Beth Cornelison – The Return of Connor Mansfield (страница 4)

Silence answered her request.

“Mr. Orlean? Are you there?”

“Yes...I’m—I’ll do that. I’ll get on the registry this afternoon. I swear.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“I...have the doctors said...would her father have been a suitable match?”

A chill tripped down Darby’s spine, along with regret and fresh waves of grief. “Kind of a moot point since he died before she was born. That information should be in her file.”

“Yeah, I guess... I—”

Darby shifted her weight, uncomfortable with the personal nature of Mr. Orlean’s questions and tone. “Why do you ask?”

“I just...well, I thought, maybe...” He fumbled awkwardly, the nasal voice back. He sounded truly contrite, and Darby closed her eyes. The man sounded as if he really cared about Savannah’s plight, and she appreciated that he wanted to be more than just a cold company drone at the other end of the line.

“For what it’s worth, I bet he’d have been a match,” she blurted, not knowing why she was going down this road with a perfect stranger, other than the fact that the subject had preoccupied her mind for weeks. “She inherited so much from him. From his dark hair and light brown eyes to his stubborn streak.”

What if Connor were alive? Would his marrow have been able to save their child? She shook her head and shoved the what-if aside. She’d never know that answer. Connor was gone.

* * *

I bet he’d have been a match.

Connor rocked back in his desk chair and squeezed his eyes shut. Frustration and regret gripped his chest and twisted painfully. His daughter needed him. Needed his marrow.

“I have nothing to base this on other than my own speculation, of course,” Darby went on, the sadness in her voice almost more than he could bear.

When she’d started crying earlier, it was all he could do not to blurt out the truth and jump on the first plane back to Louisiana.

“But Savannah got so many other traits from her father, why not marrow type, too?” She paused for a humorless laugh. “And since Connor’s brother has some of the same markers and is a partial match, it seems reasonable to me that Connor would be a closer match. Right?”

Connor. He gritted his teeth, swallowing a groan of anguish. She’d unwittingly confirmed what he suspected, but hearing his name on her lips again was a sweet agony. The precious details about his daughter were like manna that he feasted on, but painful to hear, as well.

He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Sounds reasonable.” He grimaced, realizing he’d forgotten to mask his voice again.

She grunted, and he heard shuffling noises. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m boring you with all this. I need to get back to Savannah. I think I hear her waking up.”

He heard a door squeak, a muffled, “Hi, Miss Priss. Did you sleep well?”

Connor held his breath and squeezed the phone, treasuring the tiny glimpse of the life he’d left behind. The life he ached for every waking minute and dreamed of every moment he slept.

If he slept.

A tiny, distant voice answered. Sweet, plaintive, so young. “It ouches, Mommy.”

Savannah. His daughter.

His baby needed him.

But going back to Lagniappe, leaving WitSec and reclaiming his old life would be suicide. More important, he could put Darby and Savannah in jeopardy.

“I have to go,” Darby said. “I don’t know if I’ve helped you settle anything, but I hope...well, that you’ll do the right thing. Goodbye, Mr. Orlean.”

He heard the click of the call disconnecting, then sat staring at the phone in his hand for long minutes after Darby was gone.

Do the right thing. Years ago he’d done what he believed was the right thing and “died” in order to protect his family and Darby. Now, to save his daughter, would he have to come back from the dead?

Connor went to a local medical lab that same afternoon, requested his blood be analyzed for bone marrow matching and gave the lab directions to send his contact information along with the results of his test to Savannah’s doctor in Lagniappe, flagged for comparison with Savannah’s blood. Roughly thirty-six hours later, his cell phone buzzed while he was in a morning meeting. Seeing the name of Savannah’s doctor on his caller ID, he excused himself from the meeting to take the call.

“Mr. Orlean, this is Dr. Allison Reed in Lagniappe, Louisiana. I received a set of test results yesterday from a lab in Dallas that you asked be compared with a patient of mine.”

“Yes, ma’am. Darby Kent’s daughter, Savannah. Am I a match for a bone marrow transplant?”

“As a matter of fact, you are a fairly good preliminary match.”

Connor gave a silent fist pump, and his heart rate leaped. “That’s great!”

“I have to ask, how did you know you might be a match?” Dr. Reed asked. “What prompted you to send us your results?”

“I...” He hesitated, knowing he couldn’t tell the doctor he was Savannah’s father without blowing his cover. “I didn’t know. More like hoped I’d be a match, I guess. So what’s the next step? What do I need to do?”

“I understand that you are in Dallas, but if there was any way you could come to Lagniappe, I’d like to have a face-to-face consult with you and do a few more blood tests.”

“Go to Lagniappe?” His heart sank. Returning to his hometown, even for a little while, meant risking someone recognizing him. Meant putting his new identity on the line. Meant putting his life—and potentially Darby’s and his family’s lives—in danger if one of the Gales’ henchmen spotted him. “Can’t I have the blood tests here? Can’t I make the marrow donation here, should it come to it?”

“Well, yes. Technically you can, but I really prefer to have at least one face-to-face consult. And if we are able to go ahead with a transplant, I’d much rather have my team harvest your marrow here. I take a very hands-on approach.” She chuckled. “My husband has other names for it. But I work best when I can oversee every phase of a transplant.”

“Oh.” Connor pinched the bridge of his nose. Hell.

“Is there a problem? Is there a reason you can’t come to Lagniappe, Mr. Orlean?” Dr. Reed asked. “Because if you’re not fully committed to the possibility of being Savannah’s donor, it would be better that we not raise the family’s hopes—”

“I’m committed,” he interrupted. “I’m absolutely committed.” He’d figure out a way to get to Lagniappe, whatever it took. Maybe the U.S. Marshals, who’d set him up with his new identity, could provide him a cover or a disguise to get him in and out of Lagniappe when needed. “When do you need me there?”

“Can you be here Friday?”

“I’ll find a way.”

“Good,” the doctor said. “In that case, I’d like you to get more blood drawn tomorrow. I’ll send you the address of the center where you should go. They’ll start a more detailed DNA study and send me the results in time for your consultation here Friday.”

Connor clenched his teeth, dreading the meeting with the U.S. Marshals, fearing what might happen if his cover was blown. But he had a daughter. A sick little girl who needed him. He would go to Lagniappe—hell, he’d eat glass or take a bullet to the gut in order to save his daughter’s life.

Chapter 2

“I need to go back to Lagniappe.” Connor cast a side glance to the men on his couch as he paced his small living room in Dallas. “Just for a day or so.”

“You can’t do that, Sam,” Deputy U.S. Marshal Gerald Raleigh, a fiftyish man with thinning hair, a long, jowly face and the body of an aged football player, countered. “The program only works if you—”

“My name is Connor. Not Sam,” he argued, feeling peevish.

Raleigh sighed. “Connor Mansfield is dead. You’re Sam Orlean now, and if you want to stay alive—”

“I understand what going back there means. But I found out today that I have a daughter.”

Raleigh exchanged a startled glance with his partner, Deputy U.S. Marshal Jamal Jones. “How did you hear about your daughter?”

Connor stiffened and faced Marshal Jones. “You knew about Savannah?”

Jones, an African-American of approximately Connor’s age, with closely shaved hair and a short Vandyke, didn’t answer, but the twitch of muscle in his jaw and self-conscious lift of his chin said all the federal marshal didn’t.

Raleigh dragged a hand over his face. “How did you find out?”

Connor bit out a curse. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me? What right did you have to keep something like that from me?”

“For exactly this reason,” Raleigh said. “That part of your life is over, Sam, and knowing about your daughter would have only made it tougher to—”

“She’s sick. Or did you know that, too, and not tell me?” He divided a glare between his handlers and ground his back teeth until his jaw ached. “She has cancer and needs a bone marrow transplant. I may be her best chance for a match.”

Jones shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sam. But Gale’s men are still a threat to you. They could be watching Darby Kent’s house, waiting for you to show up. We’ve been monitoring Darby since you entered the program, in case Gale or his men made a move on her. That’s how we knew about the baby.”

Connor shook his head, confused, a chill coiling in his gut. After everything he’d sacrificed to protect Darby, could Gale’s men still be watching her?

“Why would they watch Darby if they believe I’m dead? She had nothing to do with Gale’s prosecution. You said you tied up all of the loose ends. I’m officially dead, right? So why—”