do. He had to find her son. That was all there was to it, but it wouldn’t be easy and he was going to need help.
He glanced at the clock and reached for his phone, dialing the one person who had the money, time and resources to help. Gage Caldwell wasn’t just the owner of the Blizzard, he was a billionaire tech wizard who’d been some kind of military intelligence officer or something in the past.
“Hey, Miikka, where are you?” Gage sounded relaxed and friendly as he answered the phone.
“I’m in Wichita.”
“What the hell are you doing in Kansas?” Gage laughed. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Finland?”
“Yes, well…” He told him about Charli’s father’s heart attack and then his impromptu trip back to the U.S. to join her.
“Did you guys have a fight?” Gage asked knowingly.
“Not exactly.” Miikka sighed. “I have to speak to you in confidence. It’s very important but you can’t tell anyone.”
“Of course not. You okay?”
“I’m fine. You see, Charli had a child that she gave up for adoption…” He told him everything he knew about Charli’s situation. “And now she has this idea she is bad. I can’t… I have to show her that she did the best thing for the child.”
“Miikka, I’ll do anything I can to help, but you don’t know what we might find. What if the kid is sick or, god forbid, died in some kind of accident or some other awful thing? There’s no guarantee this is going to have a happy ending if we go digging into things.”
Miikka sighed. “I know. If this happens, you must give me your word it stays between us. We never tell her what happened and let her think it was impossible to find the child.”
“Are you sure, Miikka? A thousand percent sure?”
“You think you can find the boy?”
“With my contacts in the government, and the money I have to bribe people, yeah. I’m about ninety percent sure I can find him.”
“Please. Even if she doesn’t love me anymore, I can’t let her spend the rest of her life thinking she did something terrible. And if something bad happened to the child—she still made the best decision. She was seventeen with no one and nothing…”
“Hey, you don’t have to convince me. I agree with you, but keep in mind, she may not want to know. Knowing that you went behind her back may hurt her in a totally different way.”
“I didn’t,” Miikka protested. “She said something about knocking myself out—what does this mean?—if I want to search for him.”
Gage chuckled. “It means she doesn’t think you’re going to find him, but I guess that was her way of saying it was okay for you to look.”
“So you’ll help me?”
“Send me a text with everything you know. Charli’s full name, where she gave birth, approximately the date. Any information will be helpful.”
“I’ll do this now.”
“It could take weeks, Miikka. I can reach out, call in favors, and I’m happy to bribe people for any pertinent records, but it may take a while just to find the right people.”
“The child was born in Anchorage, so maybe it’s easier than we think?”
“I’ll keep you posted.”
“Thank you. I’ll owe you…something.”
“There are a lot of visits to the children’s hospital in your future,” Gage chuckled as he hung up.
Miikka hated Wichita. There was very little to see and all he wanted to do was check on Charli. He’d driven to the hospital twice since the day he’d seen her, but in the end, he hadn’t gone in. He didn’t want to upset her and it seemed like there was a lot going on with her family. He hadn’t had a chance to tell her, but her father had mentioned regretting his actions eight years ago, and that this heart attack made him realize family was the most important thing. Miikka didn’t like how they’d treated her, but everyone made mistakes, and if they were willing to try, it might be good for her too. She’d been holding on to so much pain, it hurt him to see her hurting.
He hadn’t heard anything from Gage and the idea that it really might take weeks, or longer, to find Charli’s son was depressing. He was itching to go back to Finland, but he couldn’t leave things like this between him and Charli. He loved her and wanted to take care of her, but he didn’t have any idea how. At this point, she was fixated on the idea that she was