She stared at him full on, making it very clear that he didn’t intimidate her in the least, and she felt a small measure of satisfaction in noticing the way he winced ever so slightly.
“Poverty.”
She spoke the one word succinctly, clearly, and almost defiantly, and this time Jackson fidgeted in his seat, obviously discomfited by her frankness.
“Yeah, that’s right, Mr. Gilmore,” she continued lazily, even as she continued to chew on a piece of the beef. “Oh, I’m guessing someone who wears nice clothes like yours, can afford to rent a BMW, and stay at the Claremont Hotel can’t even contemplate not having enough to eat. But if I didn’t work at the café, and my amazing boss didn’t quietly stuff leftover food into my backpack, I’d be even skinnier than I am now. So when you offered to buy me dinner if I’d agree to at least listen to what you had to say, the hunger pains in my tummy won out over the warning bells in my head.”
This time he looked downright shamefaced, and Scarlett wondered briefly if maybe she’d been too hard on him, too outspoken, too ballsy. She’d been accused many times in her twenty-one years of being all of those things, plus a whole lot of other, even more unpleasant things. After all, she reasoned to herself, her father’s shitty behavior wasn’t this man’s fault. The fact that Jackson was related to her deadbeat father didn’t mean he was equally as reprehensible. In fact, he’d been nothing but nice to her thus far, allowing her to choose the restaurant, telling her that money was no object.
He’d been visibly startled when she had marched him a block away from Café Santosha and through the doors of this rather modest Chinese restaurant. Scarlett had glanced down at her ratty jeans, the T-shirt that she’d splashed coffee on several times today, and the sneakers that were starting to wear a hole over her big toe.
“I’m definitely not dressed for the Claremont or Chez Panisse or even Saul’s Deli,” she’d pointed out. “Besides, while the Jade Palace here isn’t fancy, the food’s great and the portions are huge. So stop acting like the snob I already know you must be and hold the door open for me.”
Jackson had chuckled at that idea, as though the very thought of Scarlett exhibiting anything resembling ladylike behavior was hilarious. But he’d been gracious about letting her order whatever she wanted, and had dug into the food hungrily along with her, acknowledging that she’d been right, everything was delicious.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Sorry that you’ve had such a hard time of it. I, uh, well, know a lot about what you went through growing up. The report - ”
“What report?” she barked, her spine stiffening automatically. “Jesus Christ, did you fucking have me investigated or something? Did that asshole father of mine figure I’d wound up in jail or rehab or something? That I’d turned out like my equally useless mother? And it goes without saying if that jerkwad had bothered to keep track of me over the years, had actually acted like a father and contributed to my upbringing, he wouldn’t have needed to hire someone to find me because he would have already known where I was.”
“It wasn’t like that,” assured Jackson quietly. “I mean, yes, we hired a private investigator to locate you. But that was mostly because we didn’t have any real idea of where or how to start looking. And since time is of the essence here, we needed to find you in a big hurry. Hiring a professional to do the job was the only thing that made sense.”
She jabbed her fork in his direction threateningly. “So why the hell didn’t this P.I. just - oh, I don’t know - find me. Why couldn’t he just give you an address or something? Did he really have to compile some sort of damned report detailing every sad, sorry moment of my life? That’s - that’s such an invasion of privacy.”
He nodded in acknowledgment. “Frankly, I was sort of surprised to get such a detailed report. And in a very short period of time, too. But the P.I. is a retired FBI profiler, so compiling facts is probably part of his DNA by now. I’m sorry if that bothers you, Scarlett. No one deserves to have their privacy invaded.”
She waved a hand in dismissal. “Too late for apologies now, Gilmore. Though was it really necessary for you to read over every shitty detail? Couldn’t you have just taken the info you needed - namely where to find me - and left the rest of the stuff out of it? Jesus, I really, really hate anyone knowing anything about my life. I speak my mind freely, probably a little too freely. But I’m super private about my life, don’t like to talk about the bad times. And I sure as hell never whine about my life. I mean, we all have problems, don’t we? Which brings us back to why I’m sitting across this table right now. What exactly do you want from me? And how am I supposed to save this sister I’ve never even heard of until now? Not, of course, that I know jack about dear old Daddy’s life. What’s this girl’s name? How old is she? And I’ll tell you right now - she’d better not need a kidney or a lung or something, because - no offense - I plan on holding on to all of my internal organs.”
Jackson gave her a half-smile. “Nothing quite so extreme. In fact, if she’d needed a kidney transplant, or part of a liver, it would have probably been much easier to find her a match and I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you right now. So to answer your questions. Your half-sister’s name is Hannah. She’s fourteen years old, and has a really rare, really vicious strain of leukemia. And the only thing you’d need to donate - provided you’re even a match, that is - is some bone marrow. Here. These are pictures of her. Uh, both before and after all the chemo she had that made her hair fall out.”
Reluctantly, Scarlett took the phone - of course, it was the most expensive, most recent model and probably had every bell and whistle loaded onto it - and carefully studied the images of a girl who resembled her far too much for her liking. Scarlett’s curls were a deeper shade of reddish gold than Hannah’s, her eyes a little larger and a more vibrant blue in color, but there were definite similarities in their bone structure, the shape of their jaws and noses, and even in the little sprinkling of freckles across their cheekbones. No one would ever mistake them for twins, or perhaps not even sisters, maybe more like first cousins. But there was no denying the familial connection between them.
“I guess we look a little alike,” she acknowledged as she handed him back the phone. “She’s a cute kid, seems real sweet. How long has she been sick?”
“Over two years. She’s been through the wringer, too - radiation, chemo, drugs, transfusions, you name it. I don’t have any really recent pictures of her, but she’s practically skin and bones by now she’s so sick. But you’re right, she’s a real sweet kid. Never complains no matter how awful she feels.” Jackson’s voice sobered as he added, “But all of the treatments have stopped working now. Her doctor told the family a couple of weeks ago that we ought to start preparing ourselves to tell her good-bye. Unless, of course, a miracle happened and a match could be found to donate blood marrow.”
Scarlett listened impassively as he spun his tale of the unrelenting quest the family had embarked on to find a suitable donor - how every single family member, friend, neighbor, classmate, and employee had been tested. How the family had sponsored community wide donor testing events, even giving away gift bags and refreshments to anyone who’d been willing to offer up a cheek swab. When all of that had failed to produce a match, Hannah’s doctors had combed the national registry several times a day to see if a match might miraculously pop up.