Harlan Coben - Home

“There is a boy in that picture. His name is Paul. We don’t have the last name yet. But we will get it. The second photograph is a close-up.”

“I still don’t understand.” Nancy Moore’s hands were shaking. She slid the top photograph under the bottom picture. “You can’t think…?”

“Paul and your Patrick are one and the same.”

She shook her head. “You’re wrong.”

“I don’t think I am.”

“There’s barely a resemblance.”

“Do you remember me asking you about Tamryn Rogers?” Myron took the photographs back and put the group one on the top. “That’s Tamryn. The same girl Patrick met with yesterday.”

“We told you-”

“Right, they just happened to meet outside Ripley’s for the first time ever. I was there, Nancy. I saw them. There was no accidental meet. They knew each other before.”

“You can’t know that from just watching them,” she said, but her voice was weak now, defeated.

“I just emailed these photos over to a forensic anthropologist named Alyse Mervosh. She is going to compare the image of Paul to the tape of Patrick during that interview yesterday. She’ll be able to confirm that they are one and the same.”

She shook her head, but again there was nothing behind it.

“Nancy, let me help you.”

“You, what, think he’s an imposter? You’re wrong. A mother knows.”

“You said a mother protects her child,” Myron said, trying to keep his voice as even and gentle as possible. “Maybe that want, that need, can also warp perception.”

“It’s Patrick,” Nancy insisted. “It’s my son. He’s finally come home. After all these years, I finally have him back.” Her eyes lifted. She met him with a glare. “And then you scared him away.”

“Let me help you find him.”

“I think you’ve done enough. It’s my son. I know. I know. He’s not an imposter. His name isn’t Paul.”

She pushed past him and headed down the stairs. Myron followed.

“When he gets home, we can do a DNA test to shut all of you up. But right now, I have someplace to be.”

Nancy didn’t stop. She moved through the garage and out the door. She slid into her car and started it up.

“Don’t come back, Myron. Don’t ever come back.”

Win and Brooke sat in the Baldwin kitchen. The photographs from the boarding school in Switzerland were spread out on the table in front of them.

Myron was finishing up the call with Alyse Mervosh, the forensic anthropologist. When he finished, Brooke and Win looked at him and waited.

“In her opinion,” Myron said, “it’s the same kid.”

Brooke looked at the photograph again. Myron leaned over her and pointed as he spoke.

“This Paul kid cut and dyed his hair,” Myron said. “The eye color change is easy with contact lenses. The nose could have been plastic surgery.”

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.”

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.