Page 101 of Her Brother's Billionaire Best Friend

“No,” I said. “Jeez, this is hopeless. You’d think in a little town like this.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be found,” said David.

“Will you stop saying things like that?” I said quickly. “How can you say a thing like that, David?”

“I’m just telling you the truth,” said David, and floored the accelerator. Now we were speeding over the flatlands by the lake.

“The depot,” I said. “Come on. We can make it there. He might be trying to get a train?”

“How do you figure that?” said David.

I sighed. “It’s what I did,” I told him, and David looked away quietly. The noise in the car faded to nothing as we sped through the darkness, trying desperately to think of where Kyle might be.

Then, my phone rang. Excitedly, I looked at it, thinking Jack or one of the ten or twelve other people I’d already bothered this evening might have called me. But the name on the screen said Lucien.

“Who is it?” said David.

“No one,” I replied.

But a feeling of dread hung over me. Conor would know how to find Kyle. He’d done it before. And he had his helicopter. With him onboard, we could scour the whole valley. As we rounded the corner of the lake, I looked out of the window.

And that was when I saw it.

At first a whirling, deafening noise made us jump. It was the chopper, as it wooshed over our heads and curled up as it did. Immediately the car ground to a halt.

“What the—” said David.

“Drive,” I said quickly. “Drive!” For a moment, I guessed it was Conor, come to send us to jail for trespassing. We’d never find Kyle. And he’d always be able to find us. But it was already too late. Descending a few hundred meters off to the right, the ‘copter’s blades drove the grass down with blasts of air as it landed.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said David.

I watched, astonished as a familiar, broad-shouldered figure leaped from the helicopter and ran across the grass to us. David revved the engine, but I put a hand out and stopped him.

“Laura!” called Lucien—Conor—whatever it was I could call him, this ghostly man in his dark coat who stood in the blazing headlights of the roaring chopper. He vaulted the fence on the other side of the road and ran to the car. “I know where Kyle is!” he said.

“What?” I said. I opened the car.

“I said,” bellowed Conor, “I know where Kyle is!”

“You know he’s missing?”

“The Sherriff just called me,” yelled Conor. “I know where he is, Laura.”

“What is it with you, man?” said David. “Don’t you get a hint.”

“Laura,” said Conor. “Hear me out. Kyle. He wrote me a letter.”

“My son wrote you a letter.”

“For the library, Laura,” explained Conor. His eyes were wild and he was panting, and I could see that he was nervous. “It’s—” he fumbled in his pocket.

“All right,” said David, slamming his door shut. “I’ve had just about enough of this.”

“DAVID!” said Conor. “Kyle’s my son.”

He looked at me, and suddenly I felt as if the world was opening up to swallow me whole.

“He is, isn’t he, Laura?”