Читать книгу Man of His Word - Cynthia Reese, Cynthia Reese - Страница 17

CHAPTER NINE

ON THE WAY across the street, the first thing the detective did was release Kimberly from using his title and last name. “Ma practically raised me, so any friend of Daniel’s is welcome to dispense with the formalities.”

They walked into the diner, and Tim hustled her back to a booth at the end. The waitress immediately brought two cups and a hot carafe of coffee.

“Morning, Tim... Ma’am, Tim here likes his coffee fully leaded and black as night, that okay with you? Or do you want something else?”

“That’s fine,” Kimberly said. “The sugar’s here on the table. Can I have some cream, though?”

“Coming right up.” The waitress glanced Tim’s way. “Same as usual, even though it’s a tad early for lunch?”

“Yep. Eat when you can, that’s my motto. Oh, my usual is the steak, mashed potatoes and gravy with a side of green beans and extra mushrooms. You want that? Or...what else, Vera? Y’all still got breakfast?”

“Actually...” Kimberly remembered that grim encounter with her checkbook balance this morning. She couldn’t afford two breakfasts in one day. “The coffee will be fine.”

A moment later, Vera brought a pitcher of cream to go with the sugar packets Kimberly had waiting by her cup. Tim had begun quaffing down his coffee, seemingly immune to its scalding temperature.

“Daniel said Marissa had some health issues, and you were trying to get the birth mom’s identity?” Tim asked, setting his mug down. “You know I can’t give you that information. State law and all.”

“Right.” Kimberly didn’t look up from stirring her coffee. She wanted to frame her words exactly right. “But what can you tell me? Anything? Can you...can you tell me if anybody was with her? If she told you about any health problems?”

Tim frowned, a line forming on his freckled forehead. “Let’s see...she was by herself. I was the first officer on the scene. I got there as they were loading her into the ambulance. Man, that was a scene! You know she nearly died, right?”

Kimberly’s heart skipped a beat. “No. How?”

“Some sort of hemorrhage. They didn’t catch it at first, but they couldn’t stop the bleeding. I know I closed out my case after my boss told me to count it as a safe-haven surrender and the birth mother was flown out to Macon—that’s the nearest trauma center.”

Kimberly placed her coffee mug down on the laminate to hide the way her fingers trembled. Finally, a clue about Marissa’s family medical history. Hemorrhaging during childbirth could have been caused by PAI-1 deficiency, or any number of possibilities. “But she survived?”

Tim blinked. He sagged back into the booth. “That’s—that’s something I don’t know. I guess I assumed she did. I mean, I know she made it to Macon. But honestly, I couldn’t tell you. She had no charges pending against her once my superiors told me to count it as a safe-haven surrender.” He grinned and ducked his head. “We, um, were more interested in how the baby was doing, to be truthful. Man, it’s amazing how that baby’s all grown-up now.”

Kimberly fought back conflicting emotions: fear that her assumption all this time that Marissa’s birth mother was still alive and could give them the answers they needed was wrong; the familiar frustration that finding her wasn’t as easy as a quick check of the records; and a surge of appreciation that, even before she’d come into Marissa’s life, her daughter had people looking out for her.

Someone, somewhere, knows something. And if I can’t talk to the birth mom, I could track down her parents or the birth father or even his parents.