Part 26

Alexis' phone rang. V., asking her to come down to the station. "We have opened Pandora's box," she said.

"Uh-oh," Alexis said, and jumped out and ran out.

She ran into the station; then made her way toward V.'s little office, seeing a woman sitting in one of the chairs at a desk talking to Hannah, and having little doubt of who the woman was.

She shut V.'s door and sat down. "How did she get here?"

"Those two get the prize for the worldwide mother and son look-a-like contest, no questions asked, don't they? The data we put in. Her private investigator must have been looking at anything new that came in and fit. I guess there weren't so many that they didn't check them all, and that led them to our mug shot, and so there she is."

"Yikes, I wasn't expecting that. What'd you tell her?"

"Nothing much yet. I figured you don't want her over at the hospital just yet; since Zander didn't want to see her. She just thinks he's been arrested. Wants to see him, though."

"That's a good sign. I hope. She came right up here."

"That's a good sign."

"Will she be reasonable? I can't figure out any way to bring up her medical history without revealing he's in the hospital."

"I know it. And I guess it's Dr. Quartermaine who should talk to her?"

"Right. Let's call her."

They put a call through to the hospital. While they waited, Alexis looked out the glass wall separating V's office from the central office. Well dressed, off course. Still wore her black hair very long. Alexis stared. "She just looks anxious, " she said to V. "I hope she's not going to upset Zander too much."

Monica came to the phone. Alexis explained quickly, explaining that she didn't want to bring Zander's mother to the hospital. "Can you come down here?" Alexis said, "we're at the station."

"Bring her over to the house," Monica said. "That's got to be less intimidating. Meet me there in a half hour?"

"Okay," Alexis said, putting the phone done. "Here goes nothing," she said.

Alexis and V. went out. "Here she is," Hannah said, "this is Alexis Davis, Zander's lawyer, she's been taking care of this latest trouble, too."

"I'm glad you're here," Alexis said, "We need your help; in fact, you and your ex-husband are the only ones who really can."

"What do you need?" she said, "Where's my son?" She had a faint accent, that charming, slight lilt of those who learn a second language just young enough to grasp it completely, but just old enough never to be able to pronounce it like a native.

"He's fine, I'll explain on the way. We've got to visit someone else first."

"I'll drive," V. volunteered. "So you won't have to think about that," she added, in an undertone to Alexis.

"Weren't you ever happy?" Quinn asked him, listening to his chest yet again. Zander thought they were paranoid about it now, but said nothing. "I mean, before they got a divorce?"

"Yes, in a way. They were never home. But Pete and I were ok, Rosa and Pete and I. We had a plenty of friends, one thing, we could have them over whenever we wanted. He had race cars he owned at the track, I could work on them anytime, even got to drive some of them – the guys would let me, I guess they figured I was the owner's son and it was a great idea on that account, but I liked it."

"Your father had race cars?"

"Yes."

"You had a big house, I guess."

"Yeah, and right on the beach. Tennis courts, even. A dock, boats. I had this sailboat that was little, that was mine, I remember. A lot of times, there were a lot of people visiting, and they could be interesting. From all over the place. But always changing. Not the same person, like you have Joe. "

"Your parents were gone a lot."

"They were always on business trips. Going all over the world. They brought us stuff from wherever they went. He went more than she, and she wasn't going to the same places he was."

"And your grandparents, no relatives, ever came?"

"They couldn't, was how I understood it. Once I had a friend whose mother was from Holland, and he went there to see his mother's family, and they came to see him one summer. I asked why we couldn't do that, and they said they had to escape their country and nobody could just get out, and there was no way we would go there because we wouldn't be able to get back out."

"So that explains it. Kept me awake nights wondering!"

"If I'd have known that, I would have just told you."

"It's OK. Let's take your temperature. You never know, you can get fevers in a hospital. Normal though," she went on. "What happened then? Who did you live with. Did he leave?"

"No, she packed us up and we moved across town. Not very far away, even. But we changed schools. We didn't see him for the longest time. I was mad at him. I didn't understand. Then he pops up one day, cursing at her that he's been looking all over Russia for us. It turns out, what she did was, she got him thinking if she left him that is what she would do – take us back there to live with her family. He knew she would never do it, but she left him right after the Soviet Union fell, and so he thought with that timing, she thought it was safe to go and she went like she had threatened a hundred times. So he goes looking for her, then when he finally found us not that far away, he knew she had fooled him."

"Then did he try to get custody of you guys?"

"I think so. After that, it was a fight every other weekend. And Wednesday night. I still hate Wednesdays. We were supposed to go with him a few hours, and she always did something to fool him, and he was always over there late at night yelling at her, and the cops came again and again, and kept saying it was a civil dispute. I would be upstairs, I heard every cop on the Daytona Police force tell them it was a civil dispute. Over the next couple of years."

"I'm sorry. Did you see him on the weekends, though?"

"Yeah, we went back to our original house, and we saw him about as much as we usually had before, maybe a little more. Even if he wasn't going to be there, we went. We didn't really mind, but when she found out about that! Another fight, another trip to the judge. He also was supposed to bring us back on Sunday night, and he never did. He just brought us to school on Monday morning. But the first few times, it freaked her out. The cops would be at school, making sure we were there."

"Who did Rosa go with?"

"She just went with Pete and I."

"Your mother's house was big, too?"

"Kind of. Yeah, not quite as big."

"And then, when he took you over to Russia, how old were you?"

"About 13. Pete was about 9. He took us to Miami to get a passport, and I must not have been paying enough attention. He was going to take us to London for Christmas. We had all gone there before, and I must have had a passport for that, but I also paid no attention. Just dumb."

"How could you know?"

"I guess I couldn't, but I should have wondered why I was at the Russian consulate. Or noticed. So weird that I did not notice it was strange to have this Russian passport. I just did not get it. We didn't tell her, by then we knew better. She'd go to court and put a stop to it. It was just a trip. We get to London, a few days later, he says we're going to Moscow. By then I sort of understood and I wasn't scared to go there, and I even did think about my grandparents and thought I was going to get to see them, maybe."

"You thought it was just a visit, and it wasn't?"

"Exactly. He did the same to her. He went on and on about how there was no way he would let her take us there. He kept it up, too, saying he didn't trust them, and they'd go back to the old way, and she was never taking his kids there, and that they were a bunch of losers there, and on and on as he always did. Then when we get there, he has a flat for us to live in and he enrolls us in school. Then I knew - here we go again. So it took her forever to figure it out, too, because he had been so against it, that she looked all over North America for us first."

"I'm exhausted just thinking about it. So you still didn't get to see your grandparents?"

"He wasn't about to go near her parents, and they must have lived in some other city. I tried to find them, but just didn't have time or couldn't figure it out. And he said his were dead, which I'm not even sure I believe to this day. No brothers and sisters. She has some brothers, I believe. Neither of them ever wanted to talk about their family much. But there was one thing – he stayed home there. He wasn't gone all the time. He actually helped us with our homework, went to our games and matches and that kind of stuff."

"Which he had never done before?"

"No. Not once. Not ever. I bet you can't believe that."

"I can see they were different. My Dad didn't have to go on business trips. Mom was a teacher. They didn't need to go anywhere. Did your father have a job there?"

"It seemed like he just did whatever he wanted. The cost of living was so much cheaper, he probably didn't have to work when he had American dollars from before. But he also had experience they needed running businesses, so he probably had enough to keep him occupied right there, I guess."

"Well, I'll leave you alone before I tire you out with questions."

"It's ok. It's your nature. I'm still pretty sure your name is Question. Even Joe calls you Nurse Question."

"Don't be so mysterious, and you won't get as many questions!"

He laughed. "OK, from now on I tell you everything I know."