Read Online Rob Cornell - Ridley Brone 02 - The Hustle by Rob Cornell - Free Book Online

she had back in high school. Enough so that I felt a familiar tingle low in my gut. Her skin had paled. But she looked clean and healthy. I don’t know what I expected. Apparently I had watched one too many prison movies.
    Despite all of this, I came to a quick decision. “Never,” I said.
    “Then why are you here?”
    “To talk about our new mutual friend. Mr. Hersch Olin.”
    Her brow creased. “I don’t know who that is.”
    Figured. “He must have given you another name. It’s the guy who visited you recently.”
    Her eyebrows lifted. “Oh.”
    “Yeah. ‘Oh.’ What’s he calling himself now?”
    “He said his name was Oliver Heschel.”
    Cute. Hersch Olin. Oliver Heschel. I had the feeling he’d made the aliases similar as a message for me. He knew I’d come see Autumn right off the bat. It also meant he had easy access to false identification—no chance he could have gotten in here without it.
    “What’s going on?” Autumn asked.
    “He’s a grifter, and you gave him fuel for his con.”
    She shook her head. A lock of her hair caught against her eyelashes. She brushed it aside. “I didn’t give him anything. We just talked.”
    “What about?”
    “He said he was working for you.”
    I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “And you believed him.”
    “Why wouldn’t I? He knew all about our daughter. About what happened with Daddy. How could he know any of that if you didn’t tell him?”
    I didn’t see any reason to drag Sheila into this conversation. Sheila might have screwed up, but Autumn didn’t need to know it. “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “He’s not working for me. He’s trying to juice me for a million bucks.”
    Her already prison pale face turned ashen. “Oh, God.”
    “What all did you tell him?”
    “We just talked.”
    “About what?” A new flame kindled to replace the bonfire that had burned through me when I last had Hersch—or whoever the hell he was—on the phone. “About what, Autumn?” I pressed when she hesitated.
    “About you. About us.” She shrugged. “Not much of anything.”
    “You’re going to have to be more specific than that.”
    She slapped a hand down on the table between us and leaned forward. “What do you want from me?”
    The guard raised an eyebrow, her hand resting on the hilt of the nightstick on her belt.
    “For once,” I said, “I want the truth from you.”
    “You’re going to have to be more specific than that.” Her eyes smiled, a cold satisfaction in them at using my own words against me.
    “What did you tell him,” I enunciated slowly, “that he didn’t already know?”
    The smile in her eyes disintegrated. She rubbed at the table, pressing so hard the tips of her fingers turned white. “What could I have told him that matters?”
    “Obviously something, or you wouldn’t be wasting my time dodging simple questions.”
    The shadow that passed across her face told me everything but exactly what I needed to know. She had fucked up and she knew it. I tried to think of how. What piece of information could she have let slip that would give him an edge in his so-called “race.”
    I stopped pushing. Stared at her. Either she would speak next, or we would sit in silence until the guard decided we’d glared at each other enough for one day.
    I have to give Autumn credit. She held out a good couple of minutes before the quiet wriggled its way under her skin. I noticed the stone-faced guard even grew a little antsy. But Autumn couldn’t hold back forever. She never could from me. Apparently, she still couldn’t. Strange, considering I was significantly responsible for putting her in prison.
    She pressed harder on the table until the white moved up to her knuckles. Any more pressure and I thought she might snap her fingers clean off. “He asked a lot about Daddy.”
    “Like?”
    “Where he grew up. Who his friends were. What kind of investments he’d had. He even asked about his sex life.” She scrunched up her