Page 50 of Home (Myron Bolitar 11)

Brooke just sat there with the photograph in her hand. "And Nancy doesn't see it?"

"That's what she said. She insisted it's Patrick."

"Do you believe her?"

"I believe she believes it."

"So she's deluding herself?"

Myron gave a half shrug. "I don't know."

Win spoke for the first time. "So we need to figure out who this Paul is. We need to find out where he lives, who his parents are--"

"Esperanza is on that. But it's going to take some time."

"I'll make some calls overseas. See if we can speed things up."

"I don't understand," Brooke said. "Is he an imposter? Is he trying to con the family?"

"It's possible."

"I read about a case like this," Brooke said. "When you have a missing son, you . . . Anyway, this was in the late nineties maybe. A family in Texas had their son go missing when he was twelve or thirteen. Three years later, some imposter from France said he was the missing kid. He fooled a lot of people."

Myron vaguely recalled the story. "What was his motive?"

"I don't remember. Money in part, but I think he got off on fooling people this way. It wasn't his first time posing as someone else. He was warped. The family fell for it in part, I guess, because they wanted it to be true." She looked up. "What's going on here, Myron?"

"I don't know."

"None of this makes any sense."

"We need to know more."

As if on cue, Myron's mobile phone rang. He looked at Win. "It's Joe Corless at the DNA lab."

"Put him on speaker."

Myron did just that, laying the phone on the table. "Joe?"

"Myron?"

"Joe, I'm sitting here with Win."

"Whoa. Win's back?"

Win spoke. "Please tell us the results."

"Let me cut right to it," Joe Corless said. And then he said something that surprised Myron: "The boy is indeed Patrick Moore."

Myron looked at Win. Brooke's face lost color.

"You're sure?"

"The hair samples you provided are from a female. The DNA off the toothbrush belongs to a male. These two people are full siblings."

"A hundred percent?"

"As close as you can get."

The doorbell rang. Win started for the door.

"Thanks, Joe," Myron said.

He hung up.

"He's Patrick," Brooke said. She kept her face steady, but there was a quake working the corner of her mouth. "He's not an imposter. He's Patrick."

Myron just sat there.

"So why is Vada back? Why is Patrick meeting with this Tamryn girl?"

"It's the other way around," Myron said.

"What do you mean?"

"Paul isn't someone posing as Patrick. Paul is Patrick."

Before he could explain further, Win returned to the kitchen with Zorra. If Brooke was surprised to see the manly looking transvestite in her kitchen, she didn't show it.

"Zorra has update on the au pair," Zorra said.

Brooke rose. "Vada?"

"She calls herself Sofia Lampo now," he said. "She flew into the country yesterday. She rented a Ford Focus at Newark Airport."

Brooke said, "So how do we find her?"

"It's already done, dreamboat," Zorra said. "All rent-a-cars are equipped with GPS systems--in case the car is stolen. Or you cross state lines so they can charge you more. Reasons like that."

"And they allow you to track it?"

Zorra adjusted his Veronica Lake wig with both hands and smiled. His lipstick was all over his teeth. "'Allow' would not be the word Zorra would use. But your cousin's money. It is very persuasive."

"So where is Vada?" Brooke asked.

Zorra took out his mobile phone. "Zorra is tracking her on this."

He showed them the screen. A blue dot blinked the car's location.

"Where is this exactly?"

Zorra pressed an icon. The map was replaced by a satellite image. Myron almost gasped out loud. The blue dot was surrounded by green. There was a lake that even from above looked familiar.

"Lake Charmaine," Myron said. "Vada is at Hunter Moore's house."

Chapter 32

The fifth grade classroom looked out over an expansive and complicated playground with slides and swings and forts and pirate ships and tunnels and pipes and ladders. Rob Dixon greeted Myron with a firm handshake and ready smile. He wore a suit of high-school-vice-principal brown and a bright tie Myron usually associated with pediatricians who were trying too hard. He sported a ponytail and a fresh shave.

"Hi, I'm Rob Dixon," he said.

"Myron Bolitar."

Back at the Baldwin house, they'd decided that Win would drive up to Hunter's place on Lake Charmaine while Myron would keep his appointment with the fifth grade teacher and stay in the area.

"I'm going too," Brooke had said. "I know Vada. I can help."

There was no room for debate in her voice.

"Please," Rob Dixon said, "have a seat."

The desks were those school kind with the chair attached. It took some effort for Myron to squeeze into one. The classroom itself was timeless. Sure, curriculums change and Myron assumed that somewhere there were hidden signs of modernity, but this could have been his own fifth grade classroom. Running across the top of the chalkboard was the alphabet written in capital and lowercase script. A potpourri of student artwork and projects took up the wall on the left. Newspaper clippings were tacked up beneath a handwritten sign reading CURRENT EVENTS.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Rob Dixon said.

"Pardon?"

"I watched The Collision--and here I stick you in a chair that has to bother your knee."

"I'm fine."

"No, please take my chair."

Myron winced and slid out from the desk. "Maybe we can just stand if that's okay."

"Sure thing. I'm excited about your research. By the way--and I don't know if this will interest you or not--I've been teaching fifth grade in this very same classroom for twenty-one years now."

"Wow," Myron said.

"I love this age. They're no longer little kids who can't understand deep concepts; they aren't yet adolescents with all the hardship that entails. Fifth grade is nicely on the cusp. It's an important transitional year."

"Mr. Dixon."

"Please call me Rob."

"Rob, I bet you're a great teacher. You look like that cool young teacher we all loved, except you're older and probably wiser, but you didn't get all jaded."

He smiled. "I love the way you put that. Thank you."

"And thank you. But I may be here under false pretenses."

He put his hand to his chin. "Oh?"

"I'm here to talk to you about a specific, tragic event."

Rob Dixon took a step backward. "I don't understand."

"I'm the one who saved Patrick Moore," Myron said. "But I'm still trying to figure out what happened to Rhys Baldwin."

Rob Dixon stared out the window. A boy Myron guessed was around six hopped over to a rope and started to swing on it. The glee on his face--Myron wondered when he had last seen someone so lost in joy.

"Why come to me?" he asked. "I had neither as a student. And I probably wouldn't have had. See, we try to make sure teachers don't get siblings. It isn't a rule or anything. The principal just thinks it's not a good idea. You come in with preconceived notions or, at the very least, a past with the parents. So even if they had stayed in school, I probably wouldn't have taught either boy."

"But you did teach Clark Baldwin and Francesca Moore."

"How do you know that?"

"Clark told me."

"So?" Dixon shook his head. "I really shouldn't talk about it anyway. I thought you became a sports agent. That's what the documentary said. After your injury, you went to Harvard Law School and then opened your own agency."

"That's true."

"So why are you involved in this?"

"It's what I do," Myron said.

>

"But the documentary said--"

"The documentary didn't tell the whole story." Myron stepped toward him. "I need your help, Rob."

"I don't see how."

"Do you remember that day?"

"I can't talk to you about this."

"Why not?"

"It's confidential."

"Rob, a boy is still missing."

"I don't know anything about that. You can't possibly think--"

"No, nothing like that. But I'm asking you. Do you remember the day the boys went missing?"

"Of course," Rob Dixon said. "You never forget something like that."

Myron debated what to ask next and then decided to cut right to it: "Were Clark and Francesca here?"

Rob Dixon blinked several times. "What?"

"The day their brothers went missing," Myron continued, "were Clark and Francesca in your classroom? Were they both in school? Did they leave early?"

"Why would you ask that?"

"I'm trying to piece together what happened."

"After ten years?"

"Please," Myron said. "You said you remember that day. You said you'd never forget something like that."

"That's right."

"So just answer me this simple question. Were both Francesca and Clark in your classroom?"

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