And yet . . .

Myron wouldn’t have spotted it, not on his own, but now when he looked closely . . .

“I know what you’re thinking,” Ema said. “And I’d probably agree with you. Teenagers look alike. We all get that. I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it except that this school is small. This sophomore class has twenty-three students. Patrick Moore goes out and meets with Tamryn Rogers. Why? He was lonely. We saw that when we visited him.”

Mickey nodded in agreement. “It’s too much of a coincidence, Myron. I mean, cut the hair. Do something with contact lenses to change eye color. Maybe some kind of surgery on the face, I don’t know. But Ema shows this to me and I’m looking at him and at first I don’t see it and then . . .”

Mickey pointed at the face on the screen. “I think Tamryn’s classmate Paul is now calling himself Patrick Moore.”

* * *

Myron sprinted back to the car. He got on the phone and called Esperanza.

“We need all we can on this Paul kid attending St. Jacques near Geneva in Switzerland. Last name is most important. Parents, whatever.”

“This won’t be quick,” Esperanza said. “The school is closed, it’s overseas, we have no contacts in Switzerland, plus, I imagine, this kind of place is pretty damned secretive.”

Esperanza was, of course, right.

“Just do the best you can. Spoon is going to email you the picture.”

“I already got his email before you called,” Esperanza said. “Did you know that the most common password for email accounts is 123456?”

“Yep, that would be Spoon.”

“I’m looking at the two pics—one of this Paul kid, one of Patrick at that TV interview. If I look closely, yeah, I can see the resemblance, but would you ever guess Paul and Patrick are the same kid?”

“No,” Myron said. “But that’s probably the point.”

“Oh, I found that fifth grade teacher. The one who taught Clark and Francesca.”

“Mr. Dixon?”

“Rob Dixon, yeah.”

“Where is he?”

“He still teaches fifth grade at Collins Elementary. I made an appointment for you to see him today at seven thirty.”

“How did you pull that off?”

“I told him you’d heard he was a great teacher and that you were writing a book about your experiences.”

“What experiences?”

“I didn’t say. Luckily, Mr. Dixon saw your documentary on ESPN. D-lister fame, baby. It opens doors.”

After they hung up, Myron called Win and told him what he had learned.

“So the boy is an imposter,” Win said.

“I don’t know. There’s still a chance it’s just two teenage boys who look alike.”

“And happen to know Tamryn Rogers?”

“Seems a stretch,” Myron said. “Just for the record, both Tamryn and Patrick—let’s just call him Patrick to make this easier—claim that they just happened to meet at Ripley’s.”

“Happened to meet?”

“Yep.”

“Today’s youth,” Win lamented. “You’d think they could come up with more credible lies.”