Page 52 of The Christmas Eve Delivery

“Oh, man, he did. That was a wild ride. Some chick he hooked up with found out what his bank balance was, turned around, and showed up on his doorstep, claiming she was pregnant and that he was the baby daddy. So he took her in, and thinking since she was already pregnant, she couldn’t get pregnant again, he went and did the deed unprotected. That’s when she really got pregnant.”

“How would he know that? How did he find out?”

“Cheaters and liars always get caught in the end,” Diego said. “He said it was during some deposition or something over custody. He wanted a paternity test. She didn’t. He told her he wanted assurances that the child was his, and how would he know that she was telling the truth? And she made some offhand comment about when she actually got pregnant. He figured it out.”

“What did he end up doing?”

He ran his hand through his hair and sat in one of the low chairs in the conversation area of my office.

“Bro moved her into an apartment, said he would only take care of her until the baby was born and the paternity test proved he was or wasn’t the father. After that, if the kid was his, he’d sue her for full custody and she wouldn’t get a penny of hismoney. He set it all up through a lawyer, since it was a form of entrapment. Baby trap. She thought he was going to do right by her and marry her and give her a life of luxury. And instead, what did he do? He sued her for custody.”

“He’s got full custody, right? What happened to the mother?” I asked.

Diego shrugged. “Since he’s the full custodial parent, he doesn’t have to pay her a dime of child support.”

“Her plan didn’t quite go the way she thought it was going to,” I said.

“Hell no, it gets worse. She’s had a string of kids. Every single one of them’s got a different baby daddy. Pretty sure she’s pulled the same trick that she did on my brother on every single last one of them. The last guy married her. Every now and then, she hits my brother up for money. He sends her on her way. And she never sees her own kid. It’s kind of fucked up, if you ask me.”

“How did he get that paternity test?” I asked.

“Why? Did you get yourself into a little situation there, bud?” Diego asked.

“No, but if I were to, I guess I would need to figure out what my resources were.”

“Yeah, sure,” Diego said under his breath. He obviously didn’t believe me.

I still wasn’t going to admit I was in a situation to him.

“Unfortunately, you can’t do a DNA test on the baby until it’s born, in which case you do cheek swabs. If you need it through an authenticating agency for litigation purposes, it’s morecomplicated. There’s a chain of custody of samples, and it’s not a cheap process. But if you’re idly curious, you can buy paternity tests at the drugstore.”

“And you know that how?” I asked.

“Cause I see them when I’m buying stuff at the drugstore. But you probably don’t do your own shopping, so you wouldn’t know that.”

“Interesting,” I said. “You’re right, I don’t do my own shopping.”

“Look, since you’ve been gone, Harris and I have been looking at some other real estate options. We know you’ve got your heart set on Brookdale for some reason, but we’re not seeing the numbers coming in the way we need to.”

“Harris hasn’t seduced his grandmotherly lady in the county records office?”

Diego laughed. “He’s not about to either. If you’ve been up there, then you know that their Historical Society has been making some really serious claims. Which means, if they get some of those properties declared onto a national registry, then there’s no way we can go in and tear them down. It’s an uphill battle that I’m pretty sure we’ve already lost.”

“You’re giving up too easily,” I said.

“Giving up too easily, or making the smart financial decision? Our investors are relying on us to put money in their pockets.”

“Don’t lecture me on what our investors are expecting,” I said. “I’m well aware that they give us their money expecting us to make them more.”

“Then maybe you need to take another hard look at the quarterly statements, because the longer we wait on Brookdale, the more money we lose.”

“Fine. If you really think Brookdale isn’t worth the effort, where else? What are your ideas?” I asked.

I personally wasn’t ready to let go of Brookdale, but maybe my involvement with Lydia was clouding proper judgment. I knew this whole father business was muddling my head.

“There are other little towns right in the same area, and some of these so-called towns are barely more than a crossroads with a post office. So, buying up the land shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“We want there to be more than just a crossroads and a post office,” I said. “We want there to be a reason for them to go to that location.”

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