“Not always, Ruk. Sometimes they add up to a whole lot more.”
Diego started to walk again and Eric broke into a trot to catch up. It fascinated him that his aide might be doing his own investigation.
“What kind of questions?”
“Why is Usher giving this woman free rein of Colina Nublosa? People say she’s from corporate, but all I see is her snooping around, spending time with Meggie Kerr. And she’s got an eye on anyone talking to the woman, too.”
“Suspicious,” Eric agreed.
“Then a new guy shows up and starts acting funny.”
“What new guy? Who?”
Diego laughed. “Hombre, I’m talking about you.”
“Oh.” He felt foolish.
“It’s all right. I’m not making fun of you.”
“Do you think I’m up to no good?” Eric asked.
What if he did? Imagine if Diego thought he was the bad guy in this story.
“No, but I do think you’re up to something. Why don’t you fess up?”
“They told me not to.”
“Who did, your brother and his wife?”
Eric fell silent.
“You’re not a good liar, Ruk. You just shut your mouth, don’t you? Probably a good idea. In Spanish we say en boca cerrada, no entran moscas. Flies don’t enter a closed mouth.”
“What?”
“Like in English, better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt.”
“But why would flies want to enter your mouth?”
“Never mind that. Okay, so your brother and his wife have something to do with that woman. Do they work for her?”
“Take that back!”
Diego blinked. “Sorry. What did I say?”
“She’s a mean woman. They would never work for her.”
“Ah, so they’re working against her. Got it.”
Eric was impressed. “Wow, you’re as good as Sherlock Holmes.”
“No, hombre. It was obvious. It was—”
“Elementary?”
Diego smiled. “Yeah, that. What does that woman want with Meggie?”
“She’s a bad witch. She is keeping Meggie in a dungeon.” Eric tapped his forehead. “Here, inside her mind.”
“No, she didn’t do that. Meggie fell a long time ago. She’s been like that for years.”
“But the woman won’t let her go. That’s why I need to take pictures. So we can show Uncle Davis.”
“Who is Uncle Davis?”
Wow, Diego was good. It went on like this, back and forth, with Diego prying out more information little by little. Every time Eric told him something new, he decided he wouldn’t say anything more. He’d keep the rest of his secrets. But then his aide would ask another question and Eric couldn’t stop himself. Before long, he’d told the man everything he could remember.
“So let me get this straight,” Diego said. “Your uncle is in a wheelchair and can’t talk.”
“His computer talks. He looks at words and the computer decides what Uncle Davis wants to say.”
“Never heard of that. That tech hasn’t come to Costa Rica, that’s for sure. So they run some sort of organization that digs up people with brain injuries and tries to get them help?”
“Yes.” Eric frowned. “Maybe? I don’t know.”
“And they found Meggie Kerr, and that’s what she’s got. But then this other woman has some sort of power over her and won’t let them give her treatment. So they want you to ask her questions, have her blink her eyes to show she’s awake and can answer, then they’ll force legal action. Is that about it?”
Eric stared, unable to answer. This was confusing.
“What a look on your face. Don’t worry about it. I think I’ve got it figured out. Got to admire their guts, sending in someone with a few . . . challenges to do the job.”
“What do you mean?”
“We all have challenges, hombre. No worries. When are you going to do it?”
“Do what?”
“Go after the lady,” he said, sounding a little impatient. “Sorry, I mean, you’ve got to get close to Meggie, ask her questions, then film it all. Right? When were you planning to do all of this?”
“With the butterflies. That’s where she was last time. I forgot the phone. It has a camera.”
“No good. Most of the time the wheelchair team is in the butterfly garden the aides are around. And even if they’re not, if you got Meggie away from the others, the garden is on the hillside in the middle of the grass. You can see every inch of it from anywhere on the grounds. Even from inside. If that woman is watching you, that’s the worst place to be. Better think of somewhere else.”
“Oh.” Eric put his hand into his hair and tugged at the roots.
Diego grabbed his hand and pulled it loose, then held it by the wrist until Eric relaxed. It was starting to rain, a gentle patter on the leaves overhead. None of the water was reaching the forest floor yet.
“It’s all right,” Diego said. “We’ll think of something.”
“I have to think of it myself. I’m undercover.”
“Suit yourself. Seems to me you could use help. Even Sherlock Holmes did. He had Doctor Watkins.”
“Watson. Doctor Watson of 221B Baker Street.”
“Right. I’ll help you. I can be your Watson.”
“Why would you do that? It might be dangerous.”
Diego looked thoughtful. “I don’t know. Maybe a chance to do something different. I’ve been here ten years, and pretty much every day is the same. Sometimes they die—they’re sick and they get sicker. Other times they get older and grayer and nothing ever changes. But nobody comes and gets better. Like you. You could be here ten years and you wouldn’t ever get better.”
“I’m not sick.”
“No, you’re not. Guess I’m not making any sense. Did you know I went to nursing school in Texas?”
Eric snorted. “Nurses are girls. You mean doctor school.”
“Don’t be sexist, Ruk. Men can be nurses, and there are plenty of women doctors.”
“Oh, yeah. So you’re a nurse?”
“No, I ran out of money. Got this job, and it pays well. Never went back. I always thought I’d work in the ER someday and save lives.” He shrugged. “This wears me down a little.”
“Okay. You can help. We’ll go undercover together. But you should be Sherlock Holmes. You’re the smart one.”
“No way, hombre. This is your idea—I’m not going to steal your glory. Now what are we going to do? How are we going to get that film of Meggie blinking her answers?”
“We’ll go to the butterfly garden, and—”
“That won’t work, remember? How about this? When I get off shift tonight, I won’t drive out through the gates, I’ll leave my car in the lot and wait in the forest until lights out.”
“What should I do?”
“Hold on, I’m not done. There’s only two night aides, plus the nurse. Custodial sticks around by the laundry room and the main hall. Should be easy enough to get out to the habitats. You’ve got the cell phone with you?”
“No, it’s in my room.” He was confused. How was this going to help?
“That’s what I mean. I’ll get the phone before you go to bed. Then I’ll go to Meggie’s room and get some quick answers from her. We’ll have all the evidence we need.”
“So I’m doing nothing.”
“Of course you are. I’ll give you the phone in the morning and you can get it to your brother.”
“But tonight, I’m supposed to go to sleep.” He looked down at his trudging feet. “Guess I’m not good for much else.”
“You’re right, that will never do,” Diego said, gravely. “What if someone finds the phone on me? You’d better guard it until after you go to bed. That’s an important job. Keep it hidden, no matter what. Then I’ll come get it, sneak over to get the video, then bring it back.”
This was better. He’d rather do the
sneaking himself, or at least come along, but at least now he had an important job. Diego was studying him carefully, and Eric nodded his agreement.
“Good, then it’s all set.”
“What if the bad woman catches you?”
“How would she do that? She has to sleep like anyone else. And if she does, so what? The worst she could do is tell Usher to fire me. If it comes to that, I’ll deal with it.”
“She’s a witch. She can put you in a dungeon.” Eric tapped his forehead. “Here in your own mind.”
Diego laughed. “Now you’re being paranoid. Come on, we’re getting behind. Move it, hombre.”
Chapter Seventeen
Wes almost didn’t check his email before dinner. And so he almost missed Diego Palomar’s alarming, exciting news.
The truth was, Wes was going out of his way to not log in. The thing he hated about email was that it was supposed to be a modern version of snail mail, but everyone treated it like a phone call. When the phone rang, you felt compelled to answer, and then you had to deal with whoever was on the other line. When email came, you could respond when you had time and mental energy. But when you answered at once, you set an expectation.
People thought they could email you whenever or wherever—Costa Rica on a late, lazy afternoon, with rain drumming on the roof. You wanted to sit in a hammock with a beer in your hand. Why would you be sitting at your computer or staring at your phone screen waiting for a new email? But if you didn’t respond, you’d wake up in the morning with worried subject lines: “Are you getting my emails???”
To prove his point, while he was in the hammock, trying to read a book and listening to the rain against the balcony roof, Becca had been on the laptop, arguing with some state-run care center in Florida that refused to grant access to its patients. Then, going back and forth with an advocacy group in Canada that was requesting help.
Wes wasn’t logged in, was reading a novel to distract himself from worrying about his brother at Colina Nublosa. But he kept reading the same page over and over again. At last he decided to get up and check email in case Uncle Davis was on him about something. He was pretending to be in Vermont, after all.
He rolled out of the hammock and pulled himself up to the laptop on the patio table when Becca stepped away. He scanned a forum where people came to discuss paralysis treatments, then relented and logged into his email. The first message was from [email protected].
Subject: eric and the paralyzed patient
Wes’s stomach lurched. Eric had been found out. Caught trying to film Meggie Kerr.
He opened the email and stared at it, reading it twice, his heart rate accelerating to a gallop.
Becca came back onto the patio, carrying her e-reader, as if she’d finally relented and decided to relax. “What’s wrong? It isn’t Uncle Davis, is it?”
He pulled out a chair for her and tilted the computer so she could see the screen. “Better read this.”
Wes reread the email as Becca leaned in. She sucked in her breath.
Message: I know why you sent eric to colina nublosa. I’m sorry but I kept asking him questions after I saw you at devil’s cauldron and he isn’t very good at keeping secrets so he told me everything. I know you’re trying to get meggie kerr out and get her help. You only need proof. I want to help you do it.
The problem is there is a woman here named catelin and I think she knows meggie from a long time back. And she is suspicious that someone is trying to help. She has been asking around. At dinner I saw her watching me and I started to get nervous. If you saw her you would know why. After eric showed me the phone I went to Mr Usher and asked who she was. He said not to mess with her and she could make sure I got arrested by the police or worse. When I asked about meggie he got really angry.
I need this job because I’ve got a wife and two kids at home. And I’m getting scared of this woman. I can’t meet you, but I can help you get your proof. After dinner, I’m going to hang around the property instead of going home. Then I’m going to sneak in and use your phone camera to ask meggie kerr some questions. Do you remember where I saw you this afternoon at the cauldrons??
I’m going to wrap the phone in a black plastic bag so it won’t get wet and I’m going to leave it at the huge tree behind the cauldron. The one with the branch that almost touches the ground and the buttress roots. I’ll tuck it into the hollow where the branch and the trunk meet and you can find it there.
Once you have the phone you should get your brother out. He’s not safe here.
Please delete this message after you get it. I’m writing this from work and I think they might look at our emails.
Sincerely,
Diego Palomar
Becca leaned back in her chair. “He doesn’t understand how email works if he thinks deleting it is going to do anything.”
Wes had already hit reply and started typing, but now canceled the unsent message. “Shouldn’t have used a work computer in the first place.”
“What are you thinking? What is it?”
“We’ve figured it out,” he said. “Or at least some of it.”
Her eyes lit up. “I think I see where you’re going, but go on—I want to hear it.”
“Remember what you said when the Ministry of Health shut us down?”
“Not exactly. Something about nobody caring whether Meggie got help or not, right?”
“Almost,” Wes said. “You said someone actively wanted her not to get help.”
“Not her own family. They’re completely out of the picture. Indifferent. Had to be her inlaws.”
“Right, but that was a series of dead ends, too. Benjamin was the obvious suspect, but we found that tearful interview with him at the Las Vegas hospital a few days after the accident. He seemed broken up.”
“Remorse,” Becca said. “Acting. Or maybe it was an accident, but whatever happened in the cave may have been his fault and he wanted to hide it.”
“He seemed legitimately distraught,” Wes said. “But okay. Then how do you account for the fact that he went ahead and married her anyway, after the accident. If he wanted to be rid of her, that’s a poor way to do it.”
“Point taken.”
“So we thought maybe one of the brothers,” Wes said. “They don’t like each other much these days. There have been lawsuits back and forth over control of the coffee company. It’s a chilly relationship. But what does that have to do with Meggie? You know what I’m thinking, don’t you?”
“The cousin. What was her name?”
“Let’s find out.”
Wes opened his docs folder from the cloud and did a search for the name “Catelin,” from Diego’s email, and every variation of the spelling he could think of. He found it. Kaitlyn Potterman. She worked for Tropical Beans, mainly over IT. A minor player in the company, which is why they’d dismissed her in the first place. The only red flag was a mention of her name in a lawsuit accusing the company of installing keystroke logging software on a competitor’s computers. The case was settled out of court.
There was no apparent motive for this case. But what do you know, Wes’s notes showed that she’d been on the caving expedition where Meggie had taken her fall.
He turned the laptop to show Becca, who shook her head as she read. Her face darkened. “Pull up that hospital video.”
He opened a browser and found the video link in his bookmarks. They watched it, and sure enough, there was a woman standing behind Benjamin. This was seven years old, but in the video she had a youthful, fresh look. The sort of face you’d glance at because it was pretty, but wouldn’t otherwise focus on. But as he studied her now, with Benjamin’s sobs coming through the laptop speakers, something about her seemed off.
The expression on her face looked plastered on, like faux concern. And why was she standing so close to Benjamin? Her hand rested protectively on the small of his back and when he broke down finally, he buried his head on her shoulder. The video cut back to the newscasters, who st
arted in on the dangers of caving in the desert and other accidents in Nevada over the years. Wes backed up the video and froze it to study the woman’s face. She looked vaguely familiar.
“It has to be her,” Becca said. “But what’s the motive? Meggie is her cousin’s fiancé slash wife. Why would she care?”
“I don’t know. We can figure that part out later. What we need now is my phone.” He tabbed back to Diego’s email. “Do you know what tree he’s talking about?”
“I don’t remember it,” she said. “But it shouldn’t be hard to find. We’ll go up first thing in the morning.”
Wes looked at his watch. “This only came half an hour ago. They’re sitting down to dinner now. Another hour, then bedtime, then Diego gets the film. Then he has to hike up to Devil’s Cauldron to leave the phone. If we hurry, we can cross the lake and meet him there.”
“It’s raining and it’s almost dark. How are we going to hire a lancha to take us across?”
“The boat owners all live right on the lakefront. I’m sure for enough money, they’ll brave the weather.”
“And wait on the other side while we slog up in the dark to get the phone?” Becca shrugged. “Yeah, all right. It’s worth it if we can get Meggie and Eric out of there.”
“And warn Diego that Usher might have seen his email. Maybe Kaitlyn has, too. She’s in IT, after all.”
“Good point.”
Wes shut down the computer, and they retreated to their room to change. Outside, Wes whacked his boots together to knock off the mud, then took the backpack Becca handed him. It was surprisingly heavy.
“What have you got in here, your guidebooks?”
“Water bottles, some snacks for the pregnant woman. Flashlights and spare batteries.”
“It’s like a major expedition.”
“And something I bought in the village.” She unzipped a pocket and unsheathed a nasty, curved fishing knife. Being gripped in the hands of a pregnant woman somehow made it even more vicious looking.
“If you think we’ll need that, there’s no way I’m letting you hike up there.”
“I’d have bought a gun, if we were back in the States.” Becca’s expression hardened. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that people will go to any lengths to cover their crimes.”
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