Page 72 of Fraud
“Yep.”
We’d been having this same sort of conversation since I let her into my secret circle of trust, which originally was supposed to be only Jane.
But, sometimes, plans changed.
Having a confidant here in Fremont was actually a smart move. Jane was my go-to for everything legal and technical, but when it came to certain situations like today, it would be nice, moving forward, to have someone like Amy around.
It also felt incredibly good to talk to someone about it all.
Or at least, try.
So far, we hadn’t made it past this particular conversation. But I had hopes.
“My sister and I sat around the house, devouring that book for weeks. We’d trade stories of…well, never mind.” She blushed.
“Believe me, I’ve heard it all.”
“I just…I can’t—you wrote that? All of that?” she said, still processing my bomb of a secret.
I nodded.
I could see several questions brewing in her mind, and thankfully, the pizza man chose that moment to arrive. Jumping up the second the doorbell rang, I rushed to pay for our order, averting my eyes to my dining room, which now housed enough paperbacks to fill a small store.
Despite Amy’s shock, she’d been a great ally today, dashing over to my apartment to intercept the delivery so that none of my neighbors—or worse, the manager—would see it. When the guy had arrived, she’d smiled sweetly, saying her mom was an online business owner who sent out monthly box subscriptions full of books and had accidentally put too many zeros in the order.
“What?” she’d said. “It’s a thing. There’s a girl in my sorority who’s obsessed with young adult books and gets one delivered every month.”
It was the worst lie ever.
But she’d assured me, it had passed with flying colors. Batting her eyes a few times and handing over a fake phone number hadn’t hurt either.
“So, this guy is going to come by, looking for you?” I asked after I shut the door and plopped down on the couch with the pizza in hand.
“Oh, no. I told him I was only visiting. In town to help my overprotective mother.”
“You had time to relay all this information?”
She nodded. “Have you seen how many boxes he had to cart up here? I had to think of something to talk about.”
“True.”
“By the way, you owe me twenty bucks. I tipped him for the ten times he came up the elevator.”
“No problem.”
“So, how does someone like you do this?” she asked, her hands waving in front of her as she held a piece of pepperoni pizza between two fingers.
“Like me?” I asked, knowing what she meant but liking how the question made her squirm.
“You know, um…quiet. Shy.”
“You mean, someone with no life?” I elaborated.
“I didn’t—”
I laughed, causing her to finally join me. “It’s okay, Amy. I get it. I know I’m not the first person you’d suspect. Probably the last person, right?”
She nodded, her mouth full of cheese. “Right after Mother Teresa. And she’s dead.”
