Free The Tell-Tale Con by Aimee Gilchrist Page A

sorry, Harrison.  This must be terrible for you.”
    He glared at me as though I’d done something wrong, and I felt like every kind of idiot.  Telling someone I felt bad for them was tough for me, and he was throwing it back in my face.  “I appreciate that, Talia.  But I’m a bigger jerk than you know.  I’m not grieving, other than in that I feel bad for my grandparents and especially for my aunt and uncle.  I’m pissed.  Just infuriated.  And the police made it clear they suspect me.”
    â€œAnger is part of the grieving process,” I pointed out unhelpfully. 
    He didn’t even bother to look at me. 
    â€œI hated Nate.  He was a total prick.  In my entire life I cannot once remember actually enjoying time spent with him.  And now he did some dumbass thing and got himself killed.  All his life all he’s done is make his parents miserable.  And now they’ll be miserable for the rest of their lives because he stole money from someone, or bought drugs from the wrong person, or talked crap about the wrong person.  As usual, his family will pay and pay and pay, and there will never be any relief for them.”
    Wow.  I never would have pictured the path his mind had taken.  Moreover I got the impression Harrison felt guilty because he felt this way.  Nevertheless, he’d homed in on the real losers here.  Nate’s parents, who had experienced a lifetime of heartache and now would never have the chance to see their son find his way. 
    Though I was enough of a cynic that I didn’t think he would have gotten any better. 
    Either way, Harrison’s brutal honesty had the reverse effect he seemed to think it would.  I liked him much better than I had before, because somewhere underneath everything I didn’t understand about him, there was a person who was just like me: a little rough around the edges and a little bitter about life.  Maybe that made me a bad person, but there it was anyway.
    He pulled the recorder I’d found in his floor from his jacket pocket and tossed it in the back seat.  “Well, I guess this is useless.”
    Now came the bad part.  “Actually, Harrison, I wouldn’t be so cavalier about dumping that.  When did you start hearing those voices?”
    The date he rattled off was the day after Nate had made that twelve thousand dollar deposit.  Crap.  “Does C.A. mean anything to you?”
    He glanced at me before turning his attention back to the road.  “No, should it?” 
    Bah.  Once again, I had to be the bearer of bad news.  “Unfortunately, yeah.  I suspect that it should.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
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    Rules of the Scam #17
    When things get dicey, redirect…
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    When I met Harrison outside of The Library at 6:45 on Monday morning his slumped shoulders and hesitant movements told me he still wasn’t entirely with me, though I’d spent hours the night before talking him through, via the walkie-talkie phones, why this was necessary.  He was looking surly and a little bit nervous, but he’d done as I’d asked and dressed the part. 
    Apparently Nate had been a natty dresser, and Harrison was on the curb wearing a pink polo under a linen sport coat with dark blue jeans and square-toed loafers.  He and Nate didn’t look enough alike to pass for each other to someone who knew them, but I was fairly certain they looked enough alike that a bored teller was unlikely to notice the differences.  He glared at me one last time before sliding on reflective aviator sunglasses and jamming a tweed hat on his head.  He looked like an ad in a men’s magazine. 
    In an attempt to not stand out, I’d dressed in black slacks and a trim silk shirt with my hair nicely done and understated makeup.  I was rocking the young professional look today, and we were going to be made fun of the