“I’m afraid this is a dead end, then,” Daniel told her. “I can’t tell you any more than I already have. I did tell you that I didn’t know your daughter’s birth mother. Didn’t I?”
“You said that, but... I mean, if you thought back, you could remember details. And surely she mentioned her name.” Kimberly hated the way her voice went up a half octave, that she was practically begging.
Daniel did a double take. His next words were loaded with patient forbearance that somehow managed to irk Kimberly even more than if he’d snapped at her. “Look, I know you’ve come all this way—I guess it’s a long way?”
“Atlanta. We live in Sandy Springs, actually.”
“Yeah, that’s, what? Two and a half, three hours?” At her nod, he went on, “Yeah, a bit of a road trip. Like I was saying, you’ve come all this way, but I don’t think I can help you. I’ve pretty much told you what I can.”
“No. No, I’m sure there’s more,” Kimberly insisted. “Like what she looked like, or how you remembered what sort of car she was driving, and maybe she told you something that would help us locate her? And her parents? I mean, she was sixteen, she had to have parents—” Kimberly’s throat, thick with emotion, closed up on her and she couldn’t go on.
Daniel rubbed his mouth. He fingered the photo of him and Marissa as an infant. Kimberly could see him weigh a decision in his mind.
“Kimberly—may I call you Kimberly?” When she nodded, he continued, “I realize the not knowing is probably tough on the both of you. But have you really thought through whether this is a good idea?”
Now Kimberly’s alarm turned to anger. “A good idea? My daughter desperately needs to find out about her birth mother—and anything she can about her medical history. She has a—a—” Again she choked on her words. She worked through her emotions, trying not to be the stereotypical hysterical female that would be all too easy for Daniel to dismiss.
Daniel sat back in his chair, his eyes focused on her with unwavering attention. Sounds of the firefighters working to restore equipment filtered into his office, but he said nothing while he waited on her to compose herself. She appreciated that. He didn’t rush her. She was sure he had loads to do, and this was his day off, after all, but she could sense no impatience on his part.
“So...I take it,” he said finally, “this isn’t just idle curiosity, this reason you’re searching for Marissa’s birth mother? Because, I have to tell you, state law says her birth mother should remain anonymous. That’s the deal—healthy baby surrendered in a safe and approved way in exchange for anonymity and no child-endangerment charges.”
Kimberly let out a breath. Did he need a good reason to give her the information? Well, she had a jam-up one.
“No, it’s not just idle curiosity. Not at all,” she said. “Marissa has a life-threatening bleeding disorder, and her hem/onc—her hematologist-oncologist team in Atlanta—need to know everything they can. So please, please, any scrap you could give us, any way that we could track down her birth mother... It could mean the difference between life or death for Marissa.”
DANIEL SUPPRESSED AN inward groan at Kimberly’s revelation. For a moment, he looked past her out the half pane of glass in his office door to the open back door and the yard beyond.
There was Marissa, wrangling fire hoses with Bobbi. She looked strong and healthy and practically glowed with enthusiasm and energy.
This kid’s sick?
“You don’t mean... Like what? Leukemia or something?” he asked.
Kimberly shook her head. “No, not a blood disorder. A bleeding disorder. Her blood doesn’t clot properly. Well, it doesn’t stay clotted properly.”
He tried to work out what she was saying. “But I thought—call me a doofus—but I thought only boys could get hemophilia.”
Kimberly rewarded him with a patient smile. “No, not at all. I mean—not to get too technical, but there’s more than one sort of bleeding disorder. Girls can get certain kinds, too. And Marissa is one of the unlucky ones.”
He leaned back in his chair, considering this new information and how it impacted his promise to Miriam.
Miriam.
He was flooded with an image of her little finger winding around his over the white sheet of her hospital bed, after he’d refused to bust her out of the hospital so she could run away...
“Daniel, you’ve got to promise,” she’d said. “Pinkie promise. You can’t tell anybody here who I am. Not anybody, because then he’ll find her, and he...he can’t.” The girl’s eyes had flooded with tears. “He just can’t. I want her safe, and away from him, and the only way is if they don’t know who I am. So...pinkie promise?”
At the time, he’d thought it a sad testimony that a girl who’d given birth was still young enough to use the phrase pinkie promise and believe in its power. He’d been inclined to not make that promise...until she’d blurted out the whole story, and until he’d clapped eyes on Uriel Hostetler.
And then he’d promised. Not a pinkie promise. A solemn oath...
“Are you listening to a word I’m saying? You look as though you’re a million miles away!”
Kimberly’s accusation hit the nail on the head. “I’m sorry. I was just... She looks so healthy.”
Kimberly craned her head around in the direction he’d been staring and caught sight of Marissa. Her anger at him crumpled—he could see it in the way her eyes welled up with tears, which she blinked back.
“She does, doesn’t she?” Kimberly whispered. “You’ve got to help us.”
Daniel stood, stared out his office window at the cars going past. Listened for a moment to the cheerful ribbing between the firefighters.
It was that ribbing that made him decide. All that protected those men was their training and their promises to each other. After all was said and done, that was what a man was: his promise.
Daniel turned back to face her. She deserved that, at least. “Look...I want to.”
“I hear a but.”
He nodded. “You hear right. I’m in a jam. Legally, I can’t. Like I said, it’s a violation of the law for me to tell you anything that could identify her. Not just the laws that protect patient privacy—but the safe-haven law, too. The birth mother has to waive that right.”
Whatever softness had been in Kimberly’s face hardened with frustration. “But that’s the point! I’m sure she would if she knew we needed her help. I’m not asking for anything else, only her medical history.”
But so fast that he almost missed it, he saw Kimberly slide her middle finger across her index finger. He gave her a pointed look. “Really? Because somehow I don’t believe that.”
Kimberly’s face pinked. He found himself liking the way she found it difficult to lie. “It’s all I want. I can’t say the same for Marissa. I’m not sure what she would want to know about her birth mother.”
Daniel rubbed his jaw. The weariness of the day was catching up with him. Tomorrow he’d be back on schedule, back to figuring out exactly what being chief meant after his sudden promotion. He didn’t think he had the energy to sort out the ethical conundrum of Kimberly’s request. He’d made a promise, and besides that, the law said he couldn’t give her the answers she wanted.
“Isn’t there some