Michael Baden - Skeleton justice

"Esteban," he whispered. "My brother, Esteban."

"He was adopted?"

Paco nodded. "I never knew. Until-"

Paco stopped talking.

"Until the Vampire told you," Manny said. "He knows your family's secret."

Paco nodded. "That night at Club Epoch, one of the guys took me into a back room and gave me an iPod to listen to. A voice just started talking. He spoke in Spanish, and it was like listening to my father read me a scary story when I was a kid, except the characters in this story were my own family.

"The voice said Esteban's birth parents were a young couple in graduate school named Estrella and Hector, who opposed the dictatorship and participated in protests. They were kidnapped when Estrella was seven months pregnant, and Hector was killed before her eyes."

Paco's voice trembled and his dark eyes blinked furiously. "Then Estrella was tortured for weeks in terrible ways, until the torture finally brought the baby's birth early. They took the baby away from her and she died a few days later. They dumped her body in the ocean."

Paco paused, his face pale and clammy, his breath coming in shuddering gasps. "What else did the man tell you, Paco?" Manny whispered.

"The soldiers gave the baby boy to my father. They wanted that baby to be raised by someone with the right politics."

Paco stopped, too exhausted to continue.

"But, Paco, how can you be sure that this baby of the disappeared young couple was really your brother, Esteban? I mean, this crazy person calls you up with this story and you believe him? What did your father say?"

"He doesn't know that I know. He's kept this secret from all of us. He's still controlled by those terrible people. Telling lies, lies, lies. My whole childhood was full of things that didn't make sense, things that I wasn't allowed to ask about. Now everything makes sense."

"Like what?"

"I was always my grandparents' favorite. They were cold to Esteban, and I never could figure out why. And my father… well, my father is harsh to everyone, but he was particularly hard on my brother."

"The biological child favored over the adopted one," Manny said.

"Yes. And there are no photos of Esteban as a baby, and none of my mother pregnant with him, but there are tons of me. And Esteban was small and sickly as a child."

"Because of the premature birth," Manny said. "The nurse must have been Amanda Hogaarth. She worked with Dr. Fortes on the side, helping deliver the babies."

Paco nodded. "That's why I said I don't care that the Vampire killed those two people. But I don't want Travis to be hurt, and I don't want my mother ever to learn any of this."

"But, Paco, your mother knows Esteban is adopted."

"Yes, but she doesn't know how my father got the baby. I'm sure of that. He had to have lied to her, told her Esteban was simply an orphan who needed a home. She must have wanted a baby desperately. But my mother would never have agreed to take the baby of a murdered girl, take him away from the rest of his biological family. You see how kindhearted she is. She had no trouble raising Esteban as her own, because she thought he was abandoned. She loves him, always has. Not like my father."

A dark scowl settled over Paco's face. The dour expression brought out a resemblance to his father. "Paco," Manny said, "you've got to talk to your father about this. Find out what's true. He may know who the Vampire is, what motivates him."

"No way! He'll just lie-he's a master at that. He'll do anything to protect his reputation, his position." Paco's voice rose, and again the driver turned to look at his mercurial passengers. "He'll have me sent away, and then there will be no one to protect my mother. I'm all she has. I can't let that happen."

"What about your brother? Does he know?"

"Esteban is a doctor. He took a year off after his residency to work for Doctors Without Borders. He's in Sudan now-completely out of touch. Sometimes he's able to get an e-mail through. But I can't send him an e-mail with news like this. He'll be knocked flat by it. And he's in a very dangerous place. He needs to stay sharp, alert. I can't endanger him. I'll tell him when he gets back in six months."

Manny stared down at Mycroft, who was blissfully napping at her feet. Rarely had she felt so completely stymied. She simply couldn't relate to a family like Paco's, where everyone presented a cheerful face to the world while tiptoeing around land mines in private. In the Manfreda family, everything was out in the open. You were happy-everyone shared it; sad-everyone knew why; mad-you screamed at the offender and two minutes later you kissed and made up. Impossible to keep a secret, no matter how you tried. Uncle Bobby's gambling problem, cousin Kay's extramarital fling, Aunt Joan's colonoscopy-all fair game, reviewed in excruciating detail at family gatherings. Manny simply had no expertise in the kind of evasion practiced by the Sandovals. How could she get Paco to confront his father with what he knew? She couldn't unravel eighteen years of twisted family dynamics in one carriage ride around Central Park.

Would it be any easier to get Paco to tell his story to the police? Because as tantalizing as this new information was, it really didn't help the Vampire investigation if she was the only person who knew it. Sure, she could take it to Pasquarelli and he would most likely believe her, based on his friendship with Jake. But how could he move forward with it?

There were instances in which diplomatic immunity could be breached, in which the police could force a diplomat to cooperate in an investigation, but hearsay evidence from the defense lawyer of an escaped federal prisoner charged with terrorism wasn't one of them. Not even close. For Pasquarelli to be able to act on this information, he needed to hear it directly from Paco.

Manny didn't hesitate to play the guilt card.

Sure, Jewish mothers grabbed all the headlines for inspiring guilt, but Italian mothers were no slouches, and Manny had learned at the knee of the best.

"Do I have to remind you that your friend is in the hands of a multiple murderer, a torturer, because of your actions?"

Paco grew petulant now, just as she had always done when her mother pulled the old "After all I've done for you, can't you do this one little thing for me?"

"Travis is the one who told me not to tell," Paco said.

"He's terrified, Paco!" Manny reminded him. "And now he's being held captive by people who haven't hesitated to kill and torture. Of course he's going to say whatever they tell him to say."

She took both of Paco's hands in hers and spoke slowly and patiently, as she would to a child. "This has gone on long enough. You need to do the right thing. Come with me now to talk to Detective Pasquarelli. He's a good man. He can help."

Paco wrenched his hands away. "It's not that easy! They won't be able to talk to me and my father without my mother finding out. Since the bombing, she's been a nervous wreck. She doesn't like me going anywhere. In fact"-he checked his watch-"I'm late getting home now. She's going to start calling me."

Manny made a concerted effort not to roll her eyes. She suspected that Mrs. Sandoval was a lot tougher than her son gave her credit for. "Paco, your mother's going to find out about this sooner or later. The adoption doesn't reflect badly on her. In fact, she's done a great job raising Esteban. A doctor, and one who does volunteer work-she must be very proud of him." Manny let out all the stops. "Now, make her proud of you. You know she would never want more people to get hurt. Come and talk to the police and put an end to all these attacks."

"No!"

And before Manny could even snatch at his sleeve, Paco leaped from the slow-moving carriage and dashed nimbly into the trees, heading east. Manny watched him go. She wasn't crazy enough to try the same stunt, wearing high heels and dragging a poodle.