Chapter 109 - Suspicions

Even though the man had seemed harmless enough, with the state of mind Lena was in, she asked Romeo over text to get him tailed. Her instinct told her there was something odd about him and she wanted to know what it was. 

It wasn't all that unusual for a person to lose personal belongs in this kind of place, it happened to hundreds of people over a week, but what bothered the princess was it seemed that the man was doing more than just trying to return the wallet, his eyes looked like he was trying to assess Samuel and the other people around him. At least with Samuel and her brother being there, she could enjoy her shaved ice without worrying about anyone missing. Especially since it seemed as though Samuel was a bit distracted after interacting with the stranger. 

"How kind of him to return your wallet." Leo commented as he began to slowly eat his own shaved ice, he want for a mango flavor as he quite enjoyed the tropical taste. 

"Do you keep anything important in there that would be hard to replace?" He asked while watching the other riffle through his wallet to check that everything was there. 

"Not really, I don't tend to keep anything beyond my credit card and typical identification information in here." He replied. Nothing looked from first glance though like it had been moved around or that anything was missing. Not even the twenty he kept in the zipper part for when he needed cash. 

"I guess I was really fortunate that he found it before someone else did. Nothing seems to be missing." He commented as he finished checking through everything. Although he did think that he used to keep a photo of him with the rest of his family in there. Very old-school but it was one that they had taken a while back during Christmas. 

His family had actually taken a number of them when they had a holiday booth setup for Christmas. The company Holiday Cheer that had set it up was offering free photos for families who wanted to have their pictures taken. His mother insisted as she believed that they never could enough pictures of the whole family together. His mother kept most of them, but he used to carry one he particularly liked in his wallet high-school that way he would automatically have a picture of his family with him when he had to leave. Since he had gotten a new wallet for his birthday it was possible that he left it back at his parent's house, but somehow he didn't think he would've made such a mistake. 

"I would suggest getting a wallet chain so something that like doesn't happen again." Lena suggested, finishing her first shaved ice to move onto the second one that she knew would be her favorite, it was mixed berry flavor. 

"Yeah, though I've never really been one to lose my wallet easily." Samuel replied, putting his wallet to the side so that he could start on his shaved ice before it melted too much. He had gone with Blue raspberry as he felt that it was one of the few reliable flavors no what form it came in. 

"Expect it to happen more as you start taking on more work. You'll find that eventually you will be so busy that everything you do will be on autopilot and when you leave you'll come to realize you won't be able to remember what you did or didn't do in the morning before you left." Leo warned. It had happened to him a number of times when in the UK and got busy between classes and work. 

"Isn't that what phone timers are for?" Samuel asked glancing between the two siblings who didn't seem to know what he was talking about. 

"I always used one back when I was in high school and I had a lot of things that I needed to get done at once. I would set a phone timer to go off right before I would leave to school that would have a list of things I needed to remember to bring with me so that I never forgot anything important before I left." 

"Such a dedicated organized human, I'm sure your parents must've been proud of that." He knew that what the younger brother said was a complisult perhaps because he was least organized in his family.  He decided to answer him anyways. 

"For the most part they were. Though there were times they felt that it was a bit too much when it came to family and events and such when I wanted to make sure that absolutely everything was in order before we left for family events." 

"Sounds like uncle." The siblings said at almost the same time causing them to exchange looks.

"Julian you mean?" Samuel clarified uncertain if Julian was the only uncle.

"Yep. Father was the slightly more relaxed of the two of them when we wanted to go on a trip anywhere. Uncle Julian however would always want to make sure that everything was double checked three times over and that there was nothing important anyone was missing or needed to be taken care of ahead of time." Leo explained

"It used to drive us crazy when we were younger and wanted to already have left to go to wherever it was that we were headed, but he would insist that there was no such thing as being overly careful or responsible and taking the extra time to do so beforehand would make everything all that much more fun." The princess added on. She knew that her father used to get annoyed by it was well, but he would humor his younger brother and go over everything with him to reassure him that there was nothing to worry about. Plus it wasn't like they didn't have reliable men who couldn't keep things running for them if they left for a few days to do family things. 

"None of the rest of my family is like that. I am kind of the odd one out with them." Samuel said with a shrug. He would keep doing it though if he started working more consistently with Lena and got the chance to add college into the mix, he would need something to help keep him on track with everything so that he wouldn't get lost.

"It's not always a bad thing to be the odd one out, little chickadee." The princess told him, patting him on the head as she stood up. Now that everyone seemed to be doing eating her shaved ice, she wanted to leave. 

IT was only early afternoon on a Sunday, but she had enough of being around people and had other things that she needed to get done before Monday. Plus after that little nightmare she had when she dozed off, she was on too high alert to enjoy the waterpark anymore and would rather be home where she knew there would be less to worry about. 

Leo was rather disappointed that the day was being cut short in his opinion, but he didn't argue since he could the kind of mood that his sister was in. Plus, there would still be a few weeks left before he would be returning to the UK. This meant that even if Lena refused to come back to such a place with him a second time that there still might be a chance to persuade Samuel to join him to make it more fun. He might even consider asking if his nieces wanted to come and Julian would allow it. 

Romeo was also rather happy to leave as well. He had the same feeling that the princess did that there was something more to the stranger who had approached her fiancé about his missing wallet. He had seen the other's lips move when he turned to walk away but couldn't quite catch what he had said. He would brief Lena on this after they got home. 

Luckily the ride back wasn't as much of quiet one for Samuel as it had been when he had gone out with Zane and the princess to get the rings looked at. Leo was rather good at keeping a conversation going even if the princess wasn't interested in joining in except to say a few words here and there. 

Her mind was too focused on other things to really want to talk plus her headache was starting to come back and while she didn't want to think she was paranoid, she felt like the car that was behind which she could see through the rearview mirror had been following them a bit too long for it to be a coincidence. 

Although it looked to be too plain for a vehicle that was usually used when someone wanted to investigate or tail another vehicle, she didn't trust anything at this point nor would she take it at face value until after the engagement party went smoothly and everything leading up to it went without a hitch. After that maybe she could relax.