Daring Dylan (The Billionaire Brotherhood Book 2) by Jacie Floyd Page A

as soothing and
relaxing as the cat. Dylan wondered if anyone else found his brevity as
annoying as he did.
    “Do you
know who Clayton’s father is?” he asked, weary of the game.
    David’s
hand smoothed rhythmically along the cat’s spine. “No.”
    Dylan ground
his teeth in frustration. “Would you tell me if you did?”
    The doctor
gave Dylan a long, undecipherable look. “If it would help Clay.”
    Tired of
bashing his head against this brick wall, Dylan decided to take one more shot
before leaving. “Do you know anything that would help?”
    David
closed his eyes and nodded. “I know that Lana’s house was paid for.”
    Dylan’s
eyebrows shot upward. “What?”
    “After she
disappeared, I found the deed in her name, along with a letter from a
Connecticut law firm. She didn’t make enough at the beauty shop to pay off a
house.”
    “Do you
remember the name of the firm?” Dylan prodded.
    “Latham,
Benning, and Brown.”
    Bile rose
up from Dylan’s stomach, but he squelched it. Dwight Latham had been his
father’s personal lawyer. Not that that fact alone meant anything. He’d
probably had thousands of clients. Still, Dylan couldn’t deny the connection.
    “I’ll look
into it,” he said, standing. “Thank you for seeing me.”
    Dismissing
him without a glance, David scooped up the cat and placed it in his lap. He
lifted the animal’s injured paw and began unwrapping the gauze.
    Before
stepping out the door, Dylan turned back in a move that was probably more like
Inspector Clouseau than Poirot, but still. “One more question. I understand you
were the one to find my father’s body after his death. What can you tell me
about that?”
    The cat
yelped suddenly and dove to the floor. David’s jaw clenched. “Nothing that
wasn’t in the report I gave to the police.”
    “I’d like
to hear the details from you.”
    “I doubt I
remember anything new after all this time.”
    Dylan
persisted. “Is it true that you and my father were friends?”
    “Acquaintances.”
    “You were
the company doctor for Old Maine Furniture.”
    David
pursed his lips. “Yes.”
    “What were
you doing—”
    “Excuse me,
Doctor,” said a voice from behind Dylan. “The mayor’s here.”

    A trip to
the county court-house fifty miles away revealed that Lana Harris’s Cordial
Street property was paid for the year Clayton was born.
    Dylan
pondered the significance of that fact while tracing the whereabouts of Horace
Whitherspoon, the previous owner of the house. Unfortunately, Horace had died
ten years after the sale.
    A call to
Latham, Benning, and Brown revealed Dwight Latham had passed away over a year
ago. Latham’s son assured him the firm would cooperate as much as they could
within the confines of attorney-client privilege. Meaning they wouldn’t
cooperate at all. He called Uncle Arthur to see if he could smooth the way, but
the senator was in a meeting.
    Dylan’s
next hope hinged on the realtor having some recollection of the transaction,
but he struck out there, too. The realtor had retired to Phoenix three summers
ago.
    Even though
Dylan had expected discrediting Clayton to be a no-brainer, the idea of sending
for the detective his mother had hired was starting to take on new appeal.
    On a
separate and more aggravating issue, no one in East Langden was available to help
Dylan with the renovation of his cabin. They all claimed to be booked up with
the Spring Blossom Festival, an event that obviously required extensive
carpentry and full-scale participation of the local citizenry.
    Dylan
reconsidered Uncle Arthur’s offer to send laborers up from Connecticut
immediately, but rejected it. If the locals decided to cooperate, they’d be an
invaluable source of information. He didn’t want to risk pissing them off by
hiring outsiders.
    For the
second day in a row, Dylan drove back to Liberty House in defeat. After parking
his rental car beside the garage, he went around back to see if Gracie was
still