Maria shrugged, but she had to admit that something about Merchant’s words put her at ease. “The small cactus finch,” Maria said quietly.
“Excuse me?”
“This small patch of land was the only place in the world where the small cactus finch could be found. One of Darwin’s celebrated finches. Gone now. Extinct. Erased forever from the world. All because a corrupt, small-minded man couldn’t think of a subtler way to solve his problems.”
“Did he say anything to you on that island?” Merchant asked. “Before the creature got him?”
Maria hesitated. When the Navy people had asked, she’d told them everything that had happened over the past several days, all the way from their arrival to the moment she had jumped for Simon’s Zodiac. Except, that was, for the things the mayor had said in his last moments. She had no idea who or what Paperclip Unlimited was, but she got the distinct impression that they were bad news. They were the ones that were responsible for this mess and, now that she thought about, probably for at least some of the things that had gone done in the Sea of Cortez. And whatever they were doing, Isla Niña couldn’t be the end of it. There had to be more.
They’d been able to buy the mayor of Puerto Ayora. They had been able to pay the entire Ecuadorian Navy to look the other way, at least for a brief time. So where else might their influence be?
For now, she decided, she would keep the name Paperclip Unlimited to herself. Kevin could know, but no one else.
Maria shook her head. “No. Whatever secrets he knew about Call It George and her babies, he took them with him.”
“You should probably know, that Padilla guy was trying to get a hold of you earlier. He knows what happened. Hell, most of the world will pretty soon. Some news outlets are probably on their way right now.”
“Probably not that many, though,” Maria said. “The average television viewer doesn’t actually care that a number of rare animals have been destroyed. All they care about is which celebrity accidentally released a sex tape.”
“Maybe you can fix that,” Merchant said. “Isn’t that why you wanted to do all this?”
“I wanted to do all this so I could pay for my medical bills.”
“Oh come on, I know you and Kevin are more idealistic than that. And this is your chance. You can make people care that an irreplaceable part of the world was wiped out.”
“Is that enough, though? We can try to tell people, but as long as there are still Mayor Estevez’s in world, does anything we do or say help?”
“You know he’s not mayor anymore, right? Kind of hard for someone in multiple pieces to take bribes.”
Maria winced.
“Oh shit. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about you and your… you know.” She gestured at Maria’s leg.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“What I was trying to say is that the spot of mayor in Puerto Ayora is open. All that needs to happen is for the spot to be filled by a good person. Maybe a certain young man who knows the local tourist industry inside and out, yet still wants what’s best for the islands?”
Maria looked at her, a smile slowly coming to her lips. “Ernesto would be pretty good for the job, wouldn’t he?”
“I’m sure he can be convinced to run,” Merchant said.
They both went quiet for a time as they watched the sun rise through the haze of smoke. “There’s still a problem, you know,” Merchant finally said.
Maria nodded. With all the excitement, she was wondering if anyone else would notice the one remaining loose thread.
“Are you sure that there were three hatched eggs down in that cavern?” Merchant asked.
“No, I’m not. Kevin and I were just guessing based on the broken pieces of eggshell we found. They were pretty shattered, it was dark, we were both tired and scared. We could have been wrong. Very easily.”
“But do you think you were?”
Maria shrugged. “It’s possible. Maybe even likely. Hug It, Pet It, and Call It George could have been all there was of our mutant turtle friends. Or Squeeze It could have existed after all, and it didn’t survive as long as the others. The Galápagos is a harsh environment, after all.”
“You didn’t really answer the question, though. Do you think there’s a third baby out there?”
“Probably because it’s not a question I can answer. If you forced me at gunpoint to make a guess? I suppose I would say I believe it’s over. I think we’ve seen the last of them.”
Merchant nodded, said goodbye, and went to find a place to sleep. Maria couldn’t tell whether or not Merchant knew she was lying.
*
She fled.
She lacked the ability to make context of the turmoil taking place at the surface. All she had was her instincts telling her that something had gone wrong, that she had to go, that she must flee. Her mother was dead, one of her sisters was limp next to the island that had been their home, and her other sister had vanished. The water above her churned with too much activity, and the cavern that she had been born in was uncomfortably hot.
So she swam. She had no concept of how long it took her, but when she found an underwater cave, she instinctively took shelter there, feeling like it provided something she was lacking. Protection. A home.
The creature that had been dubbed Squeeze It finally calmed. She could stay here for a while. She could grow and thrive. And she could wait.
21
Maria brought the pies in from the kitchen and set them on the table. As soon as she’d seen Mama putting the pies in the oven, she’d known that tonight’s dinner would be different from the last time. These pies weren’t store-bought. They were homemade. Mama had spent hours making them with love.
Mama came up behind her with the plates, setting one in front of everyone. This time, Maria noticed there was no passive-aggressive placement for Kevin. His dish was as close as anyone else’s.
This dinner had been so different from the last one that it was hard to believe she was even in the same house with the same family. To start with, there was no television crew. Maria had politely asked Merchant for them to have this time in private, just her and her family, and Merchant had relented. The executives at TEC weren’t so desperate for footage anymore. Indeed, they’d gotten so much to work with in the Galápagos Islands that they could fill more than just one episode, and it was action-packed enough that they didn’t need to manufacture any additional family drama. Indeed, a family spat would have looked boring and anticlimactic after the footage of Maria leaping off the exploding island.
Despite the environmental disaster it represented, Maria had no choice but to admit she’d been right: the footage really did make her look like the ultimate badass.
And there was no family spat for the crew to film, anyway. When they’d come in, Mama had hugged both her and Kevin in quick succession, all of the previous tension apparently gone. Papa was still a little stiff around Kevin, but he remained cordial. Ramon and Felix both joked around equally, often including Kevin in on the humor. It was an amazing turnaround. Maria wasn’t quite sure what had caused it, but she wasn’t going to question it for fear that it would all be revealed as a dream.
As Mama served the pies, though, Maria could no longer keep her curiosity to herself. “Okay, so can I finally ask what’s going on?”
“Why, whatever do you mean, dear?” Mama said in a tone that clearly said she knew exactly what Maria was talking about.
“You’re treating me and Kevin like, well…”
“Like family?” Felix asked.
“Yeah. Like that.”
“Maria, don’t be silly,” Mama said. “You are family.”
“Yes. I am. But Kevin…”
Everyone stopped and looked at Kevin. He’d remained fairly quiet through most of the dinner, probably because he was as confused about the sudden turnaround as Maria was. He looked uncomfortable under the sudden scrutiny, but then again, maybe that was because he was still in some amount of pain. The broken
bones he’d received underneath Isla Niña were still healing, after all, and slower than they should have been. Although Maria had to admit that was probably partially her fault. With the camera crews no longer around so much, Maria had been taking advantage of their time alone. There were times when she might have been a little rougher than his body needed right now.
Papa took a deep breath and answered her. “Maria, Kevin is family, too.”
The words weren’t exactly a surprise, given the way they had been acting all night, but it still felt like a heavy weight was lifted from Maria’s chest. “What happened to all that talk from before? About him being old enough to be Papa?”
Papa sighed. “I’m still uncomfortable with that.”
“As am I,” Felix said.
“Actually, you can thank Ramon,” Mama said. “He’s the one that wouldn’t let up on us until we listened.”
“Your friend Merchant showed me some of the early footage from the show at one point,” Ramon said. “I saw the way Kevin was with you when you were recovering. And I made sure everyone else knew that I thought that was more important than his age.”
“Look, Kevin, we’re terribly sorry if we made you feel less than welcome the first time you were here,” Mama said to him. “We weren’t thinking. All we wanted was what was best for our girl.”
“Not a girl. A woman,” Maria mumbled, but she didn’t put much fight in the words. She understood the point Mama was trying to make.
“And I want what’s best for her as well,” Kevin said. “I love her. I would never intentionally do something to hurt her.”
“And I love him, too,” Maria said as she took Kevin’s hand. “That should be enough.”
“Oh, it is,” Mama said, although there was something knowing in the way she said it that made Maria suspicious. Hoping Kevin’s lesser grasp of Spanish kept him from understanding, Maria switched languages.
“Por que cambiaste tu mente, Mama? Que estas tratando de realizar?”
Mama smiled. “Ahi corazon, no hay otros motiros. Nomas quiero asegurarme que mi hija esta con un hombre que le de un orgasmo cuando la llenando de placer.”
“Mama!” Maria said, shocked and really hoping now that Kevin hadn’t understood that. Judging from the way he smiled and blushed, he’d understood enough.
Her brothers started laughing, which got Papa laughing, and soon everyone is the room was laughing. As it tapered off into congenial, good-natured small talk among everybody, Felix held up a finger.
“I almost forgot. Maria, you got something in the mail a couple days ago.”
Maria frowned. “Really? I haven’t lived here for two years now. Why would anyone be sending me mail here?”
“I don’t know,” Felix said. “But I’ll go get it for you.”
Maria was so engrossed in Mama’s pie that she almost forgot why Felix had left in the few minutes he was gone. When he came back, he handed her a manila envelope. Her name and this address was written on it in block letters, but the return address seemed to be some kind of law firm. The name looked familiar, but it took her several seconds to place it. When she did, her smile disappeared.
“What’s wrong?” Papa asked.
“Nothing,” Maria said, trying to put a fake smile on her face. “It’s nothing. Nothing to worry about. Just… a letter from someone I didn’t expect to ever hear from again. Is there someplace I can go where I can read this in private?”
“You can use our bedroom, if you want,” Mama said.
“Thanks.” Maria stood up.
“Did you want me to…?” Kevin started to ask.
“Um, yes. Could you? For all I know this might be something you need to see, too.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ramon asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
You’re not far off, Maria thought, but she kept up the fake smile and said everything was fine. Kevin followed her down the hall to her parents’ bedroom and closed the door behind them. Maria plopped down on her parents’ bed, staring at the envelope.
“Okay, tell me what’s wrong,” Kevin said. “And stop with the ‘I’m fine’ crap. You know you can’t pull that on me.”
“Look at the return address,” Maria said, handing him the envelope. Kevin looked and shrugged.
“Okay? I’m not sure what the big deal is.”
“I wouldn’t know either if I hadn’t heard Merchant mention it casually in conversation soon after we got back from the islands. That law firm? It’s the one that represented Susan Laramie.”
“Oh,” Kevin said as he sat down next to her. “Are you sure that’s something you want to open?”
“Not like I have much of a choice.”
“You do, though.”
“I’m still not sure if I’m ready to face her. Dead or not.”
“How about this? I’ll open it and read it for you. Then I’ll tell you if it’s something I think you should look at. Do you trust me with that?”
Maria smiled. “Of course I do.” She handed him the envelope. “Go for it.”
Kevin made a big comical flourish of opening up the envelope and pulling out the single sheet of notebook paper that was inside. Whatever it was, the letter was handwritten in a distinctly girly hand. Kevin held the paper in such a way that she couldn’t see it as he read it. For all of three seconds, a smile stayed on his face. Then it abruptly vanished.
“What?” Maria asked. “What is it?”
“Just… just hold on, okay?” He finished reading the letter in silence, his mouth dropping open slightly as he read. When he finally finished, he glanced at her, then went back to read it a second time.
“Kevin?” Maria asked.
“Shit,” Kevin said quietly. “Oh, son of a shit-biscuit.”
“Kevin, tell me. What is it?”
“Uh, you need to read this yourself.”
“You can’t just summarize?”
“No. You… you have to read this.” He seemed reluctant to hand it over to her, though. Finally, Maria yanked it out of his hands and read the first line for herself.
Hello, Maria. This is Susan Laramie, although you knew me as Diane Mercer. And if you are reading this, then I am dead.
Maria looked up at Kevin. “What the hell?”
“Keep reading.”
It took an enormous amount of personal willpower, but she did.
My best guess would be that someone made it look like an accident or a suicide. But I’m telling you straight up that I wouldn’t kill myself. At least not before I had spoken to you. I’m writing this letter and giving it to one of my lawyers that I trust with the instruction that it only gets sent if I die.
I had hoped to tell you this in person, because I know you have no reason at all to trust me. I don’t blame you. Maybe if we talk in person, you’ll see in my eyes that I’m not lying. I hope that’s what happens. I hope you never see this.
Please believe me when I tell you this. I want to make things right. I heard about your leg, and I know you probably think it’s partly my fault. I think so too. I’m saying this to try to make amends.
Following Dave’s death (the man you knew as Murphy), I was too shocked to pay much attention to what was happening other than the giant shark in the water. It wasn’t until later, when I was in prison and able to see all the charges against me, that I realized something was wrong. I freely admit that everything I was charged with, I did.
Except one.
Maria lowered the letter. “I don’t know if I want to know.”
Kevin gently pushed the letter back up. “No, you definitely don’t want to know. But you have to.” Maria closed her eyes for a few seconds, took some deep breaths, and then kept reading.
The people who convinced us to do this gave us the bomb to put on the Tetsuo Maru. And that was the only bomb they gave us. But you already know that wasn’t the only explosion that day. There was another on the Cameron that took out the engines. But neither me nor Dave did that.
I ho
pe you understand what I’m saying. There…
Maria stopped reading. She understood exactly what Laramie was saying. But it couldn’t be true. The woman had to be lying from beyond the grave.
“Oh God,” Maria said quietly. “Kevin, what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
After a few more seconds, Maria forced herself to read the last two sentences. Then she read it again. And again. And again.
I hope you understand what I’m saying. There was someone else on the Cameron that day that planted the bomb.
Someone else on your crew was a traitor.
Epilogue
On paper, in as much as the company existed on paper at all, Paperclip Unlimited only had three physical assets: a warehouse in Illinois, a cargo freighter on the Atlantic, and a small two-prop plane that never seemed to be where official paperwork claimed it was. Should anyone ever take enough interest in the company to look for such a paper trail, they might come to the conclusion that Paperclip was a dummy corporation, considering its sole purpose appeared to be that it owned smaller companies, and was in turn owned by a much larger company. It looked to all the world as though it were inconsequential.
This was, of course, by design. The company’s two owners, while having a stake in many multi-billion dollar corporations around the world, considered Paperclip Unlimited to be their primary business. It was from there that the two oversaw the rest of their empire. And it was in that single warehouse, looking to the rest of the world as though it were inconsequential and practically abandoned, that they did their primary planning.
“When are we going to put in stairs?” Simon whined as he came down the ladder behind Cindy. Not that Simon and Cindy were their actual names, but Cindy couldn’t help but feel like they’d worn these personas long enough that they fit well, like if they were forced to vanish off the radar and live off just one of their identities for the rest of their lives, these were the identities they would choose.
Galapagos Below Page 18