Page 9 of The Hampton Beach Café 6
Frances sighed in frustration. “Fine, then can you tell me who you have on record as the verified owner? Because I bet I can guess, and he's not the owner—he's a thief and a liar.”
“I'm sorry, ma'am, but we cannot disclose that information due to our privacy policy,” the agent replied, sounding apologetic. “If you believe that you know the person who is listed as the verified owner, may I suggest you speak with them directly, as I cannot assist you further.”
Frances gritted her teeth. She hated feeling like she was hitting a dead end.
“Can you at least tell me if he posted the listing on your website?”
“I'm sorry, ma'am, but we cannot disclose that information either,” the agent said, her tone becoming more defensive. “We have a privacy policy in place to protect our clients, their property, and their identity. It's the law.”
Frances could feel her patience wearing thin. She needed to prove to this woman that she was the owner and she deserved answers.
“Look, yes, I get it. I just feel like you should know that the listing is fraudulent. The listing is using old pictures of the café from before I renovated it. I can even send you pictures of the place right now to show you! Not to mention that the price is far lower than what I paid at auction—auction results are public record. You can look for yourself and see that I bought it for more than you've listed it for! Come on, this is obviously part of a scam, and I need to know who is behind it so I can protect my property.”
“I understand your concern, ma'am, but I'm afraid I cannot provide you with that information. Is there anything else I can help you with today?” the agent asked, her tone cold and deliberately polite.
Hearing that tone, Frances knew she had messed that up. She had reacted in anger instead of thinking it through and approaching it calmly like she normally would have.
It seemed like Lucinda knew that too—she was looking over at Frances with a mild but confused expression, one eyebrow higher than the other.
“No, that's fine, just…I'm sorry to have bothered you.”
As she hung up the call, Frances rubbed her temple with her free hand.
“That was...” Lucinda started to say, but Frances cut her off.
“Poorly thought out? Abrupt? Stupid? Yeah, I know.”
“I wouldn't say stupid, but the other two? Sure.”
Gently, she pushed Lucinda's phone across the table toward her friend.
“I don't even want to look at them anymore,” Frances said. “I'm just, so not myself right now…Malcolm being in town has really thrown me. Plus, I haven't spoken to Alex since…well, since the day Malcolm showed up and exploded my life.”
She and Lucinda had barely talked about it. Sure they had talked around it, but it wasn't like they had gotten into the details like Frances knew that they needed to.
SIX
Frances sat at her computer, seething but determined to get to the bottom of the scam real estate listings that had been made on behalf of her café.
She knew that Clarkson was behind it, but she needed concrete evidence to prove it. And considering how dense Clarkson had been about certain things, Frances was pretty sure she couldn’t brute force her way into this account—she wasn't a hacker, after all.
She had started by trying to guess the password to the account that Clarkson had set up on the real estate website the day before after they had discovered it. She tried a few common passwords and then took a break to not trigger the account locking protection she was sure must be in place.
Frances was supposed to be on break, but how was she supposed to sit back and relax with all this nonsense ruining her life?
Clarkson was self-centered and arrogant, and careless too. After all, when she and Alex had broken into his house, they'd found plenty of incriminating evidence just laying around in his office. It worried Frances that no one had heard from Clarkson in a few weeks—was he out burning all the evidence? Had he skipped town? Or was The Property King so oblivious that he was just laying low and hoping for it all to go away?
The Property King…Frances paused. No that would be too easy—and too juvenile, surely?
The property ID was in the first box, but the flashing cursor in the password box was taunting her.
'PropertyKing'
Incorrect Password.
She opened the page in a new window to make a new account. The details auto filled, but the password box remained empty. The requirements glowed in red text next to it.
Nine or more characters, one number, and one special character.
