8. Declan
EIGHT
DECLAN
"You have a daughter."
I laughed.
"Really, Nolan?" I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. "Did Julian put you up to this? Because the delivery is a little flat for his taste, but the material is — "
"You should know this is serious because I'm the one here."
The laugh died. Nolan didn't joke. Nolan didn't deliver news he wasn't certain about.
I sat up. The chair creaked. "I only have one reproductive organ, Nolan. Last I checked, that's not enough to produce a child on my own."
"You weren't on your own a year ago."
The room went cold. My hands found the edge of the desk and gripped. "Are you talking about Kira?"
He nodded.
“That's not… I was careful. We were…she said she was on the pill.” I shook my head. “It's not possible."
But even as I said it, and Nolan’s face remained frozen, I knew deep in my bones that he was telling the truth.
Was that why she walked away? No. That didn’t make sense. It would have prompted her to stay instead. Unless she found me so terrible that the thought of me as a father was repulsive.
I looked up. "Are you sure she's mine?"
Nolan nodded again. The gesture was beginning to annoy me. "Kira hasn't been seen with anyone since you."
Well, damn. I am a father. Me? The universe found a way to convince me to commit to something after all. She didn’t send a woman; she sent a child. How wonderful was that?
I rushed to my feet. "Graham!"
Nolan didn't move. He watched me cross the office and pull the door open.
"Graham!" My voice carried across the floor. Heads turned. I didn't care. Graham appeared from somewhere to the left, glasses glinting, already reading my face. "My office. Now!"
He followed me in. I closed the door. Nolan was still in the chair. Graham stood near the window, hands behind his back.
I paced behind my desk. "I need you to find Kira Solis. Word is, she had my child. I need you to find her."
Graham blinked ever so slightly. Then his face went back to the stony expression I knew best. “I’ll get to that immediately.” He turned to leave.
“Graham.” He stopped and turned. "Did she ever come looking for me?"
Graham’s eyes lowered for a beat. Then he met my gaze again. "No."
“Are you sure? Maybe you missed her. We can check the CCTV footage. See if she turned up,” Nolan said.
I waved it off. “That’s not necessary. She wouldn’t have come. I didn’t respond to any of her texts or calls.” Then to Graham: "Find her. Do anything you have to, but make sure you find her."
He nodded. "I'll make some calls." He turned and left.
“How did you find out about this?” I asked Nolan as soon as we were alone again.
“One of my people mentioned they saw her leaving the hospital with a baby about three months ago. I did some digging around and didn’t want to come to you until I had solid facts. Look…I know you trust Graham, but he’s one man. Reach out to Voss. He’s your best bet.”
My finger was already scrolling through my contacts to find the private investigator’s number. I dialed immediately.
"Mr. Hale, what can I do for you?"
"I need you to find someone. A woman. Kira Solis." I gave him everything — her full name, last known address, former employer, the timeline.
"Understood. I'll start with the address and employment records and work outward from there. Give me seventy-two hours."
It took him less than that to get back to me, and Nolan was right. Harlan Voss was my best bet. Graham surprisingly didn’t have any news for me, and waiting for even the tiniest bit of information was torture.
So, when my phone finally rang two days later, I wasted no time in answering. "Talk to me."
"I found a studio apartment in Astoria. The landlord let me in."
"And?"
"Empty. Cleared out. The landlord says the girl left last night, paid her last month's rent in cash, slid it under his office door, and just left."
I gripped the armrest of my chair. "Her phone?"
"Disconnected. The number you gave me is dead. She either destroyed the SIM or canceled the line."
I stood up and walked to the window. Where are you, Kira? Where’s my child?
"What about family? Friends? Someone she worked with?"
"The modeling agency won’t talk to me. Other models acted like they had no idea who she was. Except one." Voss paused. I could hear papers shuffling. "She said Kira hadn't been around in some time. Couldn’t wait to tell me how fat she’d gotten."
I rolled my eyes. "That's not enough."
"Mr. Hale, it's been two days. Give me — "
"I don't have time to give you. Find her."
I hung up and pressed my palms flat against the glass. My reflection stared back — tie loosened, collar open, a face that hadn't slept properly in three days.
I picked up my phone and scrolled to Kira's name, the number I blocked in my kitchen months ago. Even though I knew it wouldn’t ring, I still dialed.
Nothing.
I tried again. Same result. I threw the phone onto the desk. It skidded across the surface and hit a stack of files I hadn't opened in days.
Voss called the next morning. I was at the Vanguard, standing in my office, staring at the same screen I'd been staring at for an hour without reading a word on it.
"I pulled her financials," he said. "Bank statements, credit activity, the full picture. She's been withdrawing cash in small amounts for the last four months. Closing accounts. No new credit applications, no lease agreements. She's shedding everything traceable."
"She's hiding."
"She's relocating. There's a difference. Hiding is reactive. This is planned. She's been building toward this for months."
"I don't care about the taxonomy, Voss. Where is she?"
"I'm getting there. There's a thread in her bank records. Recurring payments to an agency. Adoption intake fees. Correspondence fees. They go back several months."
I sat down. My legs felt hollow. "She placed the baby for adoption."
"That's what the records indicate. An agency here in the city. Bright Horizons Family Services. I'll send you the details."
I hung up and called David Roth, the senior partner at Whitfield Roth, a firm that handled Vanguard's corporate litigation.
"David, I need you for something personal. Priority."
"What are we dealing with?"
"An adoption agency. Bright Horizons Family Services. They facilitated the placement of my biological child without my knowledge or consent. I was never notified. My parental rights were never terminated. I need that file."
A pause. I could hear him writing. "They'll push back. Sealed records. Privacy protections. Federal — "
"I know what they'll push back with, but I need you to push harder. The father was never consulted. That's their liability, not mine."
"Understood. I'll have a team on the phone with their legal department today."
David called back the next afternoon. I was pacing. Julian was on the couch eating from a bag he'd brought from the Italian place on Fifty-Third. He'd set an identical bag on my desk. I was ignoring it.
"Their attorney's name is Pratt," David said.
"She's citing federal privacy regulations and sealed records.
She said, and I'm quoting, 'The agency is bound by confidentiality obligations to all parties involved.
We cannot release identifying information about birth mothers or prospective adoptive families without a court order. '"
"Then get a court order."
"We can. It'll take weeks. There's a faster path."
I stopped pacing. "Talk."
"Their liability. The birth father — you — was never notified.
That's not a privacy issue. That's a procedural failure.
If we press on the notification requirement, their own counsel will advise them to cooperate rather than risk a lawsuit that exposes the deficiency publicly.
I've drafted a letter. I can send it today. "
"Send it now."
"Declan — "
"David. Now."
He sent it. The agency received it by noon. Their counsel called David by three. I sat in my office, watching the clock on my phone, and Julian was watching me from the couch, his container untouched now, and neither of us spoke.
David called at 3:47 p.m.
"They're releasing the file. Pratt advised them this morning that withholding information from a biological father who was never notified constitutes a legal liability they can't sustain. They'd rather cooperate than litigate."
"When?"
"It's being sent to my office now. I'll forward it within the hour."
I hung up, put the phone on the desk, pressed both hands flat against the surface, and breathed. My arms were shaking.
Julian looked at me from the couch. "They're releasing it?"
I nodded. I couldn't speak. He nodded back, picked up the bag from the Italian place, brought it to me, and set it on the desk directly in front of my hands.
"Eat," he said. "You'll need it."
I ate, standing up by the window, without tasting anything. Julian went back to the couch and pretended to read something on his phone.
Nolan came that evening. He stood in my doorway, and I looked up from the inbox I'd been refreshing every thirty seconds, and he asked one question.
"What are you going to do when you find her?"
I stared at him. What was I going to do? Demand custody? Negotiate? Show up at a stranger's door and claim a child I didn't know existed a week ago?
"I don't know," I said.
Nolan nodded. He turned and walked away.
Then Graham walked into my office. He closed the door behind him. "I've exhausted my contacts. I've got nothing on Kira."
I looked at him. Same spot he always stood — two feet from the desk, hands behind his back, spine straight. But his shoulders were tight. A fraction of distance in his eyes I couldn't explain.
"Nothing?"
"She's off the grid. No credit activity, no phone, no address updates. Wherever she went, she went deliberately."
I pressed my palms flat against the desk. "Thank you, Graham."
He lingered for a half-second — a pause so brief most people would miss it, like a word caught behind his teeth — and then he nodded and left.
The file arrived in my inbox nineteen minutes later.
I opened it at my desk with the door closed and the city darkening outside the windows.
Everything was present. The baby's medical records listed birth date, weight, and health screenings. Then a photograph — small, slightly blurred, agency-stamped. In it, a baby's face turned slightly away, eyes closed, wrapped tightly in a white blanket.
My baby. My daughter.
The words were foreign in my mouth and true in my bones. I stared at the photograph until the screen dimmed, then I touched the trackpad and stared at it again.
I scrolled down. Intended adoptive mother.
Thea Walker (née Calloway).
My hand stopped on the mouse. I read the name again. A third time. The letters didn't rearrange.
Thea Walker (née Calloway). The woman from the conference room, the nonprofit, the dinner, the bar, the rain, the corner where I kissed her, and where she kissed me back. She was the woman who fell asleep in my bed and left in the morning. The woman whose name I saved in my phone and never called.
She was going to adopt my daughter. Before I knew the baby existed, this woman — this specific woman, out of every person in this city — was going to be her mother.
The coincidence was so staggering that my brain refused to process it. I sat at my desk and stared at her name on the screen. The office was silent, the city was dark, and none of it made sense. Not one piece of it.
I read further. Kira rescinded. The adoption fell through. The baby was returned to the birth mother's custody. After that, the agency's involvement ended. They didn't know where the baby was now.
I dropped back in my chair and pressed my hands over my face. Where was she? Where was my child right now, tonight?
But the file had Thea’s address. It was a starting point. Maybe she knew something. Maybe she had a number, a contact, or a thread I could pull. I couldn't sit here. I couldn't stare at this screen for one more minute while my daughter was somewhere in this city, and I didn't know where.
I grabbed my jacket and my keys. I was in the elevator before the thought was fully formed and in the car before the doors closed behind me. I pulled into traffic and drove. The address was across the city. I didn't call ahead. I didn't plan. I just drove.
It was dark and raining when I pulled up to the house. A simple place. A porch. A small yard. I got out. The rain hit me immediately — cold, steady, soaking through my jacket in seconds. I ran up the porch steps and knocked on the door.
The door opened.
Thea Calloway stood on the other side. Her hair was down. She was wearing a T-shirt and leggings, bare feet on the hardwood, and her dark eyes were wide. I saw the recognition flash across her face — the shock, the confusion, the way her lips parted.
She didn't step aside. She stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame, her body blocking the entrance. Rain dripped from my hair onto my collar. My hand found the edge of the door, holding it open, and I locked eyes with her.
"Where is my daughter?"