Harlan Coben - Home

Myron found a parking lot on Reade Street and started walking north toward FBI headquarters. He passed Duane Street and recalled a fun factoid. Duane Reade pharmacies, which dominated New York, had derived its name from its first warehouse being located between Duane Street and Reade Street.

Odd thoughts go through your head at random times.

Alyse Mervosh greeted him with a firm handshake. “Can I just get this out of the way?” she said.

“Get what out of the way?”

“My fangirling? I loved, loved, loved the documentary on your injury. Loved it.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“Seriously, to be that high, that close to the pinnacle, and then to be destroyed like that, to be left in a heap with nothing…”

Her voice trailed off.

Myron opened his arms and smiled. “Yet here I am.”

“But are you really okay?” she asked.

“I can do ten one-handed push-ups if you’d like.”

“Really?”

“No. I can maybe do one.”

She shook her head. “Sorry, I’m being unprofessional. It’s just… that documentary really made me pity you, you know?”

“Just the feeling I was hoping for.”

She turned a little red. “Pardon the way I’m dressed. I was in the middle of a tennis lesson when PT called.”

Dr. Mervosh wore a sweat suit so old-school that Myron almost looked for the Fila label. Her hair was blond and she wore a headband. The whole look was Early Eighties Björn Borg.

“No worries,” Myron said. “Thanks for doing this so late.”

“Do you want a long explanation or do you want my conclusion?”

“Conclusion, please.”

“Inconclusive,” she said.

“Oh,” Myron said. “So your conclusion is, what, you just don’t know?”

“In terms of answering the question, ‘Is the teenager interviewed today on CNN the same Patrick Moore who was abducted ten years ago?’ sorry, I can’t be firm. Can I explain?”

“Please do.”

“What I mostly do-forensic facial reconstruction-is about identifying remains. You know that, right?”

“Yes.”

“This isn’t an exact science. Our hope is that our work may lead to a tip or a thought, but a lot of things can skew our results.” Alyse Mervosh made a face. “Is it hot in here?”

“A little.”

“Do you mind if I take off the jacket?”

“Of course not.”

“I don’t want you to think I’m flirting with you or anything.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I have a serious boyfriend.”

“And I’m engaged.”

“Really?” Her face brightened. “Oh, I’m so happy for you. I mean, after what you went through.”

“Dr. Mervosh?”

“Please call me Alyse.”

“Alyse,” Myron said. “It was just a hurt knee. I appreciate your”-he wasn’t sure of the word-“concern, but I’m fine.”

“And you want to know more about Patrick Moore.”

“I do, yes.”

“I’m not great socially,” she said. “It’s why I’m best in the lab. I have a tendency to be a nervous talker. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Myron said. Then: “You were saying something about the results being skewed sometimes.”

“Yes, that’s right. We are trying to imagine, if you will, what a six-year-old boy would look like as a sixteen-year-old. Those are, as you can imagine, difficult years to deduce. If Patrick Moore went missing when he was, say, twenty-six, and we found him now when he’s thirty-six, well, you get the idea, right?”

“Right.”

“Aging is about genetics mostly, but there are other factors. Diet, lifestyle, personal habits, trauma-any of that can alter the aging process and even, in some cases, your appearance. And again: You are also talking about perhaps the most difficult years to analyze. The alteration in appearance from child to adolescent can be an extreme one. As a child ages, the bones and cartilages develop and determine the proportions and shape of your face. So then, as forensic anthropologists, we have to fill in what might be there. The hairline might have receded, for example. Bone tissue is being formed, removed, elongated, and replaced. In short, it’s all hard to predict.”

“I see,” Myron said. “Can you make a guess?”

“About if this teenager is Patrick Moore?”

“Yes.”

She frowned and looked confused by the question. “Guess?”

“Yes.”

“I’m a scientist. I don’t make guesses.”

“I just meant-”

“I can only give you the facts as they are.”

“That’s fine.”

Alyse Mervosh slowly picked up a notepad and checked her notes. “The teenager’s features, with one notable exception, are well within the norm of the six-year-old’s. His eye color has altered slightly, but that’s not noteworthy. It is also very difficult to tell the exact color from a television interview. I was able to get a solid estimation of the height of his parents and sibling and compare it to Patrick’s height at age six. From those calculations, this teenager is two inches shorter than the median, but again that’s certainly within the margin of error. In short, this teenager could indeed be Patrick Moore, but one thing does concern me and leads to my inconclusiveness.”

“And that is?”

“His nose.”

“What about it?”

“The nose of the teenager, in my opinion, does not match what I see on the six-year-old. That’s not to say it couldn’t have aged this way, but it would be unlikely.”

Myron considered that for a moment. “Would a nose job explain it?”

“A classic nose job? No. Nose jobs by and large make noses smaller. In this case, the new Patrick Moore has a larger nose than expected.”

Myron thought about that. “How about, I don’t know, if his nose was broken repeatedly?”

“Hmm.” Alyse Mervosh picked up a pencil and tapped the eraser against her cheek. “I would doubt it, but it’s not impossible. There are also surgeries to build up a nose, due to trauma or congenital deformities or, mostly, cocaine abuse. Perhaps that would explain it. But I can’t say with anything approaching certainty. That’s why I am ruling as I am.”

“In other words,” Myron said, “we miss a conclusive identification by a nose?”

Alyse Mervosh looked at him for a second. “Wait, was that a joke?”

“Sort of.”

“Ugh.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“Humor aside,” she said, “you need a DNA test.”

I stare at the Dutch farmhouse through binoculars.

The flight from Rome to Groningen Airport Eelde in the Netherlands took two and a half hours. The ride from the airport to this farm in Assen took twenty minutes.

“Only four people in the house, dreamboat,” a heavily accented voice says to me.

I turn to Zorra. Zorra’s real name is Shlomo Avrahaim. He is former Mossad and a cross-dresser, or whatever the appropriate term is for a man who likes to dress as a woman. I have known many cross-dressers in my time. Many are quite attractive and feminine in appearance. Zorra is neither. His beard is as heavy as his accent. He does not manscape in the brow area, so both appear to be hairy caterpillars with no interest in turning into butterflies. His knuckles could best be described as midtransition werewolf. His curly red wig looks like something he stole from Bette Midler’s show trunk in 1978. He wears stiletto heels, literally, as in an actual blade is sheathed in the heel.

Way back when, Zorra nearly killed Myron with that blade.

“We know that from the thermal imaging?” I ask.

“The same Zorra used in London, dreamboat.” His voice was a deep baritone. “This will be too easy. How you say? Fish in barrel. You waste talents of legendary professional like Zorra.”