Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade (Criminal Mischief Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

register as how did you do it to yourself ?
    I answered, “A nail,” and the preacher sighed so sadly, I became convinced he was dramatically oversensitive. I said to alleviate his stress, “It didn’t hurt. It was just a stray nail in the railing of the ship.”
    But Mike saw a problem with my explanation. “So you weren’t completely confined to a cabin.”
    Damn it . And I knew I looked like I was thinking damn it, too. I smiled guilty contrition. “I convinced one of the crew to let me out to walk the deck, but I promised not to tell.”
    “A nail in the railing,” Mike repeated. “Don’t you think someone would have removed it?”
    “I’m sure they did after I discovered it.”
    But it was clear Mike wasn’t buying it. Of all the things I had dropped on them in the last two hours, I could not fathom why he would fixate on my wrist. It was, as far as I could tell, entirely inconsequential, yet it was the point Mike was going to come back to time and again.
    “How old are you?”
    “Twenty-three.”
    “How did you cut your wrist?”
    “On a nail.”
    “How do you know you’re twenty-three?” And when I look puzzled, Mike asked, “Have you seen your birth certificate?”
    “No.”
    “Then how do you know?”
    “I was told.”
    “What did you cut your wrist with?”
    “A nail in the railing.”
    “You’ve always been addressed as countess?”
    “Yes.”
    “When did you cut your wrist?”
    “Three nights ago.”
    “Where were you before Kenya?”
    “China.”
    “And before that?”
    “Germany.”
    And before that South Africa, and before that Brazil, and between each, “How did you cut your wrist?”
    “On a nail.”
    “Can you tell me a single name from any of the places you’ve lived in your twenty-three years?”
    I let my eyes float slowly around the room, and then answered with an unconvincing, “No.”
    “Most of the homes you’ve described staying in were large. They would have had staff.”
    My silence forced Mike to prompt, “ Yes ?”
    “Yes.”
    “You never learned any of their names?”
    I blushed hard and let my eyes stray again. The act was an unfamiliar paradox. To make these lies work, I had to look like a bad liar.
    Mike pressed, “You must have heard them talking to each other.”
    I slowly shook my head to deny it.
    “You never heard them talking? You never heard them call out to one another?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    I gaped back dumbfounded.
    “Were they mute? How could you not have heard them speak to each other?”
    I made an obvious show of hunting for a plausible answer, and then answered weakly, “I seldom left my room.”
    Mike stared at my wrist and thought about it. “So, staying alone in the cabin on the ship would have been familiar.”
    “The environment was different.”
    “I imagine you got quite depressed,” the preacher said.
    That was an emotion I had never experienced or imagined. I responded brightly, “No, not at all.”
    “Explain the cut on your wrist,” Mike said.
    “It was dark. I didn’t see the nail in the railing.”
    “It didn’t bother you to be alone?”
    “No.”
    “You’re accustomed to it?”
    I gave an uncertain “Yes,” as though I was afraid of the trap Mike was laying.
    “You make it sound as though the only people you have spoken to in your adult life are the various hosts you’ve lived with.”
    My expression acknowledged that this was an unfortunate absurdity, but one I was going to have to stick with.
    “In the twenty-nine countries you’ve lived, you never once heard your host’s name?”
    I rolled my lips between my teeth to indicate my mouth was sealed and shook my head.
    Mike found another opening. “How did other people address your host? By what name?”
    I made a silent “Oh” with my mouth as though I had been irrefutably caught and recognized only the truth would pass. I nearly answered but changed my mind, and then almost said something else before shaking my head and deciding