Her eyes narrow, and she tilts her head as she says, "I've heard that one before."
"I'm sure you have," I respond, my words hurried as I explain, “Amber was only five or six years old when we got married. We were never close or anything though looking back now I believe that was engineered by her mother."
Lilith gives me a disinterested look as she says, "Get to the part where you make me believe you never touched her."
"When Miranda first came forward threatening criminal charges, I was able to prove I wasn't even anywhere near her at the time conception would've happened. Amber was literally at a fucking boarding school in another state, that I was paying for.”
"Then why are you doing all this if you're not her father?"
"I can't in good conscience leave a child with these people. And I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Miranda somehow engineered a way to make that paternity test come out positive.”
Lilith frowns, shakes her head. "How the fuck would she do that?"
"In the discussions I've had with people who’ve had similar cases, close as we can figure to an explanation is that she managed to acquire my semen and somehow managed to do some type of insemination process."
Lilith backs off slightly her expression turning somewhat sympathetic as she says, "It's been done. Certainly not outside the realm of possibility."
"But to be clear," I state firmly. "Once we get the child back, even if the paternity claim is false, I won't just leave her out in the wind. She'll be taken care of."
Lilith studies me for a few moments. I can tell from her expression she's still on the fence of whether she believes me or not. Then, she nods. Faces forward, puts the vehicle into gear. "We'll get her back. You just have to decide how you want to handle her."
"What are my options?" She looks at me sideways, her lip curling up slightly as she says, "Oh, those are endless, Conrad. Do your worst."
The obvious gleefulness in her response does not constitute a response on my part. So I remain silent, peering out into the darkness as we fly down the road. After a while she slows bearing left and makes a bunch of various turns until I have no idea where I am. When I glance around, I note that there's no GPS so I ask, "You know where you're going?"
"Of course," she responds. "I always know where I'm going."
I continued to stare at her silently until eventually she glances at me and says, "What?"
"And how is it you know where you're going without any type of map?"
"I studied the map on the way here. It's in my head."
"Oh, you're one of those," I respond. "Good to know."
She smiles at me brightly and the sudden change in her demeanor throws me off. Still smiling, she goes back to watching the road following whatever intricate maze she has in her head.
The early morning light reveals we’re in some type of housing development. Large homes, all cookie cutters of each other, surround us, in various levels of construction.
Eventually, Lilith pulls up behind an SUV similar to the one we're in. The driver's side door opens and a man gets out. He walks directly back to Lilith's side where she already has the window down.
The man hands her a key ring with several keys on it and a clipboard with a pen attached. She hands the keys to me then takes the clipboard, signing some papers in several places before handing it back. The man hasn't said a word. He takes the clipboard with a nod and then quickly returns to his vehicle and is gone in a flash.
Lilith pulls away from the curb and I sit there with the keys in my hand, thoroughly confused. "What just happened?"
Again, she turns a bright smile on me as she replies, "I just bought a house."
Now as a man of means I've done some pretty crazy shit in my day, but purchasing a home in the wee hours of the morning in another country is not one of them. "And how'd you do that?"
She laughs loudly. "Money."
I blank at her several times before muttering, "That's fair."
And she's not wrong. The root of true evil is money.
“Won’t it look suspicious that a home was purchased directly before a home was broken into in the same neighborhood?"
She rolls her eyes at me. "As if I'm that stupid."
