The Tell-Tale Con by Aimee Gilchrist Read Free Book Online Page A

stop.  It never lasts longer than a few minutes.”
    I was apparently worth a maximum of twenty-five bucks a booty call.  I didn’t know what the going rate was, so I didn’t know whether to be offended or not.  I followed him to the elevator, electing to ignore the guard.  If I didn’t someone was going to get punched. 
    I checked my watch as the wooden-paneled elevator glided up fourteen floors in a fraction of a second, treating us to something classical played on a panpipe.  It had been just over two minutes since I’d received his call.  Harrison stood next to me in the elevator, silent, rumpled, and angry. 
    Well, if he didn’t want my help he shouldn’t have asked for it.  Okay, he kind of didn’t ask for it.  But he shouldn’t have come to my house.  Not that he’d known he was doing that.  It didn’t matter.  Because then he had hired me, and I was in the problem now, and I was going to solve it right.  I knew how to get answers, and I knew when someone was playing someone else.  Harrison needed me, whether he liked it or not.
    When the elevator reached the top floor, the door slid open with an almost silent snick , leaving us in a long dark hall, lit only with a couple of expensive, stylish and practically useless antique brass lamps.  Harrison held a finger to his lips and opened the front door to his house, slowly and quietly. 
    If I’d had it in my head that Harrison lived in an apartment, I was very much mistaken.  At least he didn’t live in an apartment as I’d always known them to be.  I now understood what Sam had been blathering about when it came to The Library.  Harrison’s home wasn’t all marble and white as Sam’s boyfriend’s had been, but it was certainly awe-inspiring.  With the lights of Albuquerque shining in through the massive bank of windows along one wall, I could see the living area was enormous.  It was all dark wood, intricate carvings, soaring ceilings and tall bookcases.  Everything suggested a library where the lobby had not. 
    â€œWow.”  I tried to keep my voice quiet, but it seemed to echo.
    â€œThis whole floor used to be the law section back when it was a library,” Harrison provided grudgingly, steering me towards another hall with a tight grip on my elbow.  I knew which room was his before we opened the door, since I could hear the low grumbling sounds from beyond his slightly open door. 
    We slid inside, and Harrison shut and locked the door behind us.  I knew that it couldn’t be real, but I had to admit there was something very creepy about the growling disembodied voice floating in the air repeating, “Destruction, destruction, destruction, Harrison.”
    I refused to be wigged out by something I knew was a con, even if the hairs on my arms were raising in protest.  I stood for a second and listened for the source of the noise.  It was hard.  The voice was low and soft and gave the impression of coming from both everywhere and nowhere. 
    â€œIt should stop any second,” he whispered.
    I had the idea the sound was coming from below me, so I dropped to my knees on the floor.  The sound was definitely closer down there, though I still couldn’t locate it.  Looking like a fool, no doubt, I crawled along the floor on my hands and knees, playing a demented game of hot and cold.  I finally found what sounded like the source to me, right as the voice finally commanded Harrison to wreak some havoc and then petered off.  I pressed my ear to the floor directly in front of Harrison’s bed, the wood incredibly cold against my face.  I heard a soft whirring noise and then the deafening sound of silence. 
    I patted my hand against the floor boards, determining they were real wood, single panes, not the fake huge panels that Mr. Wong’s had.  “Do you have a