A Father for Danny

by Janice Carter

“Thanks, Skye,” Sam said as the call was abruptly disconnected from the other end. Sam sat for a long time staring at the phone. Willing her sister to call right back? Maybe with a long-overdue apology? It wasn’t going to happen. Sam powered up her computer and got back to work.

  But an hour later, after she’d found and purchased online a Civil War sword for a client, she closed her laptop. She’d take her sister’s advice and go back to the hospital to see Emily Benson. If she was lucky, Danny wouldn’t be there and she could have a private conversation with his mother.

  THE NURSE at the palliative-care station frowned.

  “Ms. Benson’s not having a good day,” she said. “But I suppose, if you’re not long…”

  “I won’t be. Is her son here?”

  “He came in early this morning, but his mother sent him to school.” The frown turned disapproving. “He shouldn’t miss so much.”

  “His mother is dying. I imagine getting down to schoolwork is pretty difficult.”

  The nurse flushed. “Of course. But…you know…with no other relatives on the scene, Children’s Services could step in even before his mother passes away.”

  Especially if people like you keep talking about the situation. But Sam knew better than to alienate someone who was looking after Emily Benson. “Yes, he’ll need to lead as normal a life as possible….” she said vaguely.

  The nurse nodded. “And as I said, Emily’s not having a good day today, so if she looks tired…”

  “I’ll leave. Definitely. Thanks.” Sam walked down the hall and paused outside Emily’s room. There was a spasm of coughing from within that sent chills up Sam’s spine. When they subsided, she tapped lightly on the partially opened door and stepped inside.

  Emily was stretching to reach a tissue from the box at her bedside. “Here, let me,” Sam said, and leaped toward the box. She snatched up a handful and thrust them at Emily. “How about some water? Can I help you with that?”

  Emily sagged back against the pillows and dabbed at her mouth. After a few seconds, she said, breathlessly, “No. It might trigger another spasm. I’m okay for now. Thanks.” She closed her eyes, as if the mere act of speaking was too much.

  Sam guessed it probably was. She waited until the other woman was ready.

  Finally Emily opened her eyes and managed a weak smile. “Sorry about that. Not a good day.”

  “I should have let you know I was coming.”

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference. I suppose it’s too soon for any news?”

  Sam hated to dash the hope in those sunken eyes. “I need to find out a few more things.”

  “It was hard to talk yesterday, with Danny here. Like I told you, I don’t expect much. This is all just for Danny.” She spoke in halting fragments, taking in gulps of air in between.

  Sam nodded. When she felt she could safely speak, she asked, “Do you know if Danny’s father had a police record?”

  “He was secretive about his background, but he didn’t seem like a criminal…or a biker, despite the way he looked. It made me curious about him. You know, why he acted the biker type. Made me wonder if he was running away from something…or someone.”

  Sam edged forward in her chair. Emily’s voice was so very weak. “What do you mean?”

  “I remember when I told him I had no family at all, he said that might be a good thing. I figured he’d had a falling-out with his. I mean, if he was in Seattle and they were, too, why wasn’t he seeing them?”

  Sam knew the question was rhetorical. She guessed Emily had asked herself it many times, especially after she knew she was pregnant.

  “Did you try to find him when you found out you were pregnant?”

  “Kind of. Thing is, I knew that what happened between us was just going to be one night.” She turned her head to the window at her right.

  Sam followed her gaze. The late-afternoon spring sun was rich and golden, ripe with the promise of summer. Was Emily wondering how many more days like it she’d see?

  “When he came into Baywicks—that’s the diner—the day after that night,” Emily went on, “I could tell we weren’t meant to be. He apologized.” Her smile was more like a grimace. “So when I discovered I was pregnant, I didn’t really make a lot of effort to find him. By then he’d stopped coming to the diner, and when I finally went to his place—he’d told me where he was living—I learned he’d moved out. No forwarding address. Maybe whatever he was running from caught up to him.” She closed her eyes.

  There was one more question Sam had to ask, though she hated to. When Emily reopened her eyes, she said, “What happens if I do find Daniel and he doesn’t want to meet his son?”

  “Yeah. I’ve thought about that a lot. Do me a favor, Sam?” Her eyes were imploring. “Don’t tell either of us. Just say you couldn’t find him. It would be better than knowing he wanted nothing to do with Danny or me.”

  “I don’t know if I could do that,” Sam murmured, appalled at the idea of lying to a dying woman and her soon-to-be-orphaned son.

  Emily struggled to sit up. “You have to,” she gasped. “It’s bad enough Danny will be raised by foster parents. I don’t want him knowing his daddy didn’t want him. This way, he can always have his ‘what-if’ to hold on to.” She fell back, exhausted. “Besides, I couldn’t tell Danny the truth about his father and me—our one-night stand. I let him think we’d been dating….”

  Sam studied the pattern of shadows cast on the wall by the sun filtering through the open slats of the Venetian blinds. There was no way out. She’d taken on an impossible quest and knew she couldn’t live with herself if she failed. When she met Emily’s gaze again, she said, “I’ll do what I can for Danny. I won’t hurt him.”

  Emily’s eyes were filled with tears and Sam looked away. After a moment, she said, “My sister works for the FBI and she said she’d try to find Daniel in their database. If he has a record, it’ll be easier. That’s why I asked.”

  “Thanks, Sam, for anything you can do,” Emily said quietly. “I appreciate it.” Then she frowned. “Can you tell me what you charge?”

  “Please, don’t worry about the fee.”

  “I have some money set aside. I can pay.”

  “Let’s not worry about that for now.”

  “But it’s your business and you deserve payment. Please don’t think we’re poor.”

  Sam flushed. She’d been thinking exactly that. She saw the pride in Emily’s eyes and was ashamed. “It’s just that I have no idea what to charge,” she said lightly, “since this kind of search is new to me. Let’s see how it goes first.”

  Emily nodded. “Fair enough.” She closed her eyes again.

  Sam watched the bedcover rise and fall gently for a few moments.

  Slowly Emily’s face settled into repose and Sam knew she was dozing. Then she rose quietly from her chair and tiptoed out of the room.

  BALANCING HER briefcase and lunch bag on one hip, Sam opened the mailbox in the small foyer of the building where she worked. It was a triplex that had been renovated five years ago into offices, and the owner was Nina Sorrenti. Her mother had bought it several years ago with money inherited from her parents.

  Sam had been a regular paying tenant for the past two years, but her first year setting up Finders Keepers had been rent-free. Although she’d appreciated her mother’s generosity, she was grateful to be earning enough money now to pay the same rent as the other tenants. Besides, her free year had come with strings. Lots of advice from her mother and a few digs from Skye about being on the family payroll. As if Skye had never taken a parental handout!

  Sam grabbed an elasticized bundle of catalogs from her mailbox and headed up the stairs. When she reached the top landing and turned right toward her office, she stopped.

  “What are you doing here? Isn’t this a school day?”

  Danny got up from where he’d been sitting cross-legged in front of her office door. He ignored her question. “Your sign says the office opens at eight-thi
rty. It’s almost nine.”

  He had a knack for evasion that was formidable in a child his age. Sam brushed past him to unlock the door and had barely deposited her armful onto her desk when he plopped into a chair.

  As she turned around, he said, “You went to see my mother yesterday.”

  His tone made her pause. She took her time replying, closing her office door and slinging her jacket over the coatrack. He followed her every movement, and when she finally sat down across from him on the other side of her desk, he asked, “What did you talk to her about?”

  Time to set some boundaries. “I had some questions to ask your mother about your father. If you want to know what we discussed, you’ll have to ask her.”

  “This whole thing was my idea and I was the one who found you.”

  “Yes, but you’re a minor and can’t employ someone to look for another person.”

  “Even if that someone just looks for things?” He jumped to his feet.

  “I’m not going to quibble about this. I repeat—ask your mother.”

  “I already did and she acted like you two didn’t talk about anything. It’s not fair.” He sat back down, arms folded across his chest.

  In spite of that last petulant word, Sam could tell from the fire in his eyes that he wouldn’t leave until he had some kind of satisfactory answer. “Basically I had to find out if your father had a criminal record, because it would make the search a lot easier.”

  “So what did my mom say?”

  “She didn’t know, but she doubted it.”

  He thought for a moment. “Is someone helping you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So my mom is okay with what you’re doing?”

  Obviously his concern had been about informing Emily. “She’s okay with it but you really need to talk to her. About everything. You two need to make plans about—”

  “See, that’s what really bugs me. The way adults are always telling us kids what we should do or shouldn’t do, like we couldn’t figure out stuff ourselves. My mom…she didn’t even tell me…” He stopped, swiping at his eyes with the back of a hand.

  Sam looked down at her desktop. All she could give him right now was a chance to compose himself, though she wished she could offer more.

  Huskily he went on. “I never knew until things got really bad. She didn’t want me to worry. And I know she’s letting me do this just to get my mind off things, to make me think there’s a way out of going to a foster home.”

  Sam looked at him in surprise. He obviously could figure out stuff for himself. Smart kid.

  As if reading her mind, he said, “I may only be twelve but I’m no kid. Not really. So I don’t really need an adult, some social worker, telling me what to do. So far no other adult—except maybe for Minnie—has really done anything for my mom and me.”

  Sam took in the angry face across from her. “Fair enough, Danny. All I can promise is that I’ll do my very best to help you find your father.”

  He nodded, got to his feet and held out his right hand, which she clasped in hers. “Deal,” he said, and left the office without another word.

  Sam brought her hands up to her face and massaged her forehead, the faint stirring of a migraine beneath her fingertips. The day’s beginning didn’t bode well for the tasks she’d planned for the morning. She decided to finish some paperwork first. Perhaps she’d feel up to a cheerful conversation with her contact at Christie’s in New York later in the day. Right now, she had to keep her mind on ordinary things to keep from crying over the plight of a kid who was anything but ordinary.

  The tactic was a good one in theory, but emotion kept its own rules. When the phone rang an hour after Danny walked out, Sam grabbed for it gratefully. “Finders Keepers.”

  There was a slight muffled sound on the other end, and for a second, Sam was afraid she’d connected with a telemarketer. “Who is this?” she asked.

  At last a voice replied, “It’s me, your sister.”

  “I couldn’t hear you.”

  “’Cause my mouth was full of muffin. I wasn’t expecting you to pick up the phone so quickly.”

  “Muffin? Isn’t it past your lunchtime out there?”

  “Yep, but I forgot to eat breakfast, so I’m working my way toward lunch. Probably have it just before I leave for the day.”

  Sam kept silent. Skye’s erratic schedules had more to do with her personality than her job, which was merely the convenient excuse.

  “You still there?”

  “Just waiting for you to stop chewing.”

  “Okay, okay. Listen, I’m off to a conference tomorrow and wanted to get back to you while I had the chance.”

  Sam clenched the receiver. “Did you find him?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Skye, no games please. This is important.”

  “Relax. I just want to explain what I did because I can’t really give any more time to this. But I got a start and it looks promising. The rest you should be able to take care of.”

  Yeah, right. Sam wished she had as much confidence in her sleuthing abilities as her sister seemed to have. “Go on.”

  “You told me this Emily person figured the guy was using an assumed name, and if he had no record, I figured he’d probably do what most amateurs do when they pick an alias.”

  “I thought you were in a hurry.”

  “Give me a break, Sam. Most people pick a name they’re already familiar with. Makes it easier. So I decided to run a search for ‘Daniel Winston’, thinking at least one of those names might be the right one. I didn’t get anything until I asked for all names with Daniel Winston in them and I came up with two for the greater Seattle area.”

  “And?”

  “One was a kid and the other was for a Winston Daniel Sullivan, but…” She paused.

  “What?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Sam exhaled slowly. So, it was finished almost before it began. Maybe it was better this way. Finding out your father was dead might be a preferable option to being rejected by him.

  “You still there?”

  “Yes. Just thinking about Danny and his mother.”

  “Right, well, don’t go calling them up with the bad news yet, ’cause Daniel Winston Sullivan died about twelve years ago when he was sixty-six.”

  “Sixty-six? Then…”

  “Not your man.”

  Sam closed her eyes, wishing she was close enough to grab hold of her sister and squeeze. “For God’s sake!”

  “There’s more, though. When I called up his name I drew a flag here.”

  “A what?”

  “A flag telling me the name was connected to an old case.”

  “What kind of case? Drugs or something?”

  “No. Fraud. Ironically it was one of my cases when I was working there.”

  “You mean, when you first signed up with the agency?”

  “Yep. It really wasn’t much of a case though. I’m looking at it right now—downloaded the old file when I got the flag. Hmm—seems it was initiated after a couple of anonymous phone tips. Uh-huh. It’s kinda coming back to me now.”

  “Could you just give me the basic details, Skye?”

  “Relax, Sam. I’m just skimming through it here. Winston Sullivan, as he was called, was one of the owners of a company called Trade Winds—import and export operation—accused of scamming the government on contracts.”

  “Hold on a sec, I want to write this down.” Sam reached for the pen and notepad on her desktop. “All right, go on.”

  “Okay, so this might have been a serious charge, but we couldn’t find any real evidence. The tipster never came forward and people we interviewed had nothing much we could use.”

  “So why even bother? Do you normally follow up anonymous tips like that?”

  “Not often, but like I said, it was my first year and my boss thought it would be good experience for me. We didn’t expect anything to come of it and nothing did.”

  “Then w
hy the flag?”

  “Not sure…Oh, yeah. Here it is. A key witness was unavailable for interviewing. I guess I flagged it, intending to follow up, but then I was posted to D.C. shortly after and the agent who took over my caseload closed it, but kept the flag on in case the witness reported back.”

  Sam scribbled on the notepad. “And the witness?”

  “None other than Chase Daniel Sullivan, son of Winston Daniel Sullivan.”

  “Chase?” She tried—unsuccessfully—to attach that name to her mental image of Danny’s father.

  “Fancy, eh? At the time he was working in the company’s accounting department. When I went in to check the company’s books, I found out the woman who’d been the manager had just resigned. And this Chase guy was away on a business trip or something.”

  Sam chewed thoughtfully on the end of her pen. “Isn’t that a bit odd? That both important witnesses would be away at the same time?”

  “I thought so, too, but the big bosses at the company were very open to my looking at everything.”

  “You mean, the father?”

  “And his brother, Bryant Sullivan. They both inherited the business from their father. I just Googled the company name, and it seems the brother is still running it with his two sons.”

  “And what about Chase?”

  “I can’t tell you anything more about him. No phone listing under that name. I know someone in Transport who can check if he has a driver’s license, but I haven’t had a chance to call her yet. He has no credit card—at least, not in his real name and not in the alias he was using with this Emily person.”

  Sam closed her eyes, picturing “this Emily person” lying in her hospital bed. Sometimes Skye’s professional detachment was too much. But she didn’t want to get sidetracked by another quibble with her sister. “So you’re telling me Danny’s father might be this Chase Sullivan, but you have no idea where he is.”

  “No, I’m not telling you that.” Sam flinched at the irritation in her twin’s voice. “He has no military record and I didn’t have time to see if he’s ever filed an income-tax return, but I’ve got one lead you can follow up easily enough yourself.”

  “What’s that?”