Chapter 36 A Lucky Break
A LUCKY brEAK
TWENTY-ISH YEARS AGO…
CONRAD
“I found her.” At the sound of Mickey’s voice, I’m instantly awake.
Sitting up, I reach for the light. “Where?”
“Up north,” he replies.
“Are you there?”
“No, you know how I always put feelers out to all my guys, just in case they hear or see something,” He states, not waiting for me to respond, he goes on, “A couple of my guys followed a lead on something unrelated and got a lucky hit.”
"Did they get her out?"
"Not yet. There was a lot of activity and they were worried they'd be in the wind before they could secure her. So they backed off and reported to me for further instructions."
I switched my phone to speaker, already out of bed and in the middle of dressing. "How long before you can get a team together?"
"Well, that depends on how you want to do this."
He doesn't have to explain what he means.
When it comes to extracting a victim from a dangerous situation you can do it the easy way or the hard way.
Typically, the hard way is the legal way, but that requires having to go through official channels, provide evidence and enough reasonable doubt that someone will actually go in there and do something.
"We'll do this easy to start. We can get legal involved after the fact. Whatever gets her out of there the fastest.”
"My man reports getting access won't be easy. How likely is it that someone will do something irrational if we force our way in?"
"It's a certainty," I respond, knowing exactly the lengths my ex-wife would go to not have her scheming disrupted. "Keep eyes on the place. If anyone tries to leave with anything at all, follow them and when a reasonable distance away, search them."
I shove my feet into some shoes, snatch my keys off my dresser, head down the hallway to the door. Then Mickey asks, "Do you even have any proof she's your daughter?"
“Paternity hasn’t been confirmed, but there’s not a chance in hell I'm leaving a kid with that fucking psycho."
"And if it comes back that she's not biologically yours?"
This is a question I've asked myself countless times over the last few years. As soon as I found out about her existence, I immediately started throwing money at trying to locate her. Even as I told myself that it was impossible I was the child’s father, there's always this lingering voice in the back of my head telling me that when someone is desperate, anything is possible.
"Regardless of the results, she'll live a good life. But first we have to save her."
Mickey is quiet for a moment and then he says, "I have the perfect person in mind. Someone with personal experience in being coerced and extorted. She'll take the job personally."
"She?" I ask, a bit surprised.
Mickey chuckles then responds, "You'll see. What are you going to do?"
"Send me the location, I'll meet you there."
He doesn't say anything, and when I look at my phone, I see the call is already gone.
I shove it in my pocket of my jacket as I rush out into my garage hitting the bay door on my way to my car.
I drive out into the driveway, pausing to watch the door close, ensuring that the place is secure before taking off in the direction of the airport.
A few hours later I'm landing in a remote airport in Northern Canada.
I was slightly surprised at the location, but it made even more sense on why she'd been so difficult to locate.
Apparently, my ex-wife has a long list of low-life associates to go with her low-life behavior.
The fact I was so blind to her deceptions is appalling to me.
And honestly, I can't decide if I'd rather see her in jail or dead.
A car is waiting for me on the tarmac. The plane taxis close and then stops and I'm waiting in the doorway ready to deplane as soon as the stairs are down.
Just as I reach the bottom of the stairs, the driver's side door of the SUV pops open and I do a double take when instead of a burly, rough-looking man steps out, a rather petite blonde woman appears.
She leaves the door open, walks toward me, extends her hand as she says, "Mr. Logan. It's good to meet you."
Tentatively, I grip her hand. She smiles slightly, firming her grip until I take her hand with a little more seriousness. I give it a good shake and state, “Please call me Conrad, Ms…”
“Ferro,” she responds, a glint in her bright blue eyes. “Lilith Ferro.”
My eyes widen and I incline my head in acknowledgement of the name.
Anyone who has ever dipped a toe onto the darker side knows the Ferros.
I've always been one to live on the straight and narrow, but in the last few years I've had to do more than dip my toes, so I’ve heard more than my fair share of stories about the family, and especially the eldest daughter.
Not just her current hard as nails reputation either, but also the life she lived to get where she is.
And I fully understand why Mickey sent her.
She motions toward the vehicle and I follow her. She gets in the driver's side and I climb in next to her. She whips it around exiting the airport as she asks, "Can you give me some backstory?"
I sigh heavily and then say, "Where would you like me to start?
"The beginning, but you can just give me the cliff notes."
"Well, about 15 years ago I accidentally married a deeply disturbed conniving and manipulative psycho.”
Lilith laughs and says, "You'd be surprised by how many stories begin like that."
I look over at her. "Really?"
"Oh yeah," she says giving me a quick look as she adds, "Though typically it comes from women."
"That makes sense."
"Is she the girl's mother?"
I bark out a bitter laugh as I respond, "Actually no. Miranda is the mastermind, but she’s not the mother.”
Lilith frowns. "Then who is?"
"Her daughter, Amber.”
Lilith jacks the breaks, comes to a screeching halt in the middle of the road. She throws the vehicle into park, turns toward me, her expression grim, her stare deadly. "You're going to want to explain yourself."
I put both my hands up in front of me defensively as I say, “I never fucking touched her, I swear."
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."