A GAME OF CHASE

Here's my secret...

A few days after their first meet up, Jacob was so engrossed in work that he forgot he was supposed to hangout with Ava for the weekend when his phone rang.

He was in the study room at home. He picked up the phone and saw the caller ID and then he suddenly remembered.

"Oh shoot!" he said, picking up. "Sorry, it's late."

He could hear a laugh on the other line and she sounded just as excited as he had anticipated she would be.

She said, "It's totally fine! I don't mind if it's too late, actually, this is great because you never call anymore and we've been waiting all week for our next date!” She paused before saying, “And I really missed you today." There was a pause while he processed her words and then she added, "Don’t you miss me?"

Her voice sounded a little strained even over the phone and he realized she might have been trying not to cry. He felt bad about making her feel like that but he didn't know what else to say.

So he just said, "Of course I do," and then he added, "But I'm sorry, I've got a lot of work to do right now. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"I was just kidding about the missing you part!" Ava cackled on her end, making Jacob's eye twitch in annoyance. Was she just playing with him?

"Okay then! I guess it's fine. Besides, I've got a tons of work on my table at home and it's going to take me the whole day to be done with them," he said, massaging his throbbing forehead with his thumb and index finger.

"But I have something really important to tell you. I figured since we got on the right foot last time, it's best I tell you now," she said, and he could hear her breathing through the phone.

Jacob sighed into the phone, "Go on, I'm listening."

"Well, I don't really have a boss... you know."

"You don't?"

"No, I don't."

"Then why did you say so last time?" He asked, placing the fountain pen he held in his hand back on the stack of paperwork in front of him. What was she getting at?

"I don't know... it just came out. I didn't want to ruin the moment," she mused over her words.

"Alright then, what else?"

"I'm a con artist," Ava said, breaking the ice but the silence on his end was eerily quiet and she didn't like it.

After a couple seconds of thinking, he responded carefully, "A con artist? You’re a con artist? So you've been playing me?"

There was a bit of shuffling from the other end and then she replied, "I wasn't lying when I said I'm a con artist."

Jacob didn't respond, just sat there staring at his papers and Ava took his silence as a hint for her to go on.

"I started out as an honest to goodness orphan. It worked for a while, my parents gave me everything I ever wanted and then one day they died and I woke up here," she explained. "It was hard at first but I soon found ways to make money, and I became a con artist. Well, I'm still doing that but now it's sorta more legit. You know what I mean?" Jacob could barely hear her through the phone line, his thoughts were racing.

"Yeah, I get it," he finally managed, though he wasn't sure what he understood.

But he knew enough to not trust anything she was telling him. Still, he'd already fallen into this trap once and didn't want to repeat the mistake. "So what happened to your parents?" he asked carefully. If she hadn't mentioned them yet, then they must have meant nothing to her.

"They were killed by some crazy people," she said, "and my foster mom brought me here to protect me and keep me outta trouble. That didn’t work out well." She chuckled again, although it wasn't funny.

"Wait, so you lied about your parents being alive and getting a divorce?" He asked incredulously. She seemed so genuine, and he couldn't imagine anyone who could pull off such an elaborate lie. He thought of their first encounter and how she looked when he walked through the door. Then he realized there was no doubt she was an excellent liar. It was just another thing he couldn't trust.

"Nah, that was a lie too. The truth is, I got caught once," Ava confessed, sounding almost guilty, "when I was fifteen. I ran away from home when they weren't looking and stole from an unsuspecting couple. I ended up at a police station and I spent six months in juvie. That was my first time in jail."

"Wow…" Jacob said, unable to find any other response that wouldn't seem insensitive or judgmental.

"Yeah..." Ava agreed. He heard a deep breath through the phone and then, "Hey, listen, I need to run. I gotta meet someone. Sorry." And then without further explanation, she hung up the phone abruptly.

He put his phone back on the desk and stared at it for several seconds after she had disconnected the call. His mind was reeling, and he could feel himself becoming angrier by the second.

It was clear that she was a lying b***h and he couldn't believe she had actually told him the truth about herself. How could she possibly justify what she'd done? Was she even capable of feeling remorse?

What was even worse was that, for some reason, he kind of liked her. Why? It wasn' possible for him to care about anyone, let alone a person like her. He tried to push the thought aside, but it kept coming back. Why did she make him feel like that?

A con artist? He couldn't believe that the one person he decided to have a fling or crush on after so many years turned out to be a con artist but then, what was she after? What were all con artists after?

Were they after fame and fortune? Did they always seek out attention? He shook his head, he was starting to get lost in his own thoughts. No, he couldn't afford to think like that, he needed to focus. He pulled his laptop onto his lap and booted it up. Then he started typing.

When he finally got his email account open, he clicked on the file labeled 'Received Email from -M.' It was from her. He opened it up immediately and scanned the page, taking in every word as quickly as possible.

When he finished reading and rereading the email, he read it again, slower this time. And then he read it again. This time for real. She was an adult? A young woman in her mid to late twenties? He shook his head and continued reading, and then another email appeared.

The new message was from her and it read,

"Dear Mr. Cade,

First of all, I am sorry for lying to you. I understand if you can't forgive me. To answer your previous question, I am not a criminal nor a serial killer. I'm just a beautiful thief trying to survive. If you have doubts about my story, you should talk to the authorities yourself. I won't bother you anymore. If you are interested, please give me a call sometime.

Sincerely yours, Ava."

That was it, the only email she sent him from her email account in the past three days. The authorities? Did she want him to implicate her or did she have a death wish or something?

Jacob shut down his laptop and went into his luxurious kitchen to make himself something to eat.

Draped in an apron, he started scanning through random ingredients in the kitchen. He wasn't hungry, but food was good to distract him. After checking the fridge and finding it stocked full to the brim, he grabbed some leftover pizza from yesterday, along with some cheese and sausage.

After setting up the oven, he headed back into the living room to start watching a few movies.

After about five minutes of watching a movie, which he thought sounded boring, he closed his eyes briefly and thought about Ava again. It seemed like a long time ago that she had arrived, but in reality it couldn't have been more than a week or two earlier.

He wondered if she would try to call him again. He hadn’t spoken to her in quite a while and didn't really know what she wanted from him.

Just then, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Pulling it out, he noticed that it was a text from her. He opened up the text and began reading it.

"Mr. Cade,

Thank you for believing me. It means a lot to me.

Sincerely,

Ava."

It was short, sweet, sincere and totally unexpected. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to react to it. Besides, how did she know that he believed her? It hasn't been up to three hours since she told him that she was a con artist and he was still trying to wrap his head around that.

The most logical thing to do was to stay away from her but was he going to do that?

Yes, he decided. He needed to leave her in the dust and he didn't want to involve himself with a criminal.

But then, he reminded himself, she isn't a criminal. She's just a con artist and he knows that. He could do whatever he wanted, right?

"Oh, s**t," he muttered under his breath as he set his phone down and rubbed his face, "I don't f*****g want to."

He sighed, knowing he had to do something, whether he likes it or not, because he just knew that he couldn't stay away from her. It was either Ava or no Ava and he didn’t think he could handle either option.

Just then, another text comes into his phone, making it blink. He looks at it and realizes that it's from her.

”Hey, one more thing. Can you help me with this next heist? I need your help as a jewelry expert and I promise that it will be the last. I've got a plan too. - Ava."