Fool Me Forever (Confidence Game)

by Ainslie Paton

  Then there was forgetting to eat, eating badly and putting on weight, and getting the flu. The coughing hung on forever, the weight never came off, and her clothes didn’t fit right. Sometimes, she felt like she could stay in bed with the covers over her head forever.

  She held it together for Mom, who’d never wanted for anything a day in her life, and whose hair had started falling out when people Dad had stiffed screamed at her in the street. For Mallory, who was just a kid, but at sixteen found the excuse she’d always wanted to be a brat, and for Easton, whose loss of face baked his usual arrogance into something meaner and sharper.

  Only Fin saw how much energy just getting through all the shocks took. Fin watched her go from a trust-funded Wall Street princess with opportunity to burn, to a broke-ass, society blacklisted pariah in the space of time it took for Dad to exchange his safe deposit box pin code for an inmate number.

  That was before Fin tangled with America’s Most Wanted con artists.

  Lenny shouldn’t have shouted at Halsey just because she was losing it and he was big and safe and could handle it. After today, she never needed to see him again. Halsey could take his straight out of the 1950s with an updated aesthetic that was all Paul Newman on a wooden speedboat in the Italian Riviera and shove off.

  The Sherwoods could go fuck themselves into criminal oblivion. Any association with them was risky and foolish and detrimental to her health.

  “I’m done with your accounting software.”

  She put her empty glass down and turned toward Halsey’s voice.

  “There’s an issue I need to— Have you been crying?”

  She touched her face to check in case she was leaking. Her skin was clammy, but no tears. “Why would I cry, in front of you, of all people?”

  He took a step closer. “You’ve had a rough time.”

  “No, this is me on an average day. If we’re squared away, you can go so I don’t have to listen to you telling me things I already know.”

  “I hope this is not your average day. You’re frowning, corners of your mouth are down, shoulders are up, jaw is tense.”

  “That’s me every day. A frowning, scowling, tight-shouldered, tense-jawed bitch who wants you gone thirty minutes ago.” And well before she gave him any more involuntary insights on how she was feeling.

  “You keep touching your neck. That’s a self-soothing motion. And when you’re not doing that, you’re using your hands in front of your body as a barricade.”

  She dropped her arms to her sides and scowled harder and immediately wanted to touch her neck again.

  “Your weight is on your toes, like you think you might need to make a defensive move.”

  She ground her teeth and eyed the empty water glass. It would make an excellent missile. “Thank you for that charming insight about my body language.” She pointed at the door, arm outstretched, an unmissable instruction.

  “All that one-sided shouting I heard from behind your closed door, as in you weren’t the one doing it, that was fine with you? Not upsetting.”

  “Water off a duck’s back.” She wagged her hand at the door. “Are you spatially challenged? Would you like a map to get out of my vastly complex corporate headquarters?”

  “Extortion. That’s what I heard. Dealing with that is something you do every day? That guy was doing a classic stand-over move. Trying to intimidate you into giving him money. If he’s your boyfriend, you’ve got an even bigger problem.”

  She laughed, slapping her hand to her side. Amazing to think all this could actually be worse. “Boyfriend? That’s how much you know about people who live in the real, law-abiding world. In that world, when your father defrauds the city’s best and brightest out of their life savings, you don’t get to have a boyfriend.” You barely got to keep any friends.

  “That was your father’s undoing. Mark selection. After that, it was all downhill. It was only a matter of time until he screwed up.”

  She picked up the glass, wrapping her fingers tightly around it. She’d thought Halsey was sweet when they met. A sharp dresser. Polite and gentlemanly, kind of shy, which was all sorts of cute, because he was a big, compellingly handsome guy. She must’ve been drugged. Something in the hamburger to make her think he was an acceptable human being.

  “Takes a screw-up to know one, I guess,” she said.

  Halsey blinked his too blue eyes and sighed. “He wasn’t your boyfriend, which means I don’t need to worry he’s abusing you. That doesn’t make the conversation I overheard any less disturbing.”

  “You don’t need to worry your pretty little head about me at all.”

  He put his palm over his brow. “Wow. I feel so objectified.”

  She squeezed the glass.

  His eyes went to her hand. “Go on. Throw it. Might make you feel better. I’m confident in my ability to dodge and weave.”

  She moved the glass hand to hand. It was tempting. The violence of it. The idea of shattering something to relieve the pressure in the back of her neck. But she wasn’t the kind of person who did dramatic things like that. She was the kind who bottled it all up until it made her feel ill. “No doubt you’re the artful dodger. It’s only a shame I can’t do something to put the heat on you without entangling myself.”

  He folded his arms. She wanted to see leg action. Striding, leaving, not this large-person-immoveable thing he was doing.

  “Back to the topic in question, Lenny. I need to worry about you, because Cal worries about you, and Cal is going to marry Fin. And by accepting the stolen money, you’re an accomplice to crime.”

  She bit down on her back teeth, felt that spike in her neck, and pointed to the door with a vain hope he’d finally take the hint and give up on her like everyone else had.

  He continued, “Fin didn’t think about how it would affect you when she was stealing my brother’s money. Yes, yes, I know she felt deceived and lashed out, but it screws you over, and there’s nothing you can do about that, because the whole house of cards comes tumbling down if you squeal. And you won’t. You can’t, because we can cover our tracks and make it look like another Bradshaw had their hand in the till. But aside from all that, I heard a guy threaten you, and until I know you’re safe, much as it’s a personal inconvenience, I’m not leaving.”

  Where did he get off? “I’m a personal inconvenience to you?”

  He scrunched his eyes. “That didn’t come out right.”

  There was no right in her life, only jagged fractured pieces that didn’t fit together anymore no matter how hard she tried to glue them. “I don’t need your help.”

  She needed to not to cry in front of him. She needed to sit in a corner and rock. She needed comfort food and the sanctuary of her bedroom and for this not to be her life. She squeezed the glass so hard it was a wonder it didn’t shatter.

  “I hope that’s true,” he said.

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “I believe you would benefit from a pressure release. You should throw that glass.”

  She put it on the table. She didn’t need advice from a Sherwood.

  “It would make you feel better.”

  “You can’t possible know what would make me feel better”—though maybe he was on to something about relieving the pressure—“other than you leaving.”

  “Sometimes you have to smash things to make them right.”

  He would say that. “Family motto?”

  He raised a brow with a tilt of his head that was endearing and wry and smug at the same time. “Go on, Lenny. It’s your turn to make a mess.”

  She looked at the glass then back to Halsey’s goddamn attractive face.

  “You smash it. I’ll clean up.”

  It was a decent offer. The best she’d had in a while, which was such an awful thought. She picked the glass up, just to have something to hold on to. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because you’re angry and stuck and I really do want to help and it’s the least I can do.”

&
nbsp; She wasn’t a person who threw things. She didn’t have tantrums. Mallory slammed doors. Easton broke things. Mom cried. The itch that’d started in her hand traveled all the way up her arm.

  “Aim right here,” he said, pointing to a spot shoulder height on the wall behind him. “You need—”

  She didn’t let him finish telling her what she needed, because she needed to make a mess. She pitched the damn glass.

  It was irresponsible and impetuous and irrational. Completely out of character, but the most satisfying thing she’d done in months. She felt bold and joyous and wild. For the moment that silicon bomb sailed, spinning through the air, it felt like she was fighting back and coming out on top.

  Except for the fact her aim was off.

  Luckily, like the artful dodger he was, Halsey Sherwood ducked.

  Chapter Three

  The glass shattered on the wall behind Halsey, and a shower of shards bounced over his shoulder and scattered at his feet. Hell, Lenore Bradshaw had a good arm.

  “Oh, shit. Oh, shit. God, I’m sorry.” Her eyes went wide, and she covered her face with her hands.

  That wasn’t quite the effect he’d been hoping for. He felt an inopportune need to comfort her. “I’ve had worse things thrown at me.” He’d had worse things put in his bed, sprinkled over his food, written on his forehead, and shaved into his head while he slept, because his siblings were ratbags who loved a good prank, and he’d most often been the focus of their diabolical plots as a kid. “How do you feel?”

  She took her hand away from her face. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, I feel better.”

  That was the effect he was after. “Do you have a pan and brush?”

  Lenny pointed at the cupboard under the sink. He eased around her in the tiny space to get to it, while she went to the fridge. “I need a drink.”

  He wasn’t getting back to his desk any time soon. “If you’ve enough remaining glassware, I’ll join you.” That earned him a surprised over-the-shoulder glance. He took the brush and pan and cleaned up the glass, picked pieces out of the plaster on the wall, and then disposed of it, which should give her time to compose herself. Or at least to make an attempt to. She hadn’t been composed from the moment he arrived, and that was the topic they needed to get back to.

  “About the extortionist,” he said.

  She handed him a tumbler with a generous serving of white wine in it. “I’m sorry, Halsey. Please accept my sincere apology for almost breaking your far-too-pretty face with a tumbler from Costco.”

  “I would much rather duck the family crystal.” She’d called him pretty.

  “Already pawned.”

  Pretty.

  Lenny was pretty. The way her features combined made her objectively lovely to look at. She had a symmetrical, oval-shaped face, an elegant nose, large expressive eyes, plump lipstick-ruby lips, and honey-colored curls bouncing around her shoulders. He had an urge to loop a wayward lock behind her ear right before she did it herself.

  “I’ve never thrown anything like that in my life. My aim was terrible.” She shook her head and then fixed a squint on him. “You’re a bad influence.”

  It wasn’t like that was news. “But you do feel better?” There was pink in her cheeks, and the the tension from her neck and shoulders was gone. She moved less stiffly and that wasn’t the wine at work yet.

  “The part of me that’s not ashamed is astonished. You have this big, unflappable thing going on and so I felt safe to—” She stopped and scrunched her face, all the newly energized bright flare of her dimmed.

  He helped out. “To express yourself with unusual force.”

  “Yes.” She snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “That.” Then looked at the floor. “For a few seconds it felt amazing to be so angry and do something with it, but I am genuinely sorry I almost hit you.”

  “You don’t need to apologize, the bad influence thing and all. Now about the extortionist.”

  “He’s not an extortionist.”

  Halsey attempted the kind of look Cal gave recalcitrant marks to make them doubt their brains were switched on. Worked every time for Cal. Lenny had enough defiance on the boil still to flip him off. He had to stifle a smile. “He’s at worst blackmailing you.”

  “He’s my brother,” she said, making this tragically a lot thornier. Halsey couldn’t as easily have her brother mildly terrified mob style so he never bothered Lenny again.

  “That is a problem.” He should’ve recognized Easton Bradshaw.

  “You can’t choose your family.”

  “No truer words. I love my family, most of the time, but seriously I’d have chosen one that was made up of librarians, historians, and art restorers if I’d had the choice. Instead, I’m the descendent of forgers, frauds, and truth twisters, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about that.”

  Lenny laughed. “That’s why you should go.”

  “Relatives are not supposed to do evil to you.” Shaving a lightning bolt into the side of your head wasn’t exactly evil, neither was dying your eyebrows blue. Apparently, those indignities were character building.

  “Would you even know the difference between good and evil?”

  He sighed. Being misunderstood was a new, unsettling sensation. “You’re wrong about us.”

  “You’re thieves.”

  “Technically.” This was the oddest conversation. An out of body experience where he was openly discussing his family’s criminality. It was weirding him out.

  “Practically. You con people.” She refilled her wine glass. His was still full. “You’re cheats, sneaks, and crooks,” she said.

  He took a large sip. “Even us cheats, sneaks, and crooks have a code. Family doesn’t con family.” That sip was more of a gulp, which he repeated.

  “That’s not what Easton was doing.”

  “Unless what I heard was the Bradshaw family equivalent of a quirky, humorous tradition, then it was extortion in action.”

  She threw a hand up, signaling her exasperation. “Intimidation is obviously a time-honored Bradshaw family custom, the leading exponents of which are my father and brother.” She fashioned her hand into a pistol and fired it at him. “And it’s none of your goddamn business.”

  “Cal sent me here to make sure Dollars for Daughters is safe. It’s not safe if someone is trying to steal from it. It’s not safe if you’re not.”

  There was no need to tell Lenny someone had most likely already stolen from her charity until he examined her accounts more closely and followed the money trail in detail.

  “I’m not going to give Easton money, and he would never hurt me.”

  He wished he could make dead sure of that. “What are you going to do?”

  She shrugged a shoulder. “Keep throwing things at you till you leave.”

  He held his empty tumbler out to her. “Here. Power up.”

  She took the glass from his hand and frowned. “Halsey, I do appreciate you looking over our books. I’m incredibly sorry for expressing myself forcefully all over you, but you are the worst influence. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  Which ended any idle speculation she might ever truly express herself forcefully all over him in a way he’d find most satisfactory. He had to clear his throat to get the next words out. “Your brother is a psychopath.”

  She put the glass down on the table so hard they were lucky there weren’t more fragments to sweep up. “You can’t say that.”

  More’s the pity, he could. “Easton Jeffrey Bradshaw is the only son of Jeffrey Grantley Bradshaw and Nicole Elizabeth Bradshaw nee Dresden. Thirty-five years old. Graduate of Cornell. Three years of stockbrokering at Gouldman’s. He launched a housemate finder startup that he crashed in twenty-four months by screwing up his burn rate. Licked his wounds by messing around in Europe for years, where he left a trail of broken hearts and financial obligations. Last known address is”—he paused, taking in Lenny’s rigid posture, the freak out going on in her eye
s—“should I go on?”

  “Why do you know all that?”

  “It’s our business to know about people we’re in business with. Your brother is a psychopath like your father. He could hurt you and D4D. You’re too close to see it.”

  She gave a slow blink. Her eyes weren’t red rimmed anymore, and her expression was more sad than angry. “I’m not in business with you.” She folded her arms tight across her middle. “Please leave.”

  She said it quietly; it had the force of a dozen missiles launched with precision to disable him. He felt the strikes. He was pushing her, but he couldn’t stop worrying about her, and he couldn’t help her unless she let him. That was the art of the con, making people want what you wanted for them. “Let me help you.”

  “Go, before I call the police and tell them a known criminal is intimidating me.”

  Do it, delegate it, or dump it.

  Essentially the organizational principle Halsey lived by when he was behind his desk. Out in the field, the rules were different. Logically, he should dump this in the too-hard basket, but Cal would have Zeke hold him down while he personally tattooed something offensive on his neck or had one of his sisters glitter bomb his bed. Hard to know what was worse. Glitter just never quit.

  But he wasn’t about to.

  “When he’s not being a shithead, Easton is charming. The life of the party,” he said. “When you have his full attention, you feel like you’ve won a prize. He’s a skillful manipulator of sentiment and circumstances. He’s also an excitement junkie and thrives on drama he’ll create if it’s not already there to exploit. He’s impetuous. He’s irresponsible. When something goes wrong, it’s never his fault. He’s an expert liar and has never met a situation he can’t be glib about. He’s never felt guilty for his deceptions a single moment of his life.”

  Lenny’s mouth dropped open before she said, “How do you know Easton?”

  “I don’t.” He would’ve explained how he knew men like Easton intimately. How they made excellent marks because it never occurred to them they weren’t the smartest person in the room, but the outer door opened and the man himself walked in with an enormous bunch of yellow roses and a box of designer chocolates.