“Maggie,” Ryan protested, then sighed in the face of her determined expression and her firm grip on the pitcher. “Okay then, let’s go. We don’t have the time to waste arguing.”
“Such a gracious capitulation,” she noted as she set the pitcher back on the bar and swept past him.
Jack gave him a pitying look. “She’s a woman with a mind of her own, isn’t she?”
“Tell me about it,” Ryan said dryly.
Together, the three of them combed the bars along the waterfront. They spoke to fishermen and dockworkers as they began to arrive for work in the predawn hours. When people seemed reluctant to talk to them, Maggie stepped in and charmed them into opening up. Despite her best efforts, though, no one recalled a man fitting Jamal Monroe’s description.
“Dammit, that boy cannot go into surgery thinking that his own father doesn’t care enough to be there,” Ryan said when they’d retreated to a small, crowded café filled with the raucous banter of men who spent their lives on the water. He cupped his hands around a mug of strong coffee, grateful for the warmth after being out for hours in the damp, cold air.
“We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Maggie soothed with unwavering confidence.
Suddenly a shadow fell over the table. Ryan glanced up into chocolate-brown eyes that glinted with anger and suspicion. The man was dressed warmly, in worn yet clean clothes, but he was too thin. And undeniable exhaustion and strain were evident on his dark face.
“I hear you’ve been asking a lot of questions about Jamal Monroe,” he said. “Why?”
Ryan suspected that this was Lamar’s father, though the man hadn’t admitted it outright. He gestured toward the fourth chair at their table. “Join us. How about a cup of coffee and some breakfast?”
The man hesitated, but the lure of the hot drink and food apparently won him over. With a respectful nod toward Maggie, he sat down, though he kept his jacket on as if he wanted to be ready to take off at once if the need arose.
Ryan didn’t say anything until the waitress had brought coffee and taken the man’s order. Then he looked him directly in the eye. “We’ve been bumping up against a brick wall for hours now. I don’t suppose you have any idea how we can find Monroe?”
“Could be,” the man said cautiously. “But you still haven’t said why you’re so anxious to find him. You friends of his?”
“No, we’ve never met,” Ryan admitted, keeping his gaze locked on the man’s face. “It’s about his son, Lamar.”
There was a definite flicker of recognition, maybe even something else. Fear, perhaps.
“You know his boy?” the man asked.
Ryan nodded. “And his wife. They’ve been staying at the St. Mary’s homeless shelter.”
This time there was no mistaking the reaction. “Why are they there?” he asked with more emotion in his voice. “They had a halfway decent apartment when I—” He looked flustered at the telling slip and hurriedly corrected it. “When he left.”
At Ryan’s nod, it was Maggie who continued, her tone gentle. “They needed help. Without Mr. Monroe at home, they couldn’t make it. And Lamar needs surgery, but once Mr. Monroe quit his job, their insurance was cut off.”
The man’s shoulders slumped, and his eyes filled with tears. “Damn, I never meant it to come to that,” he said, his voice thick. “I thought I’d be back in time to make things right. I just needed some time away to think.”
Ryan and Jack exchanged a look.
“Then you are Jamal,” Ryan said gently.
He nodded. “Even if I am a sorry excuse for a husband and a father, I love those two.”
“Then why did you take off?” Ryan asked, barely managing to keep an accusatory note out of his voice.
“If you know about the surgery, then you probably know Lamar’s medical condition is hereditary. He got it from me,” Jamal said, his tone filled with guilt.
“Through no fault of your own,” Maggie insisted fiercely, resting her hand on his. “You didn’t know you had the problem, so how could you know you could pass it along to your son? Nobody is blaming you.”
“I blame myself,” Jamal said heatedly, “’cause the honest truth is, I did know. Soon as that doctor started talking, I remembered the problems I had when I was a kid.”
“You had a heart problem that required surgery?” Ryan asked, stunned.
Jamal nodded. “I was younger than Lamar is now, and I spent a lot of time in the hospital. My folks never explained much about what was going on, and I was too little to understand if they had. I wasn’t even in school yet, so I must have been three, maybe four years old. Once I had the surgery, I could do anything I wanted. Didn’t take me long to put all of the bad times out of my head. Years go by, and it’s like it happened to some other person, if you remember at all. Never crossed my mind that I could pass it along to a child of mine.”
“That’s perfectly normal,” Maggie reassured him, shooting a warning look at Ryan. “People don’t always consider all the genetic ramifications before having kids. They fall in love, get married and start a family. Unless they’ve had to confront a congenital illness all their lives, it’s the last thing on their minds. Letitia doesn’t blame you for Lamar being sick. Lamar certainly doesn’t blame you. If they don’t, how can you go on blaming yourself? And it’s time to forgive yourself, too, for being human and running out. The important thing is to be there for Lamar now.”
Jamal shook his head. “Letitia’s bound to be fit to be tied. That woman has a temper when she’s riled, and she has every right to be furious with me. She probably won’t let me
