Caitlin and Molly's apartment – Greenwich Village, New York

Jack's face showed the frustration he was feeling as she refused to tell him who Molly's father was. He opened his mouth, angry words bubbling to the surface when his cell phone rang

'I'll take this outside'

He stood up without waiting to see her reaction and strode across the floor to the door to the hallway; as the door closed behind him Jack answered the phone, 'Malone'

'Hey Jack, its Sam, I think I've got a lead on who the father is'

'Yeh well that's more than I've managed' Jack sounded angry; 'What have you got?'

'Dr McCardle was dating someone between February and August 2002. It appears to have come to an abrupt end and she transferred to San Francisco at a speed that raised a considerable number of eyebrows here. I've spoken to Martin and he is running it down.'

'Ok what about the boyfriend'

'Well I don't have much on him but I haven't been able to speak to another friend of hers a 'Dr Lucy Randall' because she is in surgery at the moment but apparently she should be free in the next 30 minutes'. Sam paused and consulted her notes

'What I do know is that the boyfriend dated a nurse here the previous year but she's on holiday at the moment, Viv is trying to track her down. He met Dr McCardle indirectly through this nurse at a diner across from the hospital.'

Sam could hear the intake of breath from Jack that she guessed was prelude to Jack losing his temper and rushed on

'Apparently Dr McCardle didn't really speak to anyone about her private life but everyone who knew her then has said that it appeared that she was very happy in the relationship and that there didn't appear to be any problems until the end'

'Is that it? No name, no description?' Jack was struggling to stay calm

'No, I have a description, er, he was tall between 6ft and 6ft 2inches, he has dark hair, dark eyes, possibly brown and was of Latino appearance. They estimated his age in 2002 as late 20's early 30's. They don't have a surname but his first name was Danny and it would appear he works for the Government in a downtown Manhattan location.'

Sam stopped and waited for Jack to speak but he remained silent. Eventually she broke the silence

'Jack, there has to be more than one 6ft 1inch tall, Latino government employee in downtown Manhattan called Danny'

'Yeh, but tell me, from what they told you about him, did it sound like our Danny?'

'Jack, the Danny I know, the Danny we know, would never abandon a child, particularly if it was his child. The only explanation would be if he didn't know about Molly'

'I don't buy that, the relationship ended at the point where she had found out she was pregnant. It makes sense that something triggered the break up and this is a fairly classic reason. Anyway, she doesn't strike me as the type not to tell someone something this important.' Jack paused

'I asked her straight out who the father was and all she would say is that she could promise me that Molly's father had nothing to do with her kidnapping'

'Well, I guess someone needs to speak to Danny' Sam didn't sound as if she fancied this job at all

'Yeh, has he finished in court yet?'

'Don't know, I'll get Viv to check it out'

'OK. Sam, go and find Lucy Randall and see if she can throw any more light on all of this, I'm going to speak to the good Doctor again'

Jack hung up and headed back into the apartment.

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Caitlin heard Jack approaching and looked up. Before he could speak she handed him a photo

'This is Molly's father'

Jack looked down at a photo of Caitlin and a tall dark haired man………. .he groaned inwardly.

'Danny Taylor is Molly's father?'

'Yes'

'You are aware that he works for this team?'

'I know he used to, as I haven't spoken to him in four years it's kind of hard to know what the hell he's up to at the minute'

Jack ignored the hostility in her voice

'Well he does, he just happens to be in court at the moment which is why he wasn't at the park'

She remained silent

'Does he know he's Molly's father?'

She stared at him in disbelief, anger growing in her eyes, 'Of course he bloody well knows, what the hell do you take me for?'

The concentrated fury in her words stopped Jack in his tracks for a moment. He could feel the anger radiating from her

'OK, it's just that Danny has never mentioned to anyone at work that he has a daughter and the Danny I know, that we all know, wouldn't walk away from any child, particularly not his own'

She turned away and he could see her breathing deeply, trying to regain her self control; 'Well Agent Malone, it would appear that you don't know him as well as you would like to think doesn't it?

She sounded bitter

Jack thought about what he had just learned but he could still not make sense of it. 'Can you tell me what happened?'

She turned and he could see tears in her eyes. She sat down on the window ledge staring at the ground as she started to speak.

'We had been going out for 5 months; everything was going really well and Danny had asked me to think about us getting a place together, she paused as if to marshal her thoughts before continuing;

'Before I dated Danny I dated a surgeon, Nick Hollander for about 3 months. We split about 6 months before Danny and I got together. One night in the ER the Chief of Surgery came and found me. He told me that he had just had a call to tell him that Nick's father had been killed in a car crash and his mother was badly injured. He was needed for an emergency in the OR and he needed someone to tell Nick.'

She paused and swallowed before continuing in a shaky voice; 'I found Nick, he was outside the ER in the ambulance bay. I told him and he collapsed. I was holding him; we ended up on the floor with me holding him while he cried'

Another pause and Jack could feel her shaking 'I got home late that night because there was an accident on the expressway. When I got there Danny was waiting. I was so pleased he was there, it had been such a crappy day and I was feeling so tired I didn't notice anything was wrong. Anyway I soon realised there was………..'

She looked up at Jack and he could see the tears were rolling down her cheeks; 'He accused me of cheating on him with Nick, he told me that someone had called him to tell him that the affair had been going on for two months and that he had come to the hospital tonight to ask me what was going on and he had seen Nick and I 'making out';

She angrily dashed the tears away from her eyes; 'I was so stunned I couldn't find any words to defend myself and then I just got angry. I yelled at him to get out, that if that was what he thought of me I never wanted to see him again. He left and I've never seen him since.'

Jack looked at her 'Did you know you were pregnant?'

'No, I realised a couple of days later'

'So, if you haven't seen him since that argument how did you tell him that you were pregnant?'

'I called and left a couple of messages for him to call me but all I got was a message on my answer phone telling me he didn't think we had anything to talk about. I decided that I would try to speak to him face to face but in case he refused to listen to me I decided that I would have a letter with me that I could leave for him to read. So I wrote a letter, went to his apartment and knocked on the door. No-one was in so I pushed the letter under the door.'

Jack waited for her to continue. She was staring at the floor again

'I didn't hear from him. Nick had gone back to San Francisco to be with his mother. He rang to thank me for breaking the news to him and to tell me he was staying in San Francisco, that a friend of his fathers had pulled strings to get him a Surgical Attendings job at St Christopher's. He could tell I was upset, I told him everything. He offered to speak to Danny and tell him that nothing had been going on but I was so angry by then I said no. Two days later he rang me back and told me that he had arranged it so that if I wanted to transfer to St Christophers to complete my residency I could. He had told them I was pregnant and they were OK with that.'

She looked up and smiled sadly at Jack

'So that's what I did'

'Did you tell Danny where you had gone?'

'No, he had more than enough chances, anyway, he works missing persons, he could have found me if he wanted to.'

'And you haven't had any contact with him since then'

'I wrote to him after Molly was born. I sent him some photos and told him that if he wanted to know her I wouldn't stop him but I didn't hear anything'

'Any chance he didn't get the letters?' Jack knew he was clutching at straws

'The first letter was pushed under his door, the second was sent by registered mail. I even spoke to the post office and they confirmed that it was signed for.'

Jack sat in silence for a few moments trying to reconcile the Danny he knew with the Danny he was hearing about here.

'OK, well obviously I need to speak to Danny……………'

She interrupted him; 'I don't want to see him and I don't want to speak to him' her voice was cold, angry. Jack stared at her for a moment then nodded

'Sure, I'll make sure he doesn't contact you'