Part 24
Alexis sat down by the side of Zander's bed and took his hand. "I figured it out, Zander," she said. "I can find your family."
"Leave them alone," was all he said. He looked up at the ceiling. Quinn came to the door. Alexis looked up.
"I can come back," Quinn said, sensing the conversation was important.
"Never mind," Zander said, wearily.
Quinn stood still a minute. "I think that means come in," Alexis said. "I think you can hear this, anyway. Is that all right with you?" she asked him.
"Sure."
"All I had to do was a little investigating. One old girlfriend, the FBI's databases, and all the doors opened."
"Emily knows nothing."
"An older girlfriend. Cheryl. Don't tell me you don't remember her. A girl whose parents fought over her visiting her father?"
"Oh," he said, weakly.
"I won't do anything you don't want me to do," Alexis said. "But think it over. You're over 18. Twenty, in fact. Your parents don't get to say where you go or what you do."
"Yeah, but that isn't going to stop them from trying."
"You've got me. I'm as old as your mother. I'm just as sneaky, or how could I have found this out?"
He tried to smile. "You're not as sneaky. Not even close."
"Well, between the two of us, we can do this. We can handle her. First things first. Sign these papers for me. As her direct descendent, I believe you can get their immigration records. Those could have information about your grandparents."
"It's a lot of trouble for you to go to for something I never even felt bad over. You already did so much for me. No one would ever know about it at all, if this hadn't happened."
"It's a good thing it's been caught."
"That's true," Quinn put in. "Blood pressure is up a little, again," she said, taking the cuff off.
"Who are these people, Bonnie and Clyde?" Alexis tried to get him to laugh.
He smiled a little bit. "Close."
"They raised you, so how bad can they be? You aren't all bad."
"Thank you, but if I'm not all bad, it isn't their doing."
"It's not?"
"They were around. But Rosa was there all the time."
"Oh, a nanny?"
"More or less."
"She'd know something about your health then, wouldn't she?"
"I don't know where she is anymore."
"Her last name?"
"Sanchez."
"Was she from there, Daytona?"
"No, from Miami or somewhere. And she had family in Texas. She could be anywhere."
"Did you know your father was in jail for custody interference?"
"Yes. That was my fault."
"No, Zander, it's his fault. But never mind that, now. Don't you think your mother's worried? Rosa, too? And your brother? And your father, too?"
"My brother knows I'm all right. I left him a note."
"How many years ago?" Alexis laughed a little. "He's got to be worried by now."
"He knows I'm all right."
"O.K. There's a restraining order against your father trying to see either of you. You're an adult, so you can have it lifted. As long as you don't, you're OK, there."
"A restraining order? That's just a piece of paper."
"A couple of years in the federal penitentiary, and the threat of going back if he doesn't obey it. That's not going to work, you think?"
"Not particularly."
Alexis reached over and hugged him. "You're going to be fine," she said. She left her papers, which he looked reluctant to sign, on the table. "Think it over."
"I'm dying of curiosity," Quinn said, when she and Alexis had gone out. "You know why."
"Sure do. If you have a minute, let me get you a cup of coffee."
Quinn asked Joanna to cover her for a break. "No problem," Joanna said from the nurse's station.
Down in the break room, Alexis explained how Hannah had been able to pull out the records when they were able to narrow it down to a parental abduction case from the Daytona area - "that was a good clue, as it turns out," Alexis added - and look in the closed cases from a couple of years ago.
"I didn't want to laugh, because it appears so serious to him," Quinn said. "I guess I just can't imagine. How can one's mother be such a barracuda? Anybody's mother? It's not like she was so bad that the state put him in foster care."
"He ran away, so since then he can only justify it, the longer it's been," Alexis said. "I imagine too, it's tough being jerked around like that. The records showed different names – parents who don't have custody and take their children and know they don't have the right to, hide them with different names – it's all got to be traumatic. And add that the father took them out of the country, you've got something to adjust to there, even in a happy family all going together."
"It's just the tip of the iceberg," Quinn agreed. "What happened to the schooling? He'd have been uprooted from his friends in school, and sports, whatever it was he was used to. And did he get cut off from his mother - all that must have been a mess."
"I've read about those kinds of cases; and it is very hard to enforce your custody decree across international lines," Alexis said.
"Like that movie, about the American lady who married a middle eastern guy and went to his country, with the child. Later, when she wanted to leave him, the law of that country was just that he gets custody because he's the man, and she couldn't take her child with her. She had to sneak her out."
"Yeah," Alexis said, "though Zander's mother, she at least was originally from Russia herself, but it must have been different from when she left. In those years we are talking about, it must have been hard to get anything done. Everything changing. Probably disordered and disorganized. I would think still she could have gone to some sort of court and said here, I have custody from the area of last residence. I don't see that they would have denied her. Maybe that was where the passport problem came in."
"He's here, so it must have been solved. How or when though? Why does he think it's his fault, that his father went to jail?"
"I've heard kids blame themselves about those things sometimes. Maybe after sleeping on it he can see it in another light. The whole custody issue must be solved now. Even if father wants to mess with the younger brother, the kid is old enough to tell the old man there's no way he's going to Russia or anyplace else with him. The State Department doesn't just issue passports to minors now. Both parents have to consent. They can't stop the Russian government from giving him one, but the old man has the history. The most he can get is supervised visitation."
"Do you think Zander would contact them but for the brother? Like he thinks somehow he will bring down more grief on the brother?"
"Yes. Obviously not much faith in the law, either. At least, when it comes to this. But the father can't drag a 16 year old onto an airplane when the 16 year old doesn't want to go, and the kid himself must be trained by now not to fall for any tricks. If he goes, he wants to."
"Maybe that will sink in, with a little time. Imagine somebody telling the mother about this heart issue. You'd think she would just help, wouldn't you? I can see Zander having psychological blocks about it. But I can hardly believe she'd do anything but tell us what we need to know!"
"Exactly. My basic skip trace show she owns a lot of businesses; has a lot of property. She could have made out well in the divorce. But she appears to have some business acumen herself. Maybe some of it is of her own doing. She must have some sense."
"Aren't you tempted to just call her up?"
Alexis laughed. "I really would. I don't want to go around him, though. I guess I'll let Zander decide. It kills me, though! I've got to find out something more, even if I have to sneak around to do it!"
Quinn went back to work, and Alexis was on her way out. She stepped into the elevator, and Paul Whitman was already in it, going down.
"How's the mystery going?" he asked.
"I solved the mystery," Alexis said. "Now I'm stuck on what to do with the information. I've got names and locations and a young man intent still convinced that his forebears will rain destruction down upon him!"
"Maybe he's right," Paul said. "He knows them."
"Yeah. Quinn and I were discussing this just now. Smart girl. Very mature for her age."
"I think so."
"You're lucky."
"I know it! The guys remind me about that every day. You can count on Quinn. She's gentle. She'll get Smith to go along."
