And Then I Found Out the Truth by Jennifer Sturman Page B

comment and disappeared into the stacks, and I made directly for the row of computers lining one wall.
    I probably could’ve spent the unexpected free period studying for my physics quiz, but it seemed only fair I should be able to use at least part of the time to focus on the Sagittarius, like Carolina had suggested. The other alternative was fretting more about Quinn, and I knew exactly what Carolina would have to say about that.
    There wasn’t a lot of public information available on EAROFO — it didn’t have its own Web site or handy MySpace page for those of us trying to figure out what sinister plots it might have under way. The only source I’d found so far was an online directory of Washington, D.C.-based lobbying organizations that provided the names and titles of EAROFO’s board members. Now I returned to the Web page and printed it out for a better look.
    There were twelve board members in total, and I studied the list for what felt like the millionth time, hoping maybe I’d generate a fresh insight or new lead. But I already knew about Trip Young from Navitaco, and the eleven others were still nothing more than names on a piece of paper. The accompanying photos showed ten white men, one black man, and a white woman, all dressed in nearly identical business suits and entirely unremarkable except for how uniformly old and stuffy they looked.
    Printing out the list and checking it again took less than two minutes, so then I started Googling the individual board members. I’d done this before, too, a couple of weeks ago, and had only turned up links to the Web sites for their respective companies and the occasional reference to something more personal but equally unrevealing, like a country club tennis championship or a charity gala.
    Nothing had changed since the last time I’d tried, but it was frustrating to get the same results anyway. So to narrow things down a bit, I searched for each name with Thad Wilcox, and then, to be fair, with Hunter Riley as well. Carolina had told me neither was part of the group that was “greedy for oil,” but it wasn’t like she’d definitively said they were innocent, either. She’d even said that there was something “not right” about Thad.
    And Google did return a bunch of hits. Which was exciting until I realized none of them was particularly incriminating.
    For example, Thad had played in an amateur golf tournament years ago with Victor Perkins, the chairman of Perkins Oil, but so had tons of other people, and both he and Sam Arquero, the head of Arquero Energy, were active in the Princeton alumni association — again, along with a cast of thousands. Hunter spoke on a panel with Trip Young at a recent Wall Street conference, but I already knew they were acquainted. He’d also served on a fund-raising committee for an adult literacy program, and so had Anthony Kaplan, the CEO of Energex, but there wasn’t any overlap between the periods during which they’d each been actively involved.
    So it wasn’t like I was turning up lots of evidence documenting close ties between Thad or Hunter and anyone at EAROFO. Not that I really expected to, but at this point I would have welcomed any lead, however tenuous or remote. Otherwise, I felt like I was sitting around, powerless, as I waited for Rafe to return from South America or Charley to dig up another random “source” or Carolina to have another illuminating dream.
    I was closing down the Web browser when I heard my phone quietly buzzing from the depths of my book bag. The librarian was at the far end of the room, at his desk and with his back to me, so I decided it would be safe to slip the phone out and check messages.
    My immediate thought — complete with another missed heartbeat — was that Quinn had finally texted, and I tried not to be disappointed when I saw the only person I’d heard from was Charley. Of course, I was even more disappointed when I read her message:
please don’t hate me
can’t make