Latitude Zero

by Diana Renn

  “How’d you become a suspect?” I asked, my mouth dry.

  “I’m a person of interest, for now,” he said. “They found my biking glove. It must have fallen out of my saddle bag. Right near the Team EcuaBar bike trailer.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What were you doing near their trailer?”

  “Taking a shortcut. So I could get back to you quicker. Of course, that was when I had no idea you’d sneak off to hang out with Juan Carlos.”

  “I didn’t sneak off to hang out with Juan Carlos. I told you, I moved to get away from TV cameras. But none of that even matters now. Juan Carlos is dead.” I glared at him.

  “I know you suspected me of taking the guy’s bike. Don’t tell me you think I’m a murderer now.”

  I continued to stare at him, searching for some fleeting expression that might reveal the truth.

  His expression was skepticism, which turned into doubt, then shock. “Oh, God. You do. You actually think I rigged el Cóndor’s bike. To kill him.”

  “I don’t know what to think, Jake. Now I know you were near the trailer, and you never told me that. How’d they know the glove was yours anyway?”

  “My name was on it. It was part of a pair I used to race in. All our clothes and gear were labeled. Tessa.” His eyes were wild. No. Scared. “I didn’t want him to get hurt. I wanted him to go back to his home country. Or evaporate or something, once he started coming on to you.”

  “Coming on to me?”

  “You know what I mean. Every time I turned my back, he’d show up and talk to you. And he used to ask me, all the time, how things were going with us. It was like he was prowling around a house looking for cracks, for some place to get in.”

  I shook my head in amazement. I never knew all that. Was Jake telling the truth?

  “It drove me crazy,” Jake went on. “Yeah, I was pissed. But I didn’t want him to get hurt or to die. I swear, I didn’t do anything to him. And I’m going to have a hell of a time convincing the police about that.”

  “Why?”

  He sat at the opposite end of the swing and grabbed the other chain.

  “Okay.” He looked down. “There’s something I never told you. The doping allegations? It wasn’t my bag they found those drugs and syringes in. They were in Juan Carlos’s bag.”

  Now my jaw dropped. “Juan Carlos was doping?”

  “No. He was clean. I planted the stuff. Okay? I did it.”

  “No!”

  “I did it,” he repeated. “And I was stupid enough to get caught. A surveillance camera at the gym where the team worked out showed me going into the locker room with a bag. Later they found my fingerprints on it. Now I’m on the record as someone who tried to get Juan Carlos kicked off the team. So I’m sure, on paper, I look capable of bike sabotage. Someone could look at this as a great act of vengeance.”

  I looked away so he wouldn’t see my eyes glistening. I wanted to throw up. Or cry. Or scream. Or all of those things at once. All those weeks, months, I’d been the supportive girlfriend, standing up for him—even to my own parents—were based on a lie. He’d tried to sabotage Juan Carlos’s racing career, and then lied to me about it. All this time, I’d been defending a liar.

  “God, Jake.” I shook my head. “Why did you do it? I mean, if you’d gotten away with it, he would have been deported.” If Jake could sink this low, could he be capable of worse? Like bike sabotage . . . like murder? I moved two more inches away. I glanced at Jake’s hands in his pockets. Who was this person beside me now?

  “He’d taken my place. There wasn’t room for two champions on the team.”

  “But Juan Carlos could have lost his whole racing career,” I argued. “What else would he do? His family doesn’t have much money. Cycling was his big ticket out. At least you had other options. You had college. Going pro would have been a great perk, but you didn’t have to.” I frowned. “Where’d you get the drugs and the syringes?”

  “It’s not important. Everyone knows someone. The point is, I was stupid, okay? I got caught, and now it’s on my record. I was so embarrassed. I didn’t want to tell you the whole story. I thought I’d lose cycling, and my scholarship, and then I’d lose you.”

  I looked away to hide my tears. “It’s too late. I don’t love you anymore. I can’t hold you together or fix whatever’s broken in you. And I can’t love a liar.”

  Jake’s hopeful expression curdled into a scowl. “Ah. Miss Honesty. The girl who lied to her parents about us. And who lied to me about her cozy little chats with Juan Carlos. In Harvard Square. At Chain Reaction. Where else? How often? I’d be the last to know.” Jake stood up. “You know, you have this holier-than-thou perception of yourself as an incredibly honest person. You’ve confused yourself with your KidVision persona, which, by the way, was manufactured for you. The real Tessa Taylor? She’s as capable of deceit as the rest of us. None of us are perfect. We all lie or cover things up when it suits our needs. You’re no exception.”

  His words stung. I hated to admit he could be right. I’d told so many half-truths since Chain Reaction—even since Jake’s doping scandal—while trying to do the right thing. Maybe my idea of myself as an honest person was the biggest lie of all.

  Still, I’d spent the past two weeks dreaming up ways to do good, to be a person of integrity, and he was making me feel like all those blog comments about my bandit riding episode were right. That I was a liar, a cheater, a fake. This was what I hated about Jake. How he always made me crash.

  He sat down again, closer, and the swing lurched crazily. I grabbed the chain to steady it.

  His eyes were pleading. Desperate. “I need a solid alibi. I have to prove I didn’t go into the Team EcuaBar trailer that morning. I need a witness to support me. Come see this detective with me tomorrow. Tell them you were with me every moment that morning, until we got separated on the ride.”

  “We did not ‘get separated.’ You dropped me. And we were not together every moment that morning.”

  “Hey, you were out of my sight, too,” said Jake. “You feel like talking to a detective about why you tampered with evidence at a crime scene? Why you didn’t report a stolen bike right away?”

  Now I stood up. “You wouldn’t let me report it! You said not to call the police!”

  “Tessa. Listen to me. If I have to fight a legal battle, all because of a goddamn glove, it will kill my mother. It’ll suck up the last of my college savings on lawyers. I’ll lose any chance I have of getting to UMass in the fall. Please. I am begging. It’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you. We both say we were never apart, not for one second, before the ride started. Deal?”

  Could I trust him to have my back? Could I defend him again? Only if I was certain he wasn’t at fault. I now believed Darwin was running a high-end bike theft operation, and Jake could have been uninvolved in all that. But I had no proof to offer to send the cops after Darwin. And bike theft now looked petty compared to the bigger bike crime. Sabotage. Murder. Jake didn’t look good. The timing. The dropped glove. The know-how. The motive.

  “You’re being honest? Explain this.” I stared him down. “I looked through all the photos on the Chain Reaction website. Every rider got their picture taken at mile ten. You couldn’t miss the camera. But you’re not pictured, and you told me you got to mile twenty. Why is that? And don’t tell me it’s because you’re so fast you were a blur.”

  He looked down. “You’re right. I never made it to mile ten,” he admitted. “Or even to mile five. I went around the bend and cut back into the woods.”

  “You went back into the woods? What for?”

  “To check out that bike you’d found. I had to see it for myself.”

  “And did you?”

  “No. It was gone. I didn’t see that guy you mentioned, either.”

  “Aviator sunglasses? Buzzed hair? Thick neck? You swear you
never saw him?”

  “I swear. But I believed you did. And I’ve had my suspicions that Juan Carlos was up to something for a while now. That’s what I went back to prove.”

  “What would he have been up to? Doping?”

  “Maybe. I’ve studied his racing videos online. He’s had some really significant breakaways ever since he went pro.”

  “He doesn’t win every race. I’ve looked at his stats.”

  “That could be strategic,” Jake insisted. “People started smelling a rat about Lance Armstrong because he won too much. If a coach or someone was behind a doping scheme now, they’d want to make sure the wins were spread out. Only the most important races or stages. Anyway, something was definitely up.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He came back from his off-season training in Ecuador in February, and he was like a different rider at spring training camp the next month. People said it was because he’d been training in the mountains.”

  “Right. He had more red blood cells and lung capacity. The altitude gave him an edge.” I could hear the hopeful note in my voice. I did not want to think of Juan Carlos as a cheater, as a doper.

  “It wasn’t just that,” Jake said. “He’d changed. All through the spring, he stopped doing interviews. At pre-season team meetings, he was really serious and quiet. He wouldn’t speak up. So I started paying attention. It seemed like he had something to hide. But I also didn’t think it was drugs.”

  “But if he wasn’t doping, how would he be cheating?” I asked.

  “I thought he might be doing some kind of bike-switching scheme. Having people swap out his bike, after inspection, for one that’s not approved. One with modifications. Maybe even a motor in the seat tube.”

  “A motor?” I laughed. “Come on.”

  “It sounds crazy, but believe me, it’s possible. It’s called mechanized doping. With enough money sunk into developing a product, and with a willing team of accomplices, a pro could get away with it. I thought if I could find any proof, I could take it to the cycling board. When you said his spare bike was hidden in there—and a guy was there—I felt like it had to be a cheating scheme with a swapped-out bike. Catching him in the act was more important to me than finishing the ride—or taking care of you. And I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I guess I just lost myself that day. And now I’ve lost you.”

  “So why did you lie to me again, and tell me you made it to mile twenty? You didn’t.”

  “Because I didn’t find the bike in the woods. Or the guy you mentioned. And I felt like a total idiot. It seemed easier to say I’d made it to the checkpoint. Now I see that was wrong. Look, I’m telling you I’m sorry. For everything. What more do you want from me?”

  “Right.” More lies, more explanations, more apologies. I’d had enough. I stood up. “I think you should just tell all this to the police. I can’t help you.”

  “I can’t. My word counts for nothing with cops. So I’m just going to tell them I was riding with you. The whole time. Please, Tessa. Come back me up. I swear it’s the last thing I’ll ask from you.” He took a step toward me. I turned, backed away, and crashed into the swing.

  Jake reached for me. He bent low, and I felt his breath on my cheek.

  I swatted at him. “No! Get away from me!”

  “Jesus! I’m just trying to help you up, Tessa. Why are you acting all—”

  The front door flew open. “Tessa?” said my dad, as Jake and I both sprang apart from each other. “All right. Get the hell out!” he shouted at Jake. “You are not a welcome visitor!”

  “Okay, okay! I was just leaving.” Jake scrambled to get on his bike.

  My mom joined Dad in the doorway, and together they watched him ride off.

  “Your mother and I had reached a decision,” said my dad. “We were going to let you go to South America next year, after graduation. But now?” He glared at Jake’s departing figure, then gave my mom a long look. She nodded. Firmly. “We’ve changed our mind,” my dad said.

  My heart sunk.

  “We think some perspective in another country, and some time away from that loser, would do you a whole world of good.”

  31

  I GAZED out at the darkening sky and the jagged peaks of the Andes. As the plane began its descent, soft yellow-gold lights winked through thick clouds. Then trickles of lights, and then streams spilled down from the sides of mountains, pooling into a valley. Quito, Ecuador’s capitol city. My home for the next three weeks. As we soared over el Cóndor’s homeland, I imagined an Inca sun god had scattered gold across velvety hills.

  I rested my forehead against the window. Somewhere, among those lights, my host family waited for me. I’d wanted to stay with Mari in her cousin’s apartment, but my parents had laid down the law. “That girl is eighteen,” my dad had said. “You’re not. Homestay or nothing.”

  I hadn’t argued. I was grateful they’d let me go at all. They’d gifted me credit-card flier miles and paid the Vuelta program fee. That’s how desperate they were to get me away from Jake. Not to mention the unfolding criminal investigation into Juan Carlos’s murder.

  Now Juan Carlos’s death was officially considered foul play, and Jake’s future was on the line.

  After Jake’s unannounced visit, I’d had to confess to my parents that Jake was a person of interest in a homicide case. They freaked out. Then they took action. It turned out my dad knew a detective in the Cabot PD. He took me there personally the next day to tell Detective Lauren Grant about the morning of Chain Reaction, especially the two brief periods of time when I couldn’t account for Jake’s whereabouts. I knew they’d use this information against him in his questioning. But I turned my heart into steel. Jake had deceived me since April. I owed him nothing.

  Once I got started talking, I’d wanted to tell Detective Grant even more. About Darwin’s threatening texts. About Pizarro threatening me at knifepoint, demanding “information.” About Juan Carlos’s stolen spare bike and its secret contents, now en route to latitude zero. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the spare bike and its contents had some link to the saboteur of the main bike, or would help to explain the reason behind Juan Carlos’s death. Two bike crimes against the same person, at the same event, had to be connected somehow.

  Yet when Detective Grant had said, “Anything else you want to tell us today, Tessa?” I’d gone silent. I remembered Balboa’s warnings about what else Darwin might do to destroy my family and me online. Who knew what other dirt Darwin had dug up—or could make up?

  Still, every day that the investigation focused on Jake brought detectives one step closer to me, I was sure. That dropped glove didn’t look good for Jake. At all. Police were looking into Jake and Juan Carlos’s history of rivalry on the junior team, just as Jake had feared. In a Boston Globe article about the case, a reporter described the whole doping scandal and Jake’s possible motives for vengeance.

  “Only a matter of time before reporters come sniffing around here,” my dad had muttered, flinging that newspaper straight into recycling.

  Then, about a week later, a startling new development emerged.

  A ball peen hammer and razor—the tools Mari had said were likely used for the bike sabotage—had been found on the Team Cadence-EcuaBar trailer floor. Forensics tests showed the razor had paint flecks matching the paint on Juan Carlos’s spare bike. And the fingerprints found all over the tools? Not Jake’s.

  Dylan Holcomb’s.

  That was not so surprising. They were, after all, his tools—as Dylan explained tirelessly in news interviews. Dylan also insisted he hadn’t seen any signs of sabotage upon his inspection. Then he changed his story. He admitted that upon his post-race inspection, he’d noticed indications of sabotage, but he’d been afraid to report it for fear of losing his job. He’d left the trailer for a few minutes on a bathroom break, and hadn’t double-checked the
lock. That lapse had given the saboteur a small window of time in which to enter the trailer and do the job.

  With a shifting story line, no other fingerprints but his on the tools, and no alibi, Dylan had replaced Jake as the prime suspect. While he was being questioned, Dylan wasn’t allowed to leave the country. He couldn’t even go on the Pan-American Cycling Tour with the team. I was relieved the focus was off Jake. But I felt bad for Dylan. Maybe he was a flake about security, but he just didn’t seem capable of hurting Juan Carlos.

  That shipping container unloading date couldn’t come fast enough. If the smuggled spare bike contained evidence to help get the right person into custody—even fingerprints or a strand of hair from the thief—Dylan could be a free man.

  The pilot interrupted my thoughts, announcing that we’d be landing soon. From my backpack, I took out a printed copy of my host family’s introductory email and family photo. I studied the printout of the Ruiz family’s smiling faces.

  My pretty host mom, Lucia Ruiz, looked to be in her early forties. With her sharp suit, sleek updo, and perfect makeup, she had the polished look of a news anchor, but her letter said she was a stay-at-home mom. My host dad, Hugo, was an economist. He wore delicate wire glasses that made him look intellectual, and he had an athletic build. They both looked way younger than my own parents. Fifteen-year-old Amparo had a heart-shaped face and long, dark hair, brushed straight and glossy. The letter mentioned (twice) that she was the second runner-up for Miss Teen Quito. She posed with careful posture, as if balancing an invisible tiara on her head. Andreas, my twelve-year-old host brother, had long, tousled hair that hung in his eyes and wore a soccer uniform. He held my host poodle, Peludo.

  I reread the letter. They were “so exciting” to have me come as a “last-minute replace” for someone who’d had to cancel. They would “eagerly to meet me at airport on 12 Julio.” My room “was preparation and waited for me.” They had “many exciting actividades planning.”

  I hoped they weren’t planning too many actividades. I had plenty of actividades of my own planned. Like volunteering for Vuelta, and doing interviews for my vlog. Like finding out why Juan Carlos’s spare bike was supposed to end up in Quito, and getting my hands on it in the hopes it would help unravel the mystery of Juan Carlos’s death.