The Tell-Tale Con (30 page)

“Bandervale Community Center.  It's up the road.  If we aren't back in fifteen minutes, alert the media.”  I purposely kept my voice light because I didn't want to give them the impression that we were doing anything important.  It was one thing to ask Sam and Hector to play detective behind a computer screen.  It was another to put them in danger.  

When we got back to the car, Harrison's mouth twisted into a grim smile.  “Alert the media?”

I shrugged.  “I didn't want them to worry.”

“You found out something bad, didn't you?”

I belted myself in.  “Maybe not bad.  Maybe just weird.  But definitely worth checking.  We're going down to the community center, and we're going to try to catch Vickie Bridges there.  She can't pretend she's afraid of seeing people when she's already out in public.”

I gave him a rundown of my call with the nurse while we drove the seven blocks up and three over from our neighborhood to the downtown location of the Bandervale Community Center.  Bandervale was an old building, but I was new to the neighborhood, and it was unclear if it had always been used this way.  Either way, the building itself had definitely seen its better days.  The door to the community center was between a rundown church crisis center and an unidentifiable business called
Sepi and Associates
.  A lawyer?

Harrison pulled up to park in front, but I laid my hand on his arm.  “Let's park on the side and see if there's a back entrance.  Maybe if we try for the element of surprise, she'll be less likely to be able to avoid us.”

He shrugged and pulled up to the curb on the tree-lined street next to the building.  From where I was standing on the thin, cracked, sidewalk, I could see there were back doors to the building.  Three of them.  Positioned between green dumpsters that looked like someone had purposely rammed them with a car. 

It was possible that the owners kept the back doors locked, but it never hurt to check.  We picked our way down the alley, through garbage and three homeless guys taking a nap in the sun like kittens, until we reached the middle door. 

It not only wasn't locked, but also it wasn't entirely on its hinges.  Sitting lopsided in the frame, the door handle was hanging slightly off, and the word
exit
had suffered so badly that the only letter left was “i.” 

Harrison reached for the handle, and I stared at the door.  Feeling very wigged out, I reached over and grabbed his arm.  “Harrison…”  I was whispering though there was no good reason.  We weren't in a library, and I was unwilling to call what I felt right now fear. 

Because I was unwilling to believe my mom was actually less of a con artist and more of a psychic.

But I couldn't help but remember her words on the first day that Harrison had come into the shop.  Mom had gone on and on in that weird state, telling him to fear the eye.  No.  It was don't open the eye.  That's what she'd said.  The eye is death.

But what if it wasn't
the eye
, but
the“i”
?  What if whatever was behind that door was more of a threat to Harrison than anything had been up to this point?  More threatening than Jagger in drag trying to shoot him in the head?  Seemed almost impossible.  But still I hesitated. 

“What's the matter, Talia?”  He sensed my tension and responded in kind, immediately prepping for fight or flight, his body tense from head to toe. 

“I don't know.  It's just that…”  I didn't know how to explain what I was thinking.  It was stupid and it didn't entirely make sense. 

“Well, hello there.”

Before I turned I knew who it would be.  Because that was the kind of sucky luck that we had.  Vicky Bridges, I was glad to see, didn't resort to the wearing of fur coats at all times.  Just when she left the house intending to commit crimes, it would appear.  When crimes came as a surprise, like the one coming up had, she was left to resort to looking almost like a normal person. 

Her crazy hair was in a flyaway ponytail instead of sticking out all over.  There was nothing to be done about her lip job which had not gone well.  She still looked like Chord Overstreet had a terrible, terrible accident.  Her pink track suit was so cheerful, it seemed bizarre and discordant.  The gun in her hand, trained on Harrison, was also pink.  Which was nothing short of absurd.  But that didn't stop me from viewing it with a healthy dose of caution.  The fact she hadn't already shot Harrison suggested she had a different plan at the moment. 

Though I couldn't imagine what it was.

Harrison didn't seem scared, which I had to admit I kind of admired.  He lifted his hands and cocked his head to the side.  “Why are you doing this?” he asked, his voice very low and calm.

“Don't pretend you don't know who I am.  I know you came to my house.”

“Yes, I know who you are.  But why kill Nate?  Why try to kill me?” 

Harrison seemed to be engaging her, and that was good.  I didn't have enough real information about her yet to know which buttons to push.  I might be able to get us out of this, if Harrison could keep her talking long enough.  I was really, really good at telling people what they wanted to hear.  And it had never been as important as it was right now.  But first I needed her to keep talking. 

“I killed Nate because he deserved it.  He promised he'd play right.  But then he got an attack of conscience.  Swore he could hear the demon recording in his own room.  Said he couldn't sleep at night and that the guilt was consuming him.  He was going to tell you.  So I had to kill him.”

It seemed ironic to me that the first time Nate had ever tried to do the right thing, he'd been murdered as a result.  Go figure.

“Why me?  Why have Nate try to make me think I was being hunted by a demon?  Why so elaborate?”

“Your father owes me.”  Vickie waved the gun in Harrison's direction, her attention not particularly focused.  “How better than to make you insane?”

“He lost you your career?”  Harrison's voice was gentle, understanding even. 

I looked out the alley mouth, but no one was around.  A police car sped past, siren blaring, but it wasn't headed our way.  It didn't slow.  One of the homeless men stirred, but they were very unlikely to be of any help.  We were on our own this time.  Maybe the others would take me seriously and alert the media.  Or, at the very least, the cops. 

“My career,” she spat, her horrible mouth twisting.  “Who cares about that?  I told Van I couldn't handle it.  But he wanted it to be authentic.  He'd keep me locked up for days in between shooting.  I didn't lose my job.  I lost my children.  I would have done anything for them.  Van took them away.”

She turned to me for a second and seemed confused as to why I was there.  Then she focused back in on Harrison.  “And now I'm going to take away Van's child.”

“But I didn't do anything to you,” Harrison said rationally, as though rationality was likely to help in this situation.  “I was like six years old when you went to the hospital.”

“This isn't about you,” she explained patiently.  “This is about making Van pay.  He made my children spend their lives with their father.  He abused them every day.  He hurt them!”  A tinge of hysteria was starting to enter her voice.  I started to understand who she was and what would help us right now.  “
Van
made them suffer.  Now I'm going to make Van suffer.”

“But aren't you doing exactly what Van did?” I asked, following Harrison's advice and keeping my voice steady and calm.  “You're going to make a child suffer because you aren't happy with his dad.”

I could visually track the progress of this thought as she processed it and my words hit home.  She'd been so involved in her plan that she'd disregarded Harrison's role as an innocent child.  I wouldn't have exactly called him a child, but to her he was, and he was certainly innocent.  Bewilderment crossed her features, and her hesitation gave me a chance to think.  How could we get out of this? 

Finally, her disorientation cleared, and she raised the gun again.  Evidently my question had been irritating, distracting, something that agitated her.  Oops.  Not my best work. 

She raised her gun, got a visual on Harrison and fired without her expression changing.  Three things happened at once.  I threw myself at Harrison, since he'd done it for me twice, intending to knock him to the ground.  I hit the ground.  Hard.  Hard enough I almost blacked out, since, as it turned out, Harrison was no longer standing in the same place he'd been.  Harrison, himself, dropped without hesitation.  Like the way someone dropped a piranha.  A piranha on fire.  Covered in bees.  So when I'd been planning to make contact with him, I made contact with empty air, and then gravel, instead. 

And thirdly, the homeless man I'd seen stirring earlier jumped on Vickie Bridges back and took her down like in every action movie I'd ever seen.  While I was still on the ground wondering if it was possible to break your boobs, Vickie was flat on her face and cuffed. 

Under the exterior of general hoboness, it would appear that this dude was a cop. 

I would have called it fortuitous, good luck on our part.  Whatever.  Hobo Cop was not nearly as thrilled.  Apparently, we'd destroyed the final stages of a months long sting operation to take down the church-run crisis center next door to the theater.  They were selling God and also crack.  I didn't actually think it was our fault, but Hobo Cop was less understanding. 

We spent the next six hours at the station while the cops tried to make heads or tails of our story, and Hobo Cop, whose name was Willard, came along to periodically tell us again what a pain in the butt we were.  As though we'd almost been murdered just to irritate him and ruin his sting operation. 

Willard ran between rooms and brought Harrison and me the info as it came.  Jennifer the nurse was also '
Jessica'
the daughter.  Vickie had sought her out once she was grown, and she'd used her nursing skills to come and help with her mother.  Jennifer didn't want to see people get hurt, but she believed that her mother deserved some restitution.  I was willing to bet that she was still a little bitter, too, about growing up with a douche for a dad when she could have grown up with Lady Psycho.  Which would have been so much better.

“Vickie's been planning revenge on Van Poe almost from the moment her kids were taken away,” Willard told us.  “In the beginning, I guess she couldn't think much at all, let alone plan her poetic retribution.  But later, when she'd been released from the hospital, she'd tried moving near her kids, but the court wouldn't allow visitation.”

“How'd she end up in New Mexico?” Harrison asked.

“Well,” Willard's eyes narrowed.  “She chose to move to New Mexico, so she could be near Van's kid instead.” 

Van was still in LA at the time, I knew.  Which struck me as kind of the creepiest thing of all.

But being agoraphobic prevented her from acting on any of her plans.  She'd stayed in her house, stalking Harrison and Van on the internet, and planning.  When Jennifer had come along, right when Vickie was learning to go out again, small increments, into the yard, out for a walk, they'd made great strides together. 

A slender woman with short blonde hair poked her head into our interview room and asked Willard to come out into the hallway for a moment, leaving Harrison and me alone for the first time since the cops had picked us up.  We were quiet for a long moment.  He cleared his throat.  “Talia…” 

I wasn't sure what he was going to say, but the words petered off, leaving nothing but a heavy silence in the room, so thick I could almost feel it.  He slid his hand across the glossy black table and took mine.  My pulse spiked, thumping out a sporadic and enthusiastic rhythm.  There was no denying that kind of reaction, even for me. 

“Talia, listen.  I…”

The door slammed open, and Willard stepped back inside, looking harassed.  I flung myself away from Harrison so fast I nearly overturned my chair.  Thank goodness he'd come back.  I'd momentarily lost my mind.  Next to me, Harrison sighed, but said nothing.

Willard flopped back into his chair.  “Anyway, four months ago, Jennifer went to a bar in Albuquerque and scored herself a new boyfriend.  The wayward son of the rich and successful Malhotra family.  It was a coincidence, but one that Vickie immediately saw as valuable.”

I leaned forward in my seat, focusing all of my attention on Hobo Cop, and absolutely none on Harrison.  I didn't trust myself right now.  I listened with absolute concentration while Willard detailed Jennifer's quest for information.  She'd asked questions a plenty about Van and Harrison, saying she knew them, and among the stories was the truth about the years-long demon prank he'd been pulling and how he'd paid the fortune teller to bring it up at the fair.  From there, Vickie had convinced Nate to help her make Harrison think he was crazy. 

That's what she had wanted to do. 

But then even twelve thousand dollars hadn't been enough to assuage Nate's uncustomary guilt, so she'd had to kill him.

But Nate's murder meant the plan to make Harrison have to spend years in a mental institution was defunct.  So she'd elected to kill Harrison instead.  She'd sent Jennifer off to follow us wherever we went, which explained how Vickie always seemed one step ahead.  Now Vickie and Jennifer were both in the station and both being, wisely I thought, tested for mental issues before they were sent to prison.  Jennifer's lesser charge of conspiracy to commit murder, would likely see her out in a few years.  Vickie was very likely going to be back to being a ‘shut-in' for the rest of her life. 

Finally, when our stories had been told dozens of times, and Harrison was asleep with his head down on the table, the police finally came into the room and told us we were free to go.  Though it had been early in the morning when we'd first set out for the coffee shop, it was dark by the time we left.  Harrison got into a black sedan with Kanako and My Sharona, and I was shuttled into the backseat of Mr. Wong's compact while Mom and Mr. Wong argued about whether or not I should be punished for my part in almost getting killed.