Susan's face went white. "Marcie, you do realize that we're just a couple of teenage girls, right?
This woman Lee has been scamming people for a long time. Maisie's father couldn't outwit her,
but you think we can?"

"I don't know," I said. "But Jordan doesn't have anyone else to ask."

---

 
13. What About Mallory?
 

When I got to school next morning, Jordan was standing in the middle of the lawn, in front of the office windows, facing the street. The other girls, who were making their way up the walk and into the building, shot glances at her, but no one was rude enough to stare.

I walked over to her. I had the feeling she was waiting for me. Her face was as white as a sheet, and she didn't return my hello. When she spoke, at first I had to strain to hear.

"It's happening tomorrow," she said, barely audible.

I felt the blood drain from my face. I knew what it was, but I couldn't stop myself from asking, "What is happening tomorrow?"

"The big one," she replied. "The last one. Lee Sheppard is going to skin my father alive. She's going to take every penny he's got, and then she'll disappear."

A chill shot through me, and every hair on my body stood on end.

"You need to call the police, Jordan."

She laughed a bitter, scornful laugh. "And what would they do?"

"Arrest her?"

"For what? If I talk to any adult, what's the first thing they'll do? The very first thing?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. What?"

"They'll talk to my father, and my father will tell them that nothing is wrong. And then he'll be angry with me, not that *that* matters, but..." She scoffed. "Anyway, it won't help. There's no one who can help."

I opened my mouth to tell her about Clark Riswold, but hesitated. He probably would help. In fact, he'd probably make the problem go away. Permanently. He'd arrest Lee Sheppard before she took Mr. Fisby's money, and she would never come back. But did I want that? If I told Clark Riswold, I'd be helping Jordan and her father in the only way possible, but at the same time I'd be helping Mr. Beale, and I didn't want that.

And then, Maisie might never come home.

Still, the sight of the usually impassive Jordan, who now stood wringing her hands, her face a mask of pain... it was too much for me.

I told her about Clark Riswold.

"Do you trust him?" she asked me. "He sounds pretty creepy."

"Yeah," I agreed. "He *is* pretty creepy. But he told me I could call Theresa Dandino and she would vouch for him."

"Who's she?"

"A police detective I know."

At the word police, Jordan shut down. "No," she said. "No no no no!"

"Why?" I asked her. "He's not with the police! If I call him, he'll arrest her and she'll be gone."

"Can a private eye arrest a person?" she asked.

"I don't know. I guess so."

"But... to find out if he's on the up-and-up, you have to call the police. And if you call the police, all the adult world is going to get into motion. They have all kinds of rules. They'll ask my dad because they have to, and everything will stop right there."

I sighed.

She went on, "... and then Lee Sheppard will take my father's money, laugh in my face, and disappear. And we will be ruined."

The two of us stood in silence, looking at each other, until she wailed, "Marcie, what am I going to do?"

I considered for a moment. There *was* someone else to ask. If Jordan refused to trust an adult, well... I knew it sounded crazy, but I had to say it. Hesitantly, I forced the words out. "Well... Jordan... if it was me... I'd ask Susan Ash for help."

She frowned, trying to place the name. Then she got it. "Oh, wait... no! Come on! Susan Ash?" she echoed, incredulous. "The Chinese girl in your class? The freshman? The little black-haired bookworm? That Susan Ash?"

"Yes," I said. "She's smart. Scary smart. She's like Sherlock Holmes in a pleated skirt."

Jordan didn't laugh at my joke, so I said (very lamely), "Trust me."

"I don't know," she said. "I'm desperate, but I'm not sure if I'm that desperate."

"Let me see what she says," I replied.
 

---

 

I sat behind Susan in homeroom, and quickly filled her in.

"Do you think we can help her?" I asked.

Susan's face went white. "Marcie, you do realize that we're just a couple of teenage girls, right? This woman Lee has been scamming people for a long time. Maisie's father couldn't outwit her, but you think we can?"

"I don't know," I said. "But she doesn't have anyone else to ask."

"Yes, she does," Susan contradicted. "At the very least, she can call this Clark guy. You can call Detective Dandino and get the low-down on him."

"Jordan doesn't want that."

"I understand, but you can be all hypothetical with Theresa. You don't have to tell her everything."

I considered that for a moment. "I'm not sure that would work."

Susan gave me a flat look. "You could try," she said, and turned her back to me. Class was starting, anyway, so we had to quit talking. I spent the whole period chewing my nails and wondering what to do. Susan, on the other hand, was bent over her desk, scribbling notes, crossing things out. Every so often she'd look off in the distance, tapping her lips with the end of her pen.

When the bell rang, she turned to me with a red, embarrassed face. She said, "Um... if Jordan wants to come to our lunch table today... I mean, if she *wants* to... I might have some ideas — but only... if she wants."

"Great!" I responded enthusiastically. What a relief! "But — oh! What about Blair and Mallory? I don't think she'll want those two to be there."

Susan considered for a moment, then said, "Blair won't be there," she said. "I can take care of that, and kill two birds with one stone."

Puzzled, I asked, "Which two birds? What's the other one?"

"Never mind for now," she replied. "I'll tell you later." She turned to leave, but I caught her arm.

"Whoa, Susan, wait! What about Mallory?"

"What about Mallory?" she echoed. "We need Mallory. Mallory has to be there."

"Are you kidding?" I shot back, but she just nodded, clutched her pile of books, and went to our next class.
 

---

 

Jordan came unwillingly, all the more because she didn't like Susan and Mallory knowing her situation. And yet, she came.

Mallory and Susan were already sitting down. They each had trays of food in front of them, but neither was eating. There was a lot of food on Susan's tray, and from it she set a sandwich and an apple in front of Jordan and did the same for me.

"I'm not hungry," Jordan said.

"It's camouflage," Susan replied, still embarrassed. "Open it up and pretend to eat it. If we're not eating, one of the teachers might come over and ask why."

Jordan made a sour look. She ripped the plastic wrap off the sandwich and took a bite. "Happy now?" she asked.

Susan was obviously very uncomfortable and felt very awkward. She told me later that she wasn't "qualified" to give Jordan any advice (other than to send her to an adult). So, she laid her cards on the table. "Look, Jordan. I'm just a kid. We both know that. But I understand that you're uncomfortable going to an adult. Well... I have some ideas about how we can —"

Jordan interrupted. "What do you mean we?"

It hardly seemed possible, but Susan blushed an even deeper red. In a quiet voice she replied, "Marcie said you needed help. I think that we —" here she made a gesture that included the four of us "— we can help. If you want it. If you don't, fine. Personally, I think you ought to let Marcie call the private investigator, but if you won't, maybe you'll try something else. If you don't like my ideas, fine. You don't have do them. For now, just hear me out. Okay?"

Jordan leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. She had a sullen look, but she said, "Okay. I'm listening."

"All right," Susan said. "There are three things that we'd like to see happen: one, that Lee doesn't take your father's money, two, that your father understands that Lee is a crook, and three, that Lee gets arrested. Point two is the hardest, and probably isn't worth pursuing, and point three needs at least one adult, so let's set that aside for now. We need to concentrate on point one: not letting Lee get the money. If we can make the other two happen, great — and I have some ideas there, too — but if we can accomplish point one, well, that's the main thing. That's the most important point."

Jordan's face looked a little less sullen. Her expression was moving back toward her usual, naturally unreadable setting. But I could tell she was getting interested. She asked Susan, "How exactly do we stop her from getting the money? My father wants to put it in her hands. Even if I took it and hid it, he'd tear everything apart until he found it and gave it to Lee."

Susan glanced at Mallory, who cleared her throat and said, "We're going to pull the old switcheroo. We'll prepare a second bag of money that's filled with cut-up newspapers."

"No, wait," I objected. "Maisie's father tried that, but *he* ended up with the newspapers."

"Right," Susan said. "He did. But we have an advantage that Maisie's father didn't."

"What's that?"

"We don't think we're smarter than her." She let that sink in, then added, "We have to assume that this woman is much smarter than we are, and that she knows tricks we can't even imagine."

She glanced at Mallory, who offered, "A good scam artist is an expert at reading people. When Maisie's father tried to give her the wrong bag, it was written all over his face. He was thinking, Ha, ha, I'm tricking her and no doubt he was checking to be make he gave her the wrong bag. She would have seen all that and knew what he was trying to do."

"How do you know?" Jordan asked in a challenging tone.

"Why do you think it went wrong?" Mallory asked. "When the switch happens, you can't think. You have to be stupid and forget that there are two bags. There's only one bag: the one you give her. What Susan said is important: she is smarter than us, so we have to be stupid enough to not register."

While Jordan took this in, Susan said, "Jordan... if you want to try this, Mallory will drill you on the switch."

Mallory said, "You'll get to the point that you'll automatically give her the right bag, but you'll feel like you're giving her every penny you own. Oh, and we'll need to know what sort of bag your father will use. Do you think it will be a jiffy bag? Or a big manila envelope?"

"I think that it's a big jiffy bag," Jordan replied. "I'll find out. But when am I supposed to do this? And what if she looks in the bag?"

"You have to show her what's in the bag," Mallory replied. "You let her see the money, then you put the money bag away. I'll show you."

Jordan repeated, "But when am I supposed to do this? My dad might look in the bag himself."

"Right," Susan agreed. "You need to sit at the table when they do they deal. This part is trickier."

"I don't think I can do that," she replied. "That woman and I — we hate each other's guts."

"Well, if you can't do that," Susan said, "the worst case is that you change the bag ahead of time. You can put newspapers on the bottom and real money on top. Then your father will lose something, but not everything."

Jordan liked that idea. "I could do that. Then maybe he'll only lose the money that she gave him! That would be ironic." She actually laughed at the thought. Then she suddenly brightened with another idea. "You know what? I could do both! I could hide most of the money, put newspaper in the bottom of the money bag, AND try the switcheroo. If it works, all she gets is newspaper. If it doesn't, she just gets her own money back."

"That's a good idea," I said.

"Yes," Susan agreed, and I could see she was a little nettled that she hadn't thought of it. But she continued. "Okay, so that's point one: not letting her get the money. Now, let's jump to point three: getting her arrested. This ties into the switcheroo, anyway. For this, you need to sit at the table when they make the deal."

"That's not going to happen," Jordan said.

"Maybe not," Susan agreed, "but we can try. How do you think your father would react if you told him that you realized you were wrong about Lee Sheppard, and now you think she's a great person and a good investment advisor?"

I blushed at that, and Jordan shot me a look. I shook my head, and she understood: I hadn't given her away. Susan didn't know that Jordan and I were in transition. She didn't know there were *two* issues with Lee Sheppard: the money and the harrassment. Susan only knew about the money.

"Well..." Jordan began, but clearly she didn't know what to say.

"Susan," I cut in, "Lee was harrassing Jordan, every time she came in. She's a rude and horrible person, and just the other day Mr. Fisby had to tell her to stop. So Jordan can't say Lee is a wonderful person. Mr. Fibsy knows she's not, and he wouldn't believe it."

Susan took this in. "Okay, so how about this: how do you think he'd would react if you said that — in spite of her personal failings and the way she treated you — that you came to see that she is a terrific investor and that she's helping your family?"

Jordan shrugged. "He'd be relieved. He'd be really happy. We fight a lot over Lee and the money, so he'd be glad if it was over."

"And what if you said the same thing to Lee?"

"Phffft! As if! She'd know it was BS. She wouldn't believe it."

"But if you said it in front of your dad..."

"He'd lap it up."

"And maybe he'd let you sit at the table."

Jordan frowned. "Why do you keep trying to get me at the table? Why do I have to be at the table?"

Susan glanced at Mallory, who shifted uncomfortably. Then she said, "Because if you want to secretly record a conversation, New Jersey is a one-party consent state. That means that as long as one person in the conversation knows they're being recorded, it's legal."

Jordan's face lit up for a moment, then went dark again. "And how is it going to be recorded?"

"Just a sec," Mallory said. "Watch where I go and what I do. My backpack is on that chair over there." We watched her walk across the cafeteria. She fished a small tape recorder out of the backpack and brought it back to us.

After she sat down, she rewound the tape a few seconds and hit PLAY. Jordan's voice came out, crisp and clear: "... hide most of the money, put newspaper in the bottom of the money bag, AND try the switcheroo. If it works—" Mallory switched it off. Jordan was impressed.

"Where's the microphone?" I asked.

"It's better if no one knows," Mallory replied. "Then nobody will look at it."

"So," Susan concluded, "if you sit at the table, anything she says can be used as evidence against her."

© 2012 by Kaleigh Way