Page 70 of Her Passionate Hero

“While Zed kept him talking, I peeked into the rooms. One room had two bookshelves and a pretty old computer. It was clearly Nicolas’ room. The mom’s room is exactly what you’d expect. Neat and tidy, a crucifix over the bed. But Darla’s? It was damn near all black. Is she a goth chick?”

“She wasn’t when she went to Bertrum.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. There was a family picture on the wall, and she was wearing pink. Nicolas doesn’t look much like his brother or his father. It looked like it was taken two or three years ago and he was already about his father’s height.”

“What are you talking about? Nicolas is nowhere near Mark’s size.”

“Who’s Mark?”

“Nicolas’ father. I met him about four months ago.”

“Nicolas said his father is dead. He specifically pointed to the man in the picture and said he’d died two years ago.”

“Then he wasn’t Nicolas’ father. I met his father. He stood in the back of the auditorium when Nicolas got the Clancy Bertrum Award for his paper on Climate Change.”

“Are you positive he was his dad? Then who was in the photo?” Hunter asked.

“I don’t know, but there was no doubt the man I met was Nicolas’ dad, he was the spitting image of him. I went up and introduced myself to him. Mark even smiled like Nicolas. It was funny, from a distance he seemed like bad news, but he was nice as can be when I talked to him. He was really proud of Nicolas. That day I told him Nicolas had a real shot at getting a scholarship to college.”

“How did he respond when you told him about the scholarship?”

“He told me that I shouldn’t fill his son’s head full of dreams that couldn’t possibly come true. I told him he needed to come to my office to discuss this because I had statistics to show him. I also wanted to go over Nicolas’ records with him.”

“Jesus, were you going to show him a fucking PowerPoint presentation?”

“Just a printout of one,” she defended. “It doesn’t matter. He told me college wasn’t on the horizon for Nicolas, then I explained how I thought it was possible that with the right effort, he could get a full scholarship. I could see that Mark was getting angry, so I chose to back off. I suggested we meet the following week. I gave him my card, but he never called.”

“I wonder who the guy at the apartment was?” Hunter muttered.

Aliana thought it through. Neither Darla nor Mateo looked anything like Nicolas. Nor did they have any of his acumen or personality traits.

“So, Mrs. Garcia cheated on her husband? That doesn’t sound right.” Aliana tried to work it through her head. She’d met Ana Garcia on multiple occasions. She was deeply religious and hard-working. She cared deeply for her children. She got up from the table and started pacing. “This is so not adding up. There is no way Ana Garcia would have cheated. I would bet my 401k.”

“Okay, so she doesn’t cheat. Mark’s the dad. What else you got?”

“When I really think it through, I can believe she’s Darla and Mateo’s mom, but not Nicolas’. You saw the wedding picture, does she look like Nicolas?”

“No, they don’t look alike. Are you thinking he isn’t her kid? You’re thinking this Mark guy gave him to Ana to raise?”

“If I have to guess, Mark’s probably not more than your age.”

“Great, babies having babies.” Now Hunter stood up, walked over to Aliana, and looked her in the eye. “There’s one more piece to this fun little puzzle, Alia.”

“Shoot.”

“The name of Los Demonios gang leader is San Marco.”

Aliana felt her eyes go big. Was he kidding? It couldn’t be, but she remembered back to the day in the office when Nicolas said he was born into the gang that it was his family. Is that what he meant. Maybe he meant someone more than just Mateo.

“God, this would explain so much.”

“Sure as hell would,” he agreed. “Mateo is going pretty hot and heavy trying to bring his supposed brother back into the fold, and they’re using a lot more gang resources than normal.”

“Hunter, I think that Nicolas knows. I think he knows that Mark, I mean San Marco is the leader of the gang, and he’s his father.”

“Come sit back down and tell me why you think that.” She sat next to Hunter, their knees once again touching. Hunter grabbed her hand, smiling into her eyes. “Now tell me.”

“It was something Nicolas said in my office. He said he was born into the gang that they were his family. At the time, I thought he was referring to Mateo, but now I think he might have been talking about his real dad.”