Rylee didn’t bother knocking. She’d been through enough, fighting her way through the glass and steel factory, to bother with etiquette. She didn’t care if Jon Saleson was in the middle of a conversation with the Queen of England – she was going to talk to this man now.
The fellow bolted upright in his chair, placed directly behind the middle of his desk. He wore a pair of fancy spectacles and had an obnoxiously waxed moustache. “Who are you?” he asked, wide-eyed. “What do you want?”
She stalked over, slamming both fists on his ebony desk. “Tell me everything you know about the Francis couple and their estate in the hills!”
Terror shifted away from the man’s expression, his dull eyes suddenly filled with glee. He let out a ground-shaking roar of laughter. “Oh, you’re here because of Henry Francis? He finally found the mystic energy in himself to lead someone on that wild goose chase? Well, you’ve found the goose. I’m the end of the line.”
Rylee narrowed her eyes. “Fine by me. I didn’t climb over one of the best glass balustrades Melbourne has ever seen for nothing, though. I want answers. I know the Conclave of Mechanists attacked Francis when he refused to join them. What do you have to do with this?”
Jon Saleson leaned back. “Well, I didn’t always associate with steel manufacturers and professional glaziers. Melbourne was a different place back then. I did my time with the Mechanists, and I was there that day. We sacked the place for fun, and it has belonged to the Conclave ever since.”
It… belonged to the Conclave? That didn’t make sense. That didn’t make sense at all. The house had belonged to Cole’s grandparents, hadn’t it? This just didn’t add up.
“No, you’re lying,” Rylee said, staggering back. “You have to be lying. That house belonged to my boyfriend’s family.”
Jon Saleson laughed again, even harder this time. “Believe that, do you? That’s precious. Love does have a tendency to make one blind, I suppose.