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.”

Chapter 32

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.

“I’m going too,” Brooke had said. “I know Vada. I can help.”

There was no room for debate in her voice.

“Please,” Rob Dixon said, “have a seat.”

The desks were those school kind with the chair attached. It took some effort for Myron to squeeze into one. The classroom itself was timeless. Sure, curriculums change and Myron assumed that somewhere there were hidden signs of modernity, but this could have been his own fifth grade classroom. Running across the top of the chalkboard was the alphabet written in capital and lowercase script. A potpourri of student artwork and projects took up the wall on the left. Newspaper clippings were tacked up beneath a handwritten sign reading CURRENT EVENTS.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Rob Dixon said.

“Pardon?”

“I watched The Collision—and here I stick you in a chair that has to bother your knee.”