Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
HARMONY
“C’mon, I know there must be someone.” Harmony, lying on her crappy hotel bed, elbowed Alice where she perched on its edge.
Alice squealed in protest and shoved her away. Pretending to focus on the laptop balanced across her knees, she said primly, “I don’t know what you mean.”
Harmony snorted as she lifted her phone above her head to scroll through more of Brookville businesses’ and residents’ social media. “You’ll have to do better than that if you want to run your own grifts someday. I can hear you blushing over all that hunting and pecking.” Harmony clicked through to a local moms’ group. “And if there wasn’t someone, you’d have done a better job tracking down information on our librarian.”
Instead of leaving Harmony out to dry with him this afternoon. Preston Jones had been her first online research target, after she and Alice had gotten her checked in here and grabbed an early dinner at an Indian place out by the freeway, near the olive processing plant and the big Brookville welcome sign with the motto Olive What’s Brotherly and Beautiful! But the man had like zero social media presence. And he was only a small part of all the work a con this complicated involved. No wonder Alice had given up so easily. That, and the someone , who obviously existed.
Harmony rolled onto her stomach and kicked her feet back and forth, pretending to scribble on her phone. “Dear Diary,” she said in her breathy sex-kitten voice, “today I came to the most boring town in California and met a guy!” She rolled back. “So what’s his name?”
Alice’s fingers stilled. “Evan Sargent. He works at the shelter and food pantry at the Unitarian church.”
“Oh, hon.” Harmony peered at her friend from over her phone. “A church boy?”
“Not a boy. Not with those biceps.” Alice scrunched her mouth to one side, like she was savoring some delicious flavor.
“Even worse.” Alice fell for someone on every job. Sometimes harder than others. And it did affect her work. Not like Harmony—she stuck to one-night stands. No strings. No distractions. No looking back.
She wriggled her shoulders into the lumpy mattress. She hadn’t even had one of those nights in a good while. Not since Zach. And Zach—well, he wasn’t available anymore, was he?
Her phone fumbled in her hands, nearly smacking her in the face. No looking back. Harmony sat up and swept over to the stiff little upholstered chair squeezed next to the window offering a charming view of a parking lot. “You’ll just have to leave him,” she reminded Alice. “Sooner rather than later.”
The sooner the better, if these were the best accommodations to be had in this town. This barely passed as an extended stay suite as advertised. Bed, chair, TV she’d never turn on. Desk that doubled as a coffee station. Sink, minifridge with microwave, and a single burner stove she definitely would never turn on. Shitty art on the ugly walls. On the bedside table, a lamp shaped like—was that supposed to be a cowboy? Were there cowboys in Brookville? If there were, maybe Harmony could find one to help pass one night she was stuck here.
“I know,” Alice grumbled. “And it’s such a waste, because I think Evan actually likes me. He’s started coming in for a second coffee most days.”
Harmony clicked through another Facebook profile with a variation of the perfect Brookville family: mom and dad, their arms around each other and hands resting on the shoulders of smiling or disaffected children. “Maybe he just needs the caffeine because he’s so tired—of living in Brookville.”
Alice threw one of the bed’s thin pillows at her. “Never mind. There’s no one. I haven’t spoken to a single person in Brookville since I arrived.” Still a horrible liar. She wasn’t even trying.
Harmony hugged the pillow to her chest and rested one cheek atop it, smiling innocently. “Oh, you know I don’t mean half of what I say.”
Alice shot her side-eye. “We can’t all be knockouts with every man falling at our feet.”
Not every man. Annoyance buzzed at the back of Harmony’s neck at the thought of Preston Jones sailing right past her today. Her scrolling finger paused as she tilted her head and imagined him falling. Someone would have to shout “timber” or half of Brookville could be taken out in one blow.
Harmony smirked, then told Alice, “That’s not fair.” Her partner in crime could fade into the background, yes—essential in their line of work, especially as Harmony was physically incapable of not causing a scene wherever she went. But with a smokey eye and the right dress for her angular frame, Alice was a knockout herself. Being able to play different roles like that was a huge asset. “You’re so pretty,” she cooed.
“You suck.”
“I do suck,” Harmony agreed, “and also I don’t suck; in fact, I’m wonderful. You love me.” She kicked out her foot to nudge the edge of the bed. “Tell me you love me, Alice. Tell me I’m pretty.” Her toe prodded the mattress, until the laptop jostled in Alice’s lap.
“Ugh! Do you want me to make these other social media accounts for you or not?”
“Yes, please.” Alice had already set up a few, mimicking Brookville residents, for Harmony to start manipulating local public opinion to be more receptive to her grift. This plan relied on more than just tricking Travis Weaver. “You know I need you on this, one hundred percent.” And Harmony needed to get back to work too. Focus on the grave trouble Brookville was dealing with—or would be, once she did her thing.
Conning was all about emotions. The trick was to stir people’s up and make them feel like they had a problem, so when you arrived on the scene everyone saw you as a solution. In their panic, they’d grab on to you as their savior, gladly letting go of logic—and their wallets—for the privilege. All Harmony had to do was craft enough worry over Brookville’s kids rotting away on the internet—people loved worrying about kids being online—and suddenly they’d be begging to host the outdoor music festival Harmony would claim to be bringing to town. The fake festival would ultimately be the trap for Travis.
The fact that he happened to own the VRcade, which she’d use to crystalize all those anxieties into a useful moral panic, was a delicious bonus.
She propped her elbows on the pillow and jabbed a finger at her phone, switching between fake profiles and planting seeds of discontent that would come to fruition at the town hall meeting next week. An article about the dangers of screentime shared here. A comment about the importance of diverse extracurriculars for college applications made there. A fake screenshot of a report on human traffickers using the metaverse to find young victims posted everywhere—this one in particular blended in perfectly among the many paranoid warnings between well-off suburban parents, without any of the real problems others faced, who were convinced entire flocks of kidnappers roamed the aisles of their incredibly safe grocery stores.
Alice prodded Harmony’s thigh with her own toe, her brow wrinkled into neat little lines. “But you’re sure about going with the festival grift? Is that the best way to come at Weaver? What about a multilevel marketing scheme? His wife is already deep into one, something with jewelry.” Alice had done some good current research on the Weavers, at least. “There might be an in there.”
“Mmm.” Harmony dropped a comment about drug deals going down in the metaverse into a conversation among Brookville parents discussing the dangers of vaping. “I did have fun with those for a while. And made serious bank. Women will really go bananas for their unicorn prints.” But then someone took their own MLM pyramid scheme too far, ugly yoga pants became the latest Nigerian prince, and now the whole game was greeted with too much suspicion.
Nope, selling fake festivals was her old standby. If she trusted anything anymore, she’d trust that. Especially when local politicians or other community leaders were the target, and she needed to do more than disappear with a suitcase or offshore account full of cash. This con was her go-to when she needed to destroy a man completely, ruin his reputation, turn everyone against him. Leave him, after all the sparkle and shine of her lies, with nothing but dust. She’d used it on a megachurch with a promised Christian music lineup. (Why let its leader steal from his parishioners to buy cars and planes and new wives, each with taller hair than the last, when Harmony could do it for him and expose to his flock what he was really doing on all those youth group trips at the same time?) She’d used it with an imaginary stable of country stars on an agriculture magnate whose daughter wanted to be the next Kacey Musgraves (and whose factory farm was illegally dumping pollution into the local watershed).
The swindle was as simple as one, two, three. First, get as many businesses in town as she could to invest in the festival as vendors, suppliers, and support. Second, declare the headliner act was pulling out, threatening the festival and everyone’s livelihoods. Finally, get the target to save the day paying through the nose for a new, last-minute headliner.
Of course, Travis would say no at first to such a large risk of his own money—these guys always balked at helping others out. They’d never have gotten as rich as they were if they weren’t in the strict habit of putting their bottom line above everyone else. That was all part of the plan. Only when Harmony pointed out that refusing would ruin their reputations and rob them of their power—all their suddenly struggling friends knowing they could have prevented the disaster and chose not to—did they crumble. They’d suddenly be just as eager to hand over their money as any mark, to hold on to their image as great men by playing the hero.
And of course, the payment wouldn’t actually go to any headliner, because there was no festival; Harmony would use some of Travis’s money to make things square with the local businesses before blowing him her final kiss goodbye: she’d have secretly recorded his inevitable initial refusal to help and blast it into everyone’s inboxes before skipping town with the rest of his cash.
She shook her head. She was sure about this. She’d planned it all out perfectly, and now she had the funds to pull it off with mainstream acts. The biggest names, to take down the biggest crook.
She said with certainty, “The festival is the way to bring Weaver down.”
Alice worried her thumbnail against her front teeth. “This grift means you stay in town all the way until the headliner switch-up. Months.”
“What?” Harmony asked. “You’re afraid I’ll start seeing things in the pattern of this wallpaper by then?”
“You’ll get bored. And using your real name? That’s risky.”
“Just my first name.” Harmony wanted Weaver to realize, once she pulled the plug and his life went down the drain, who it was who had stolen it all back from him.
“It’s risky,” Alice repeated.
“It’s worth it.” Heat rushed up through her, warming her cheeks and tightening her throat. “For my dad.”
Alice’s gray eyes softened. “Yeah.”
Travis Weaver had made his first millions selling an algorithm to a major music streaming app, as the tech world rebuilt from its burst bubble and tried to tamp down the popularity of file-sharing sites. The algorithm was a brilliant, elegant piece of code that served up just what listeners wanted and kept them hooked in for more.
Except he hadn’t written it. His business partner—Harmony’s father—had. And Travis Weaver stole it. Iggie Greene had trusted Weaver, and he lost everything.
He and Harmony had never had much. Her mom had taken a hike before Harmony had even formed permanent memories. They’d moved constantly, always just ahead of eviction. Slept in the car more than one night. But they’d had each other. And her dad had promised once the algorithm sold, everything would change.
And everything had.
Travis said it was her father’s own fault for not reading their contract more carefully. Travis came from a real nice family. His own father was a lawyer. Harmony’s dad had taught himself to code while working multiple jobs through high school. After Travis’s betrayal, he was never the same—drinking, health problems, depression. No insurance to help with any of it. His heart gave out before Harmony turned eighteen. Her dad trusted the wrong man, and eventually it killed him.
After that, Harmony had no one and nothing. Not until she learned to take it.
She jumped over to the VRcade’s Yelp page and began typing a one-star rant about her fake son spending $300 on in-game purchases. Travis Weaver had, like so many tech bros, eventually left the Bay Area for wider pastures. He’d bought a McMansion, run for mayor, and now he’d opened this little arcade that Harmony would, with a wave of her hand, turn into a threat to Brookville’s youth and the key to his undoing. Especially once she started planting stories of people using it for cybersex.
“You know I’ve got your back,” Alice said. “But you will get bored. And then you’ll get in trouble.”
“Well, I’m plenty busy for now,” she reassured Alice before digging through the VRcade’s Instagram feed, swiping through pictures of elaborate gaming equipment and following links in the likes and comments into profiles of other Brookville residents. Launching this big a con was like getting a dozen plates spinning. While singing opera. And juggling. “Town hall soon, to really kick things off.”
Plus, she recalled with a pang of annoyance, she still needed to nail down the festival site. Even if the festival was fake and would never happen, she needed that documentation to convince Travis to get on board—and Preston Jones’s land was now the only available around the town that the millionaire mayor hadn’t snapped up himself over the past few years. Harmony couldn’t have Travis getting that close a look at her dealings and possibly catching wind of anything suspect. She’d take another crack at the librarian once she had everything else in place.
A post from last August caught her eye, and she stopped scrolling. A red-haired boy held up a summer-reading certificate and a prize bag. No one was tagged, but behind a long counter, at the edge of the frame, like he was trying to escape right out of the image, stood Preston Jones. Harmony’s fingers dragged the picture wide, so the librarian filled her screen between the crosshairs of her manicured nails. “And then I bet I can find something to keep myself entertained.”