Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Arseholes who exploited the emotional pain of others, that was who.
Either way, I knew the number one rule of grief: don’t make any big decisions for at least six months.
Okay, so I wasn’t exactly following that rule by uprooting my entire life to Fox Point, but that wasn’t really under my control. It was one of those things that just made sense, and I knew the housing market was insane and moved quickly, so it wasn’t like I’d have time to stay in my parents’ place once they listed it, either.
And, sure, okay, fine.
I’d never really lived without them, either, and I didn’t want to. Losing Grandpa had reminded me that we didn’t have as much time as we thought we did, and I wanted to spend mine close to my parents.
Besides, I wasn’t even sure I liked living in a city. Even if I couldn’t settle here, I could at least get the B&B up and running, and if I couldn’t run it, then that was okay, too.
Like Ash had said last night—it was a house, if nothing else.
It was a dry roof.
Or… you know. It would be.
I hoped that it already was, and there’d been no sign of water damage inside that I could see, but I was preparing myself for the worst.
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Something like that.
My first mission today was to go over there, load any footage onto the app, and make sure nobody had stopped by to cause trouble. And by nobody, I meant Declan Tierney.
I didn’t trust him.
My unsettled feeling at the bar had been correct, because I’d done a bit of research on his company when I’d finally gotten home last night. Mum and Dad had both already been asleep, and I’d nestled on the sofa with my laptop to look into him.
I knew a little, of course, but it was mostly what I’d read from news articles about people complaining about their new build houses from his company having no end of issues. Leaking windows, bad pipes, one person even had their house sinking into the ground because he’d built on an old flood plain and not fully prepared the land. I’d really paid attention to those articles and discovered that he was a truly horrid man, only caring about his bottom line, and was in several legal battles with buyers of his houses all across England.
One conveyancing company was even attempting to sue him.
So, no. I would not be selling to that scoundrel, thank you very much.
I pulled up outside the bed and breakfast and sighed. It looked the same as it had yesterday, which meant two things. Declan Tierney hadn’t been there, and I still did not have a fairy godmother who was willing to come and turn my dilapidated inheritance into a castle overnight.
Pity.
That would have made my life much easier.
With a yawn that made my eyes water, I walked over to the fence I’d attached the camera to so the connection would be in range and opened the app. Nothing downloaded, so I reset the app to see if it was just a dodgy connection, but nope.
Nothing.
I stared at the camera.
Shit.
It was a Wi-Fi camera.
Wi-Fi.
I was a major idiot. There was no internet connection here, so the camera wouldn’t be able to download anything to my phone, would it?
I picked up the camera and got back in my car to take it home. I knew it was connected to the Wi-Fi there, so I made the sluggish trek through the tourist traffic along the promenade. I’d deliberately left when I had to avoid the mass of tourists coming into Fox Point for the May half-term holiday, but evidently, I’d found myself caught in it all the same.
I blamed the weather.
The beach wasn’t as fun if it was raining.
But no. It was hot, sunny, and perfect for anyone who wanted to shove their kids off to the side while they took selfies for their Instagram and attempted to make scenic videos for TikTok.
That was a slightly bitchy of me, but oh, well. It’s not like I said it out loud.
If I said it in my head, did I really say it at all?
I finally made it to the other end of the promenade and turned off, detouring down to Fox Point Secondary School, then taking a right there to drive back up the cliffs to the area where most of the residential estates were in town.
It didn’t take too long to get back to the house, and Dad was cutting back the hedges along the driveway when I pulled up. He turned off the hedge trimmer and looked over at me when I got out.
“Where’ve you been?”
“I ran to the B&B to check the camera,” I said, showing him the little box that was the camera. “Did you check those before you started hacking at them?”