The Tell-Tale Con Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘demon’.”
    â€œAnd is that when the whole thing really started?”
    â€œNah.  Nothing happened then.  I was just glad they were done and would go away.”
    â€œI’m having a little trouble understanding how we got from there to here.”
    â€œNate called me.  He said his girlfriend was so freaked out she couldn’t sleep.  Whatever.  It wasn’t her answer.  But Nate had looked up the name and found it really did belong to a demon.  He didn’t want me to tell her.  Like I would ever have the opportunity to tell her, if I had my way.”
    He ate more fries, seemed to consider his burger again, and in the end pushed the plate away.  “Anyway, I didn’t think about it again until I was at the fair in Fenway.”
    â€œThe baseball park?”
    His eyebrows shot up, and his mouth twisted in a cross of amusement and disgust, as though I was the one who’d said something weird.  “No.  The town.  It’s a little place in the mountains above Denver.” 
    â€œColorado again?”
    He cocked his head.  “Yeah, I guess.”
    â€œAnd Ned again?”
    The corners of his mouth quirked.  “Nate.”
    â€œYeah, him.”
    â€œActually, yeah.”  The perplexed furrowing between his eyebrows suggested he’d never bothered to try to connect the circumstances between these situations. 
    It wasn’t enough information for me to figure out the entire picture.  Nate and Colorado had figured into both stories, but that could just be coincidence.  I needed to hear the rest.  “So you were at some fair.  What happened next?”
    â€œWe went to this fortune teller tent because some other stupid girl, not the same as before, wanted to get her palm read or something.”
    â€œOkay, so what happened next?”  I drank half the malt waiting for him to answer.
    â€œWhen we went into the tent, she just looked up and pointed at me.  Then she said, ‘Aeshma.’  Aeshma is some obscure religion's wrath demon, by the way.  I have to admit that it was freaking creepy.”
    It was.  Though I was one hundred percent a practical soul, a little shiver tore through me, and I doubted it was the fault of the malt.  “That is weird.”
    â€œYeah.”  His voice turned down, dark and low.
    â€œSo did she say anything else to you?”
    He shrugged.  “No, because I left.  Who knows what else she would have said.”
    â€œWhen was this?” I asked. 
    I couldn’t figure out yet the correlation between these things, or what someone would stand to gain. 
    â€œA few months ago.  Over the summer.”
    â€œYou remembered such a weird name for three years?”
    â€œNo.”  He poked a fry into ketchup, but then didn’t eat it.  “I’d forgotten it.  It wasn’t until she said it that I remembered.”
    â€œThat must have been unpleasant.”
    â€œYeah.  You could say that.”  His tone of voice suggested he could have said a lot of other less vague things. 
    â€œSo okay, that’s weird.  But how did you go from being told the name to thinking a demon was coming to get you?”
    He glared at me over his water, and I got the impression he wasn’t thrilled with me being a part of this.  I had to wonder why he was paying me to sit here and talk to him.  Either he was desperate, or for some reason he trusted me way more than he should. 
    â€œI told you, I don’t believe it.  I mean, I know when I’m trying to sleep, I hear voices.  I know that someone is doing this to me.”
    And we were back to the voices.  As evenly as possible, in case he was nuts and willing to lash out at anyone who knew it, I said, “Okay, Harrison.  Tell me about the voices.”
    His mouth pinched, one side cocking up, but not in amusement.  He