Nancy Holland - Found - One Secret Baby

He swallowed the familiar irritation. “I told you I’d call when I learned something.”

“You didn’t learn anything at all about my grandchild?”

If she hadn’t sounded more like a major general barking orders than a grieving grandmother, he might have had more sympathy for her.

“We’re not sure there was … is a grandchild, remember? I have a couple of new leads to follow up, but nothing definite.”

“This is taking too long. Are you sure we shouldn’t have kept the private investigator?”

“We can always hire another P.I. if we need to.” Preferably one smart enough not to try to bribe the bleeding-heart workers at some homeless shelter who’d not only refused to give him any information, but had also gotten his license suspended. Morgan disapproved of unethical behavior, but he could not tolerate stupidity.

“If you’re sure.” Lillian’s voice sounded weary, older. “Call me if you learn anything.”

“I will, but it may be a day or two. I have to drive up to Merced to check out those leads.”

“Merced? Is that even in the United States?”

“Yes, it is. Good night, Lillian.”

He needed to get this over with, and soon. Almost daily interaction with his father’s second wife was not good for his mood.

She meant well—most of the time. But the woman pushed buttons and pulled strings she probably had no clue were there. Every time he talked to her he felt drained afterwards, and vaguely angry. He sometimes wondered if his own mother would have had the same effect on him, if she’d bothered to stick around.

Morgan wished he could simply hire another P.I., but he couldn’t shake the image of Charlie’s child in some overcrowded foster home, subject to who knew what kind of abuse from the older kids. Kids could be cruel, especially if their victim couldn’t fight back. And it was often easier for a paid caretaker to turn a blind eye than deal with bullying. He should know.

Besides, Morgan couldn’t ignore the possibility that Charlie’s father might locate the child first and claim custody. A judge could consider the elder Thompson’s young new wife better mother material than Lillian, but two generations of abuse in the Thompson family was enough. More than enough.

Morgan pinched the bridge of his nose to forestall a headache that threatened to knock him off-task. Danby Holding Company needed his full attention if they were going to maximize their opportunities in this kind of market. He rolled his shoulders again and refocused on work.

Two days later Morgan understood the P.I.’s impulse to resort to bribery.

Death certificates were public records, but without a full name or date, the clerks couldn’t tell him if such a record existed.

Medical records might be available to a family member, but since Charlie had never bothered to marry the Mendelev woman and there was no proof he was the father of any child she might have had, Morgan couldn’t get anywhere near those records.

He was reduced to reading back copies of the Merced newspaper from the time when Charlie and the woman had lived in the area, but he found no mention of her or of any child. Only a paragraph about Charlie’s arrest when he’d tried to break into the hospital to get at her.

When he called Lillian to say he’d hit a dead end, she was unconvinced.

“What about the woman lawyer?” his stepmother asked. “If she and that woman were such good friends, she should want to help you find my grandchild. We can offer the little darling a life someone like his mother could never have imagined. Far better than being in foster care with who-knows-what kind of people.”

His thoughts exactly, but what more could he do?

“Lillian, I have a business to run. The same business that supplies most of your income. I don’t have time for this wild goose chase. I need to get back to the office.”

“I don’t ask for much, after the years I spent raising you.”

Paying other people to raise me, he corrected silently.

“But to have Charleston’s child to love in my old age …” She gave an artful sniff.

He sighed. He hated it when she tried to play him like that, but she was the closest thing he had to a family, give or take a mother in Key West he hadn’t seen or spoken to in almost thirty years.

“Okay. I’ll talk to her.” For some reason the idea of seeing Rosalie Walker again made him smile. “But don’t get your hopes up. I doubt I’ll learn anything new.”

“I knew I could rely on you, Morgan. You were always such a good child.”

I had to be or you might have walked out, the way my mother did . He ignored the little boy’s voice inside him and resigned himself to a few days more in California.

Rosalie escaped the overheated courtroom and flipped open her phone. Her heart lurched when she clicked the calendar. Her appointments for the afternoon now included Morgan Danby.

The noisy courthouse lobby swirled around her with the same black panic that had almost overwhelmed her when Mr. Danby first mentioned Márya’s child. After three days, she’d thought the man was gone for good.

She sat down hard on a well-worn wooden bench and forced air into her lungs. Then she punched her office number and tried to act as if her world hadn’t just been turned upside down—again.

“The judge is running late,” she told her receptionist when he answered. “Please tell my afternoon appointments I’ll be there as soon as I can, and reschedule anyone who can’t wait.”

And please, please make it so that Morgan Danby can’t wait and can’t reschedule, she added in silent prayer.

Not that she had much hope of that. For all his casual air, Mr. Danby didn’t strike her as a man who would give up easily or be a gracious loser. But she had to win this one for Joey’s sake.

When she reached her office building four hours later, the expensive black sports car in the parking lot warned her that her prayer had not been granted.

Mr. Danby stood in the reception area outside her office, staring at one of the paintings that decorated the wall, an impressionistic hibiscus in brilliant red with broad strokes of yellow, green, and black.

“Are you an art critic, Mr. Danby?” she asked, in lieu of the polite greeting she couldn’t force out.

He scanned her wind-blown hairdo and crumpled linen suit. She ignored the urge to straighten herself the same way she’d ignored the flutter in her chest when she first saw him.

“Rough day in court?” he asked with one sexily raised eyebrow.

“Rough day on the freeway. I won in court.”

“Congratulations.” He turned back to the painting. “I didn’t have a chance to look closely at this when I was here before. It’s quite good. They both are.” He gestured to the painting on the other wall, a golden poppy with the same bold strokes of contrast.

“Thank you.”

“You painted them?”

She allowed herself a smile at his surprise. “My mother.”

“She’s very talented.”

Her smile faded. “Was very talented. She’s deceased.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” His tone was more calculating than sympathetic.

“It’s been a few years,” she told him as she crossed to her office and gestured him in.

He gave the hibiscus another look before he followed her.

She went to her desk and set down the bag that held her tablet computer. Mr. Danby had his back to her, intent on the painting of a flower garden on the wall across from her desk.

“Your mother again?”

She nodded, fighting to ignore the tingle his gaze sent through her.

“And that one?” This time he pointed to the painting of a child in a sandbox that hung behind her. “Is that you?”

She refused to let him see the sudden flash of grief. “Yes.”