Page 22 of Home (Myron Bolitar 11)

"What else would it be?"

No reason to answer that quite yet. "Clark told me he was in school when the boys were taken."

"Right. So?"

"Most kids finish school around three in the afternoon. The kindergarteners in this town only go half a day, right?"

"Right. They were let out at eleven thirty."

"And the kidnappers knew that too."

"So?"

"So nothing. It suggests some planning on their part; that's all."

"The police figured that. They figured that they probably followed Vada or Rhys and knew their schedule."

Myron thought about that. "But Rhys didn't come home after school every day, did he? I mean, I assume sometimes his playdates took him to other kids' homes. I assume he went to Patrick's sometimes, for example."

"Right."

"So on the one hand, this looks carefully planned out. Three men. Knowing the schedule. And then on the other, they rely on your au pair leaving this sliding door unlocked and no one seeing them as they approached."

"They could have known she never locked it."

"By spying on how she entered the kitchen from the yard? Unlikely."

"They also could have smashed the window," Brooke said.

"I'm not following."

"Let's say Vada had spotted them. Do you think she could have gotten to the door and locked it in time? And then what? They could have smashed the glass and grabbed the boys."

It was all possible, Myron thought. But why wait? Why not grab the boys when they were out in the yard? Were they afraid someone would see?

It was too early to theorize. He needed to gather more facts.

"So here they are, the kidnappers, stepping inside right where we are now," Myron said.

Brooke stiffened for a moment. "Yes."

"That was kind of abrupt, I'm sorry."

"Don't patronize me."

"I'm not. But it doesn't mean I have to be insensitive either."

"Let's get this out of the way," Brooke said.

"Get what out of the way?"

"You're probably wondering how I do it," Brooke said. "How I come into this kitchen every day and walk right past where Rhys was taken. Do I block? Do I cry sometimes? I do a little of both, I guess. But mostly I remember. Mostly I come in this kitchen and what happened is my companion. And I need that. Everyone wondered why we didn't move away. Why we invite this pain. I'll tell you why. Because this pain is better. This pain is better than the pain of giving up on him. A mother doesn't give up on her child. So I can live with the pain. I can't live with giving up."

Myron thought about what Win had told him, about how the lack of closure was eating at Brooke, making it all the more unbearable. There comes a time when you have to know the answers. Maybe you can live with the pain, but the not knowing, the purgatory, the limbo, had to eat away at your bones.

"Do you understand now?" Brooke said.

"I do, yeah."

"Then ask your next question," she said.

Myron dove right in. "Why the basement?" He pointed to the sliding glass door. "You break in here. You've grabbed the boys. You have the nanny. You decide to leave her alive. You decide to tie her up. So why not do it here? Why bring her down to the basement?"

"For the reason you just stated."

"That being?"

"If they tied her up here, you'd be able to see from the backyard."

"But if the backyard is that exposed, why go that way in the first place?"

Myron heard heavy footsteps coming down the steps. He checked his watch. Eight forty-five A.M.

"Brooke?"

It was Chick. He hurried into the room and pulled up when he saw Myron. Chick wore a business suit and tie and sported a fancy leather tote, the modern-day equivalent of a briefcase. Was Chick planning on talking to Patrick, and then, what, catching a few hours at the office?

Chick didn't bother with hello. He held up his mobile phone.

"Don't you check your texts?" he asked his wife.

"I left my phone in the foyer. Why?"

"Group text from Nancy to both of us," Chick said. "She wants us to meet at their house, not here."

Chapter 15

They took Myron's car. Myron drove. Chick and Brooke sat in the back. They held hands, which somehow seemed out of character for them.

"Turn left at the end of the road," Chick said.

Left started them back down the mountain. The area was slightly less affluent, but you were just talking about varying degrees of high rent. Chick told him where to make the right and the next left. The journey was a short one. The two houses were less than a mile apart.

When they made the final turn onto the Moores' street, Chick looked up ahead and muttered, "Crap."

News vans, lots of them, lined both sides of the road. That made sense, of course. After a ten-year absence, Patrick Moore was home. The press wanted pictures and video of the missing boy and the happy parents and the big reunion. So far, only one image of the recently rescued Patrick had surfaced in the media. An orderly at the hospital in London had taken a somewhat blurry picture of the sleeping teen from a distance and sold it to a British tabloid.

There was an obvious hunger for more.

The media began to swarm the car, but Myron kept moving so that no one could get in front of them. There was a town cop at the foot of the driveway. He waved Myron in and stopped anyone from following. The media obeyed, choosing instead to rely on their zoom lenses. Myron noticed a FOR SALE sign in the yard. In front of him, the garage door slid open. He pulled inside, the electric door beginning to close behind him. Myron turned off the engine. They waited for the door to close completely, cutting off those probing lenses, before all three of them opened their car doors and stepped out.

The garage fit two cars. The car parked next to them was a Lexus sedan. There was no clutter in the garage, not so much because the owners appeared to be orderly but because there simply wasn't anything here. Nothing about this place felt "suburban family," but then again why would it? Patrick too had an older sibling, a sister, Francesca, who'd be about Clark's age if Myron recalled correctly, and no younger siblings. Hunter and Nancy were divorced, so up until a few days ago, that was it--single mom, one college-age daughter. Nancy had probably been ready to move out and start the next chapter of her life.

The door between the house and garage opened. Hunter Moore leaned his head out. He seemed surprised to see Myron with them, but he shook it off. "Hey, guys, come this way."

They took the two steps off the concrete and onto the tile. The kitchen was quasi-homey, done up to look rustic with stone veneers and wood-paneled cabinetry. Nancy stood by the kitchen table with a man Myron didn't recognize.

The man smiled at them. The smile made Myron cringe a bit. He was balding, wiry, probably in his early fifties, with the kind of glasses you call spectacles. He wore a denim shirt tucked into faded jeans. His whole persona had an emcee-at-an-outdoor-folk-festival vibe.

The six of them all stood there for a moment, as though both couples had brought surrogates who would duel it out. Myron tried to get a bead on Nancy and Hunter. He came up only with nervous. Mr. Folk Festival, on the other hand, seemed in his element. He spoke first.

"Why don't we all have a seat?" he said.

"Who the hell are you?" Chick asked.

He turned his cringingly gentle smile toward Chick. "I'm Lionel."

Chick looked at Myron, then at his wife, then at the Moores. "Where's Patrick?"

"He's upstairs," Lionel said.

"So when can we see him?"

"In a bit," Lionel said. "Why don't we all just sit down in the living room, where we can be more comfortable?"

"Hey, Lionel?" Chick said.

"Yes?"

"Do we look like we're in the mood to be comfortable?"

Lionel nodded in the most understanding, compassionate, phony way possible. "Point taken, Chick. Is it okay if I call you Chick?"

Chic

k looked at Myron and Brooke as though to say, What the eff?

Brooke stepped toward Nancy. "What's going on here, Nancy? Who is this guy?"

Nancy looked helpless, but Lionel stepped between them.

"My name is Lionel Stanton," he said. "I'm a doctor looking after Patrick."

"What kind of doctor?" Chick asked.

"I'm a psychiatrist."

Uh-oh. Myron didn't like where this was headed.

Nancy Moore took Brooke's hand. "We want to help."

"Of course we do," Hunter added. He swayed a little bit, and Myron wondered whether he was sober.

Chick said, "Why do I think I hear a 'but' coming?"

"No 'but,'" Lionel said. And then: "I just need you to understand. Patrick has been through a tremendous ordeal."

"Really?" Chick said, his voice thick with sarcasm. "We wouldn't know anything about that, would we?"

"Chick." It was Brooke. She shook her head for him to stop. "Go on, Doctor."

"I could dance around this for a bit," Lionel said, "but let me just tell you this right from the get-go. No stalling. No fancy words. No excuses. Just the flat-out truth."

Oh boy, Myron thought.

"At this juncture, Patrick can't help you."

Chick opened his mouth, but Brooke silenced him with a wave. "What do you mean, he can't help us?"

"I understand that last night Mrs. Moore suggested you meet at your house."

"Yes, that's right."

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