And Then I Found Out the Truth Read Online Free

responsibility to provide that for her. You are expected as well. Dinner will begin at half past seven, and I expect you to arrive on time and in appropriate attire. As a reminder, appropriate does not — not! — include midriff-baring garments, garments that sparkle, overalls, or anything made of pleather. And don’t bother to call with an excuse — I will not believe for a second time that you have a previous engagement with your macramé instructor.
    Patience hung up with a brusque click, and Charley turned to me. “We certainly have our work cut out for us. It won’t be easy to find midriff-baring sequined pleather overalls on such short notice. We might have to get them custom-made.”
    “I have ze perfect tailor!” announced a disembodied voice.
    I shrieked, Charley jumped, and Rafe lunged for a weapon.
    In a distant corner of the loft, an old sofa sat facing the windows. Now a head appeared above the sofa’s back.
    Charley let out a long, slow breath. “Dieter, what are you doing here?” she demanded.
    “I vas attempting ze nap,” Dieter answered, as if napping in other people’s homes when they were completely unaware of your presence was the most natural thing in the world. “Zere is construction in my flat. But vith all ze talking and ze television, it is no better here. And zen, vith ze angry voman on ze phone, I give up.”
    “You know this man?” Rafe asked Charley, still brandishing the spatula he’d grabbed from the kitchen counter.
    It’s sort of hard to describe what, exactly, Charley does, since she’s done so many things, but most recently she’d been starring in and coproducing Dieter’s independent film. “Dieter’s a director,” Charley explained as she introduced him to Rafe. “His creative vision is absolutely revolutionary.”
    “I prefer cinéaste ,” Dieter said. “Ze term director, it is so bourgeois.” He was examining his reflection in the window, patting his spiky blond hair into just the right state of careful disarray and adjusting the drape of his scarf.
    “And he has a key?” asked Rafe.
    “But of course I have ze key,” Dieter said.
    “From when we were shooting up on the roof,” Charley added, though she probably didn’t even realize Rafe’s initial alarm was rapidly giving way to jealousy.
    Meanwhile, now that my pulse had returned to normal, I was worrying about what Dieter might have overheard. I’d thought only six people on this continent knew T.K. was alive: Charley, Rafe, Natalie, Quinn, the psychic I’d consulted, and me. But it looked like we might be up to seven. “Dieter, were you listening to everything this whole time?” I asked.
    “Not everyzing,” he said. “I vas dozing. But I zink you are vight to ask ze mother in Buenos Aires about ze ship captain. Zat is ze logical place to begin.”
    We had to ply him with leftovers, which led to a lengthy discussion of Austrian schnitzel versus German schnitzel and a dog he’d once had named Spaetzle, who had a penchant for Dadaist cinema, but Dieter ultimately seemed to recognize the importance of not sharing what he’d learned with anyone outside of the room. And though we didn’t have any brilliant ideas about how best to deploy a cineaste, he was also eager to help.
    “Zere must be a vay to harness ze power of visual media to furzer zis effort,” he said, simultaneously stroking his goatee and furrowing his brow.
    “We’ll let you know if we think of anything,” Charley told him. “But until then, not a word to anyone. And I still want my key back.”
    At school the next morning, it seemed like more people than usual were standing in little clumps out front before the bell rang, speaking in low, secretive voices, and then they were doing the same thing in the hallways between class periods and in the cafeteria.
    “What’s with everyone?” I asked Natalie at lunch.
    “What do you mean?” she asked.
    “Haven’t you noticed the secretive whispering?”
    Natalie’s normally