Page 80 of Her Brother's Billionaire Best Friend

Either way, it didn’t matter. Once I got to Freetown and looked through the records, I knew that I’d have some answers. They’d surely have some record of Conor’s dad passing away. Maybe I could find out who’d helped him sell his dad’s old house? If I found that out, Conor would probably have told the realtor where he was going.

There was one thing spoiling the journey, and that was the rain. In the distance, above the valley, I could see dark clouds gathering, which threatened to burst. Lucien kept his eyes focused on the weather as he drove.

“I don’t like the look of this weather,” he grunted. “You sure about not getting that umbrella?”

“I’m sure,” I said.

Inside the car, I was warm and safe, and even as the rain began to pelt harder and the roads slowly started to glisten, I felt good.

“Maybe there’s another route we can go,” I said. “It gets pretty rough down at that end of the road.”

“I know that,” said Lucien.

“You come up here a lot?”

“Not really,” he said. “Tell you the truth, I only go to Freetown out of courtesy to friends.”

“Friends?” I frowned.

“Freetown has an airfield,” Lucien explained.

“So do we.”

“But Freetown’s one is FAA-charter only,” said Lucien. “Most of the time when friends fly in, they come to Freetown, so I usually pick them up from there. A lot of pilots won’t fly into Caluga Falls.”

“Why’s that?”

“The weather,” said Lucien. “It can be too unpredictable.” He gently slowed his pace as we turned left at the fork in the right. Right led across the valley, and over the old bridge above the fast-flowing river.

“You sure you want to do this?” said Lucien, after we’d ridden in silence for a while.

“I am,” I said. “It’ll help me feel better about the whole thing anyway.”

“Does David…I mean, does your brother know where you’re going?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. I didn’t want to hint at David’s involvement in all of this. If Lucien knew about the scheme we’d pulled last week at his house then I knew he’d be angry. But if he found out that David was planning to break into his house tonight…

“Did you lock the house before we left?”

“Yes, why?” frowned Lucien.

I nodded. “Sometimes I worry,” I said. “A lot more people know who you are now. And it would be easy for someone to break in.”

“I didn’t want to be the kind of guy who puts barbed wire on his fences when he moves into a neighborhood,” said Lucien. “But I get your point. Luckily there’s a CCTV system there. It registers movement when the house is locked.”

I froze, and my shoulders stiffened. CCTV? I had to warn David.

“Does it go off when people try to break in?” I asked casually.

“No,” he said, chuckling. “Besides. Anything valuable, I keep in the safe. The rest is just my private things. Besides, who’s going to rob me out here? The population’s like 5000. Anyone would know. You know, your brother asked me about the system the other day.”

“Oh,” I said, casually, trying to make out like it was news to me. “Did he?”

“Yes he did. You two aren’t trying to rob all my jewels, are you?”

“F-fat chance,” I stuttered. “Like we’d find any in there anyway.”

“I could get jewels if I wanted to,” joked Lucien.