“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.”