Free The Tell-Tale Con by Aimee Gilchrist

had been killed.  I pushed the papers back into order and noticed that the computer was on and the massive Mac screen, like the size of me, was actually on, but asleep.  Nate’s family wasn’t home.  If anyone had been on here it would have been Nate before he was killed. 
    I accidentally bumped the mouse with the end of my pen and waited impatiently for the screen to wake up.  The police were going to find their job too easy this time, I suspected.  The page that came up was a calendar, no doubt Nate’s since it couldn’t reasonably be anyone else’s since no one else was in town.  There, filled in for this morning, right before we’d arrived, was an appointment.  Nate had done the police’s job for them.  All they had to do was figure out who C.A. was, and they were good. 
    Whoa.  Wait.  C.A.  I had seen that.  I pushed the papers aside again and found Nate’s bank info.  What if twelve thousand dollars from C.A. Harrison was actually twelve thousand dollars from C.A., for the purpose of demon-hunting Harrison?  
    I took a deep breath, mentally added another tally mark to the list of reasons I’d someday be going to hell, and snatched Nate’s drivers license off the desk, shoving it deep in the pocket of my jeans. 
    When I came back out into the living room, the police were talking to Harrison's grandmother, who was weeping as she answered.  I heard her tell the male detective that she'd seen Nate just that morning. 
    "When was this?" the detective asked her.
    She sniffed.  "I don't know.  8:00 maybe?"
    He jotted that information down, and I made mental note of it.  If she'd been with him as late as 8:00, and we'd arrived two hours later, that didn't leave a big window of opportunity for whoever had killed him.  
    The detective finished with her, and I watched Harrison say goodbye to his grandparents.  I couldn’t hear what he was saying because he stood too far away and spoke only in whispers, but his expression and body language spoke of sympathy and kindness.  He was being a good grandson. 
    The female detective with the crazy hair pinned me, suddenly, with an icy glare.  She crossed the room to me.  “What did you say your relationship to the victim was, again?”
    I evaluated what take would work best with her.  The truth, most likely, since I hadn’t done anything wrong.  “I didn’t have one.  I’m Harrison’s friend.  Nate’s cousin, I mean.”  I indicated to Harrison where he still stood with his grandparents.
    â€œWe will be calling you to ask a few more questions.”  Her voice was hard and brooked no argument.  Which was why I was surprised when she asked, “Is that okay with you?”
    No.  It most certainly was not okay with me.
    I flashed her a benign smile.  “Of course.”
    Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything else.
    Harrison joined me.  “Are you ready?” he asked quietly.
    I glanced around the house looking for any more details we could take with us when we went.  There was nothing.  The house was an empty shell.  A glass windowed receptacle for this family’s loss.  Sighing, I said I was, and we went back outside into the bitter mountain autumn. 
    Harrison was utterly silent, and I didn’t feel comfortable bringing up the fact it was possible someone had paid his cousin to torture him, and also possible that person later killed his cousin.  Though I was going to have to address the plan I had brewing for tomorrow morning sometime today.  Tomorrow would be too late. 
    I chanced a glance in his direction, and looking at him made me feel guilty.  His hands clutched the wheel until his knuckles were white.  His jaw was so tight I was sure his teeth must be grinding. 
    Finally I couldn’t handle it anymore.  “I’m