The Boss's Son | ✅

15

That Adrian later that day asked me to join him at Professor Miles' the next evening – at that point I had realized that Friday was the next day, what totally had gone over my head in my morning conversation with Mike and made for a very short preparation time for Mike and my 'date' - did not come as a total surprise. After all, Professor Miles had said that she would invite Adrian, after Mike had turned her down. Adrian wanted to share our good news with her in my presence. I found it curious that he would chose Professor Miles first. But I understood the general urge, not least because my friends already found out about our pre-engagement engagement.

What surprised me however, was the vehemence with which Adrian made his case, after I told him that I already had plans with Mike, that would under no circumstances include him. Mike, so I stated, deserved my undivided attention with all that was going on. Adrian was one of only five people now who actually knew of Henry, had been one of the first to learn of the situation, and had seen how Mike suffered. And that should have been the end of it.

It wasn't. Instead, it was almost as if Adrian tried to dissuade me from my real plans with Mike, which I hadn't told him about. That infringed upon our compromise, I knew. I had promised to tell him what I was up to, while he had promised in return to let me do it. I justified my silence on this matter with the fact that we hadn't told Stan or Liza either, who, while unexpressed, expected the same arrangement. It was really a safety measure. By not disclosing our plans, if things would go wrong at the secret auction, no one but Mike and I would be drawn in. The others could claim rightfully ignorance.

Crouching behind some bushes on Friday in the afternoon made me wish, I had left Mike behind as well. I had used the short time between Mike giving me the location on Thursday morning and getting an early start on Friday to beat everyone there, to collect what information I could about the venue. I had studied what satellite images where available on Google maps and even had dug up footprints of the country estate from the city archive while compassing Liza. She would be so mad, if she knew that I had messed around in her realm. Well, it wasn't the first and wouldn't be the last time.

Now I looked at the place through binoculars. As I had assumed after my studies, it didn't deserve a grand term like estate. Once it had been one of the larger of its kind in the area. Little was left of its former glory though. Crumbling was too little a word to describe what state the estate was in.

The windows of the main house lacked in their majority their glass. On ground floor level, someone had boarded them and the doors up, probably to discourage squatters or young folk, looking for a party location. It hadn't worked, as shattered bottles and discarded cans along with graffities gave witness. A particular joker had hung a roughed-up chair, whatever it crime had been. It dangled from what remained of the rain gutter. It again was filled with broken roof tiles that had slid from the skew-whiff roof over the years, leaving big holes in the roof covering and some beans exposed to the elements. At one point a cheeky tree had started to grow from one of the holes. It reminded me of Baby-Groot. So I named the place in my mind Groot's estate.

The outbuildings of Groot's estate, hidden from sight by the main building of those who approached from the private road, were a different matter. Their former use for agriculture and as stables was still discernable from the outside. Whatever repairs had been done, had been done in such a manner that they wouldn't catch the eye on first inspection. They too were to look on the surface like they stood in disrepair, and in the midst of carefully placed trash and scrap metal.

The fact that they all still stood, with roofs on top and working doors gave me pause though, as I checked them out. What had Groot done to them? When looking closely, I could detect motion detectors, spotlights, cameras – the whole range of security devices that granted a remote place, and things kept there, safety beyond just a carefully maintained wrecked appearance. It was something that would be unnecessary for a dwelling not even worth a wrecking ball anymore.