put the uncontrollable smile on my face. Of course, it also assumed I’d ever be able to get off the plane.

  “Your first time in Buenos Aires?” the squabbling children’s mother asked. Between her needing to mediate their various arguments and my having slept for most of the flight, we hadn’t really said anything but “hello” up until then.

  “Yes,” I told her. And because I thought I should say more if I didn’t want to seem unfriendly or like I’d skipped town in a manner that was wholly unauthorized by a parent or legal guardian, I added, “I’m visiting friends.” Which was true, sort of, though I was visiting enemies, too, if by visiting you meant hunting them down and exposing their crimes against the environment and my mother.

  She smiled. “I am a native, a porteña. You will like Buenos Aires. It is a wonderful city, like Paris or Madrid, but with its own flavor.” Her English was fluent, with only the faintest trace of an accent, and she began enthusiastically telling me about her favorite sights. I was almost glad I couldn’t tell her what I’d really be doing while I was there, because she might be disappointed to hear I’d be too busy to play tourist.

  Finally, the rows directly ahead of ours began to empty out. The woman’s husband helped me retrieve my roller bag from the overhead compartment, and I followed the whole family down the aisle, along the length of coach, and through first class, where the seats turned into beds and the attendants were still clearing away the remains of a gourmet breakfast. It seemed like the airline wouldn’t want the passengers who’d just been crammed into tiny spaces and fed microwaved eggs to see how the more fortunate traveled, but I guess whoever designed the plane didn’t worry about class warfare.

  Out in the terminal, I was relieved to see the signs were in English as well as Spanish, though I probably could’ve guessed what Damas meant from the skirted stick figure symbol next to the sign. I was sort of a mess, and while I didn’t want to waste time, I desperately needed to brush my teeth and wash my face, so I ducked into the ladies’ room. The cold water from the tap felt fabulous after having been cooped up for so long in the stale air of the plane, and it was as close as I was going to get to a shower anytime soon.

  That done, I followed the signs to immigration, where several hundred other passengers from my flight were already waiting in a long line. Now that I was actually here in Argentina, it seemed unfair that all of my decisive action-taking was resulting in a lot of hanging out and waiting, but I tried to be patient as the line inched forward, checking my phone every so often to see if any new messages had come in yet.

  The time crawled by, but eventually I was in front of the bored-looking immigration officer, handing him my passport. “Buenos días,” I said, since that was what the flight attendant had said when we’d touched down.

  He mumbled something back, not even glancing up as he leafed through my passport until he found the main page with my information and photograph. Then he paused, and his expression shifted abruptly from bored to alert.

  I suddenly worried I wasn’t old enough to enter the country by myself — I’d been concerned about age restrictions in New York, but it turned out that sixteen was the minimum for purchasing a ticket on one’s own, so I’d just passed.

  “Cordelia Navare Truesdale,” he said slowly, as his eyes moved from the passport page to my face and back again. “That is your name?”

  There was something weird about the way he said this — not his English, which was as smooth and accent-free as the woman’s on the plane, but his tone and the question itself — and it put me instantly on edge.

  “Yes?” I said gingerly.

  “Cordelia Navare Truesdale,” he said again, turning to the computer next to him and typing on its keyboard. I saw him hit ENTER, and he leaned back, studying whatever popped up on the screen.

  After a long moment, he turned away from the computer and gave me another searching look. But then he shook his head, stamped my passport, and handed it over the counter. “Next,” he called.

  I moved forward with relief, feeling the panic dissipate as I tried to make up for lost time. I zoomed through the baggage claim since I hadn’t checked anything and then on through customs and into the arrival hall. Immediately, a dozen different guys approached, all offering transportation into the city, but I figured these were the equivalents of the gypsy cabs in New York and it would be wiser to find an official taxi stand. Besides, I needed to get cash first.

  I located an ATM machine along one wall and inserted my card, hoping Charley, enraged as she was, had at least kept Patience in the dark and my account was still active. And it worked fine, though here it offered me Argentinean pesos rather than dollars. I withdrew what I thought was a couple of hundred dollars’ worth — pretty much everything I had — and tucked the multicolored bills into my purse.

  And as I went to find a taxi, I couldn’t help but congratulate myself. After all, I’d gotten myself to a foreign country completely on my own and with relative ease. Even the snag with the guy at immigration hadn’t really been a snag. This had to be another sign that I was doing the right thing.

  And that’s when I saw her.

  Samantha Arquero, in the flesh and only fifty feet away.

  She was heading for the exit doors, accompanied by a uniformed driver piloting a cart stacked high with Louis Vuitton luggage. She wore a crisply cut pantsuit and her shiny brown hair looked like she’d just had a blowout — she clearly hadn’t spent the last eleven hours smushed into the very last row of coach. But it seemed reasonable to assume she had been luxuriating in first class, drinking champagne and nibbling on warm nuts a
s she plotted further evil.

  I stopped short, and at that same moment she did, too, which had me jumping for the protection of a nearby pillar. My heart was beating hard, but I counted to ten and then peeked cautiously around the pillar’s side.

  But she didn’t seem to have noticed me. She’d only paused to look at a flyer taped to a wall, right next to the exit. As I watched, she reached up and peeled the flyer off the wall, studying it closely before folding it and slipping it into her handbag. Then she walked briskly through the doors, accompanied by the driver with her luggage.

  I rushed to follow, trying to keep a safe distance between us without losing them altogether. But it turned out these things work better in the movies than they do in real life. I reached the exit just in time to see the driver ushering Samantha Arquero into the backseat of a long, black limousine double-parked at the curb. She disappeared behind its tinted windows and the driver hurried to load her luggage into the trunk. They were pulling away before I’d located the taxi stand, not that I even knew how to say “follow that car” in Spanish. But I was still disappointed that this incredible opportunity had slipped through my hands.

  As I waited in what felt like the millionth insanely long line of the day for a taxi, I tried to console myself with the fact that I’d managed to memorize the license plate of the limousine. Fortunately, it was easy to remember: AE-I. I assumed the AE stood for Arquero Energy, which seemed to prove the woman had definitely been Samantha Arquero. And even without the license plate, we should be able to find her again — I mean, how hard could it be to find the Arquero Energy office in Buenos Aires?

  Another silver lining was that I wouldn’t have to face a lecture from anyone on how it wasn’t safe to go chasing after suspects on my own, regardless of how conveniently they’d presented themselves. And I was pretty sure it was nothing more than a coincidence that La Morena and I had been on the same flight. It wasn’t like she could’ve known where I was going when I hadn’t even known myself until I was actually on my way.