Page 6 of Catching a Con Man

“I…this could help so many people!”People like me,I thought perhaps a little selfishly. Not that I had any desire to help myself, but the people who’d grown up like me with nothing. And I didn’t trust billionaires like Addison Crane to get it right even if they tried.

“You know what, I was right yesterday. I didn’t want to know. So if you want to go on wasting your life with some silly plan to eat the rich, do your worst. But don’t expect me to be there to catch you when your whole plan comes crashing down around you.”

She stood up and left the kitchen with coffee in hand. The bacon looked less appealing to me now, so I swigged down my coffee and went back to my bedroom. I was pissed off, but Amanda was right. I’d gotten off on the thrill of the chase, the thought of breaking into such a big gala and scamming a rich old man out of his money. None of it was practical. And I’d be in jail before I could do anything with it. So why was I still hoping that Ade would reach out?

I had a couple of trophies on display; a Rolex I’d nabbed from the cloakroom of a club where the entry fee was higher than my monthly wage, a vinyl disc from a DJ who’d been bragging about his wealth to millions of followers. I’d had it rough, growing up, and hadn’t really ever made much of myself since. So I could justify a little theft from those who had too much. A modern day Robin Hood, maybe. Or maybe I just got off on besting people who thought that they were better than me. But Ade had made me uncomfortable the night before. For the first time, it felt like someone had X-Ray vision through my defences.

Was I in over my head? Was Amanda right? I didn’t want to consider the possibility. I always did what I felt was right. No matter the potential consequences for me.

I tidied up my room idly, throwing my clothes into the wash basket and then doing the same with my bedding before replacing it with the only other clean set of bedding I had. My jaunt to City Hall for the gala had only made me feel oddly…like I wasn’t enough. Like I could hate all those rich bastards and what they stood for, but still not live like a slob.

“Have you seen the hoover?” I called through Amanda’s door.

“Jesus Christ, you’ve never used that! It’s in the boiler cupboard,” she replied. I grabbed the hoover, some polish and pounced on every bit of dust in my room. When I was done and sweating, it looked half decent. No old cups or plates with crumbs on them, no bedding slipping onto the floor or clothes littering the place. I’d straightened up my stolen goods on their shelves and even given my laptop a polish. I couldn’t un-fray the carpet or kill off the most stubborn mould, but it was a start.

I’d been cleaning for an hour in my dressing gown, and when I sniffed under one arm, it was not good. I needed a shower, to refresh and regroup my thoughts. Perhaps Ade would never reach out to me, and I’d never have to make a decision.

Just as I started the shower and pulled off my dressing gown, my mobile buzzed in my pocket.

Unknown Number: Let’s talk charity, then.

Ade

Ihadn’t been able to get gorgeous Tyler-not-Quinn out of my head for a week, and I’d resisted every urge to text him after my curiosity had compelled me to send the first few texts to arrange a meeting. But first, I needed to talk to my father about what was going on. And potentially my brothers too, if they were around.

I preferred city living and had a large penthouse flat overlooking Cardiff Bay that had cost…well, pennies, in the grand scheme of things, given the estate I’d built around it for my staff. My father had always loved the country, and lived in an estate just to the east of Cardiff, an old manor that he’d bought when he made his first ten million. So long ago.

It was a half an hour drive, but my car made driving a pleasure. My father owned Crane Corp, one of the largest investment firms in the country, and had offered all his children positions so that we could ‘earn’ our place, but I’d asked him for a solid investment so that I could make my own way, as much as that were possible when you were the son of a billionaire. I had taken my father’s millions and turned them into billions that rivalled his wealth, and I was doing my best to revolutionise the transport world at my own company, Electro. The car I was driving was a prototype of my own design, completely electric and luxurious to a silly extent. But we all had our small pleasures.

Crane Manor, as my father had christened it, was large and imposing, but not to the scale of some of his other friends’ residences. He’d made sure there was space for all of us to grow up and enjoy life, but not so much that we lived like the Royal Family.

The real gem of the house was the land it sat on. The house sat on acres of fields and farmland, and my father employed farmers for herding sheep and tending to animals. He lost a lot of money on the farm, but it was one of his pleasures.

The big cast-iron gates opened as I approached, the cameras recognising my number plate. I drove the half mile up the tree-lined gravel drive to the old manor and parked my car outside. My mother was out of the front door before I’d even unbuckled my seatbelt, and as soon as I was out of the car she had enveloped me in a hug. “You don’t come home often enough, darling,” she said.

“It’s been two weeks, Mum.”

“Exactly. Do you want some coffee? Breakfast? I’ll have Katarina cook something up for us.” Mum didn’t let me answer, already dragging me by one hand into the house. My mum was like a faded old Hollywood glamour, always dressed to the nines and made up as soon as she woke. She’d been a glamour model when she met my father, and against all odds and expectations, they’d stayed the course even as they both got older and wrinklier.

“Katarina, can you get us the good coffee please? Not the Brazilian, the Guatemalan Fair Trade stuff. Thank you darling, that would be perfect,” mother was already talking as she walked us into the kitchen. Katarina was the housekeeper and had been since I was little, a Polish lady who took very little shit from any of us and kept us humble. She pulled me into a hug even tighter than my mother’s.

“You look far too skinny,” she said. “I feed you up.”

Seemingly without any consultation, both she and my mother had decided that the body I had spent years honing in the gym with expensive personal trainers and the best nutritionists wastoo skinny. Any objections I had died on my lips when Katarina pulled a full tray of croissants out of the oven. She placed them down on the granite island in front of us, slapping my hand away when I greedily reached for one just as she had done when I was little.

“Wait for them to cool,” she said.

I waited patiently as she loaded up the coffee grinder and made us each an espresso. When she was done, she used a spatula to transfer all the croissants onto a plate and slid it across the island with a wink. “Now you may eat.”

“Thank you, Katarina.”

“Now, half a day off. I’ll go shopping,” she said, seemingly to herself.

“Take Addison Senior’s credit card!” my mother shouted after her as she left the kitchen, but Katarina just waved her off.

I took a bite of croissant and looked between the two of them. Mother was not born to be a billionaire. She was far too happy letting other people spend her money. Most rich people I knew were more concerned with keeping hold of their personal wealth and hoarding it like dragons.

“You’re here to meet your father, I presume?” Mum asked me after a minute.

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