Page 7 of Catching a Con Man

“I am. Where is he?”

“In the office with your brother. Seems there’s something that’s concerning them both enough to work on a Saturday, of all days.”

“Which brother?” I asked.

“Cameron.”

“Oh.”

“Exactly.” Her lips pressed into a fine line. “I’ve half a mind to ask them what’s concerning them so much that Cameron of all people is working on a Saturday. But then I realised I’d rather not miss my spa appointment if they think I’ve actually taken an interest in business proceedings, god forbid. Speaking of which…” my mother looked down at her watch. “I better get going. Please come home more often. I miss you.”

She gave me a kiss on the cheek and walked out. In the distance, I heard the front door slam. I finished off my croissant and walked through the house to find my father.

His office was at the back of the building in the attic, where the staff would have slept once upon a time. My father had renovated the space with floor to ceiling windows to better see over his estate, like some feudal lord in a watchtower. I walked up the stairs, passing the rooms where three of my siblings still lived at home. I paused at the door to the attic. I could hear my father and Cameron mumbling, but the old door was too thick for me to hear what they were talking about.

I knocked on the door and their voices quietened. I waited a second and then pushed the door open. My father and Cameron weren’t at the desk as I expected;they were sat in the comfy chairs next to my father’s bookshelves. He had six armchairs arranged in a circle around a little table, so that we could all gather for family business meetings. At the moment, Cameron and my father were leaning over one of Cameron’s laptops as it sat on the table.

“Ade!” Cameron said, “we were just talking about you!”

My father shot him a look that clearly saidshut up, but Cam didn’t seem phased.

Cameron was the middle child of five, and he was the most different to all of us. He seemed to have inherited his stature from our petite mother rather than our towering father and wore glasses, though I wasn’t sure if he actually wore them because he needed them or because he just wanted a visual identifier to show he was more intelligent than the rest of us.

“What Cameron meant to say, Addison,” said my father with some exasperation, “is hello, Addison, how are you? Would you like to take a seat?”

“That I would…” I said. “So, talking about me? All good, I hope.”

“Well.” My father pushed his reading glasses down his nose. I was amazed he finally admitted he needed them. He’d spent the last decade squinting at menus in restaurants and pretending his eyesight wasjust fine thank you very much.“We were just discussing…last week. The gala.”

“Perfect, that’s exactly what I want to discuss,” I said. “So I met someone, and I need to ask…”

“I’ve run a full background check, Dad asked me to as soon as he’d heard you were dancing with a date,” Cameron interrupted me, turning the laptop to face me. “Where the hell did you meet a guy like that? I mean, not exactly in our social circles, is he?”

On the screen was a picture of what I presumed was Tyler’s driving licence. Not TylerQuinn, of course, but Tyler Bevan. Twenty-three years old, resident of Cathays in Cardiff. “Your ability to stick your nose in anywhere never ceases to amaze me,” I said to Cameron.

“Why thank you.” Cameron gave a little seated bow with a smile that was designed to needle me.

“It wasn’t a compliment.” I picked up the laptop from the table and scrolled. Cameron had really got his hands oneverythingthough. Medical records, address history, his dead-end job in a corner shop, and even…I scrolled past his Tinder profile as fast as I could, a pit ofsomethingsettling in my stomach. And then at the very bottom, the furthest back, a record of his time in the foster system. Moving house every few months, different schools, different people looking after him. And repeated run-ins with the law on petty charges. Theft of trinkets, food…it all seemed so sad. And then it all seemed to stop a few years back. Like he’d given up on petty crime. Or just got much better at it.

“If you’d told me you were bringing acriminalas your date, I would have made the effort to come along,” said Cam.

“Not funny, Cameron,” said my father. “Addison, need I ask why you were cavorting with a criminal?”

I laughed, though it felt hollow around the block that had formed in my throat. I’d come here to talk about Tyler, to ask if we could find answers. And here they were, in front of me. And suddenly I felt like I should be the one protecting the beautiful man with the broken childhood. I put the laptop down on the table and exhaled.

“I…he was trying to scam me. Or you, maybe,” I admitted. And I slowly, haltingly explained the night I’d had a week prior. For some reason, admitting it all felt like I was betraying Tyler.

“I see,” said my father when I’d finished. “Well, good thing we have all this information. We’ll call the police and have him arrested for fraud. Or perhaps industrial espionage.”

“No, Dad!” I said, too forcefully. He looked at me with a stare that could still make me freeze up if I let it. “No. I want…I don’t want to move too quickly. The idea he had, it was good. Whatever reason he had for defrauding us…” I thought carefully. My father wasn’t known for listening to reason once he’d made his mind up on something. “…let’s just hit pause on the arrest. We have the evidence ready to go, but the philanthropic idea he had…if I can tease a few more ideas as to the structure from him, it could go a long way toward your foundation’s goal to be the most innovative philanthropic organisation in the country.”

My father’s eyes narrowed for a second as he thought. If there was one thing he liked more than being right about everything, it was the chance to expand either the company or the foundation.

Finally, he spoke. “Fine. But I will have him taken in as soon as I feel we have enough information from him. A petty criminal broke into an event thatIorganised, and that will not do.”

“Thank you, Dad,” I said.

“Fancy a coffee?” Cameron asked me.

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