Trust Me, I'm Trouble

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2015 by Mary Elizabeth Summer

Cover photograph copyright © 2015 by Carrie Schechter

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Summer, Mary Elizabeth.

Trust me, I’m trouble / Mary Elizabeth Summer.—First edition.

pages cm.

Sequel to: Trust me, I’m lying.

Summary: Master con artist Julep Dupree has managed to stay at her private school, but now her life is in danger and, against her better judgment, she takes a shady case.

ISBN 978-0-385-74414-0 (hc) — ISBN 978-0-385-38289-2 (ebook)

[1. Private investigators—Fiction. 2. Swindlers and swindling.—Fiction. 3. Murder for hire—Fiction. 4. High schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Trust me, I am trouble.

PZ7.S953935Try 2015

[Fic]—dc23

2014031426

eBook ISBN 9780385382892

Cover design by Ray Shappell

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v4.1

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Contents

Cover

Other Titles

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1: The Embezzler's Wife

Chapter 2: The Rookie

Chapter 3: The Initiative

Chapter 4: The Contract

Chapter 5: The Concession

Chapter 6: The Program

Chapter 7: The Fallen

Chapter 8: The Sister

Chapter 9: The Stranger

Chapter 10: The Prison

Chapter 11: The Ropes

Chapter 12: The Shill

Chapter 13: The Reparation

Chapter 14: The Quarry

Chapter 15: The Old Man

Chapter 16: The Negotiation

Chapter 17: The Stakeout

Chapter 18: The Blue Fairy

Chapter 19: The Double Down

Chapter 20: The Larp

Chapter 21: The Intern

Chapter 22: The Wake

Chapter 23: The Phony

Chapter 24: The Hit

Chapter 25: The Hospital

Chapter 26: The Deal with the Devil

Chapter 27: The Bar

Chapter 28: The Three-Card Monte

Chapter 29: The Take

Chapter 30: The New World

Acknowledgments

About the Author

For my best brainstorming buddy,

my mother, Elizabeth

I
f I could give fledgling con artists one piece of advice, it would be this: tacos.

Specifically, Cemitas Puebla tacos.

There might be a mark somewhere out there impervious to the fresh Oaxaca cheese and garden-grown papalo, but if there is, I have yet to meet him. The spit-roasted pork, the chorizo and carne asada, the chile guajillo…No one says no to tacos. At least, not these tacos. Which is why they are my secret weapon on my toughest cases.

Holding a bag of taco heaven, I knock on the back door of our very own windowless 1996 Chevy van and wait for Murphy to let me in. Murphy opens the door, the cord of his headphones stretched to its limit. He doesn’t bother looking at me until he smells the tacos.

“You brought me dinner?” he says, eyes lighting up.

“Mitts off, Murph. These are for the mark.”

Murphy grumbles something under his breath.

“Well, if you’d get out of the van and actually, you know, work, the tacos could have been for you.”

“The van is an extension of me. I do not leave the van. The van does not leave me.”

J.D. Investigations, which is the name Murphy and I finally settled on for our PI firm, purchased the van in March for all of the company’s creeper spying needs. Murphy practically drooled on the bumper when he saw the extended wheelbase. I liked the monstrosity for its diesel engine, the price of gas being what it is. But what sealed it for us was the 1-800-TAXDRMY hand-painted on the side. I’d like to see the curious bystander brave enough to peek in that windshield.

“How does Bryn feel about that?” I can already tell you how Bryn, Murphy’s girlfriend for the past seven months, feels about that. Her queen-bee social status tanks any time she gets within a five-foot radius of the van. A type A personality, she is constantly appalled at the grease spots the van leaves wherever Murphy parks it. And her nerd-limit is obliterated every time he brags about the latest gizmo he’s added to it. Or maybe that’s just me.

“Bryn loves Bessie almost as much as I do.” Murphy pets the periscope controls on the surveillance dash he spent six weeks installing. It drove me crazy that it took him that long to get the van operational, but he insisted. His love of geek gadgetry is even deeper than Sam’s is. Was. Is.

Anyway, tomorrow is the start of the last week of the school year and the van’s been used on only one other job. Which means we’re still working out the kinks.

I hop into the back of the van, setting the tacos down on the dash. “A, I seriously doubt that. B, for the last time, we’re not calling it Bessie.”

Murphy opens his mouth to argue, but I redirect the conversation before we can go down that road. Again.

“Any movement?” I whip off my frayed hoodie and slip a brick-colored polo shirt over my black tank.

“Not a blip.” Murphy adjusts a knob. “Maybe this guy’s legit.”

“Maybe. But we’ll find out soon enough.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Tacos.”

Murphy snorts. “An insurance scammer pretending to be paralyzed is not going to get out of bed for tacos.”

“Well, it’s either that or set his house on fire.”

Murphy ponders this. “We could set his house on fire.”

“We are not setting his house on fire, Murphy.”

I miss Sam. He was more than just my hacker. More than just my partner, even. He was my best friend—the person I relied on to keep me from going off the rails. He should be the one arguing that we’re not setting anyone’s house on fire. It shouldn’t be my job to reel myself in.

“Besides.” I slide the temples of my fake glasses over my ears and don a Cemitas Puebla visor I conned the cashier out of. “Tacos always work.”

“If you say so,” Murphy says, tapping something on the tablet he’d had custom-built into the dash. “Camera’s aimed at the front door in case you’re right.”

“I’m always right.” Well, almost always.

I slip out into the dying light, goose bumps prickling my arms in the slight chill of a Windy City evening. Even in May the wind finds a way to make its presence felt. Live here long enough and you start taking the wind for granted. That’s what Tyler used to say. And if anyone had known what the wind was capable of, Tyler had. I shiver thinking of him, of the night he died in front of me. Ghosts don’t haunt people. Guilt does. And on Thursday, I’ll turn all pruny marinating in my guilt when St. Agatha’s hosts a memorial vigil for him.

I stuff thoughts of Tyler into the box in my brain marked Do Not Open and walk up to the one-story bungalow with drooping carport where the alleged insurance scammer lives. If I can prove he’s faking, I get a nice, fat check from the insurance investigator who contracted me.

I ring the bell.

The intercom speaker above the doorbell crackles. “Hello?”

“Taco delivery!” I say brightly, smiling for the tiny camera that the mark had installed with the intercom.

I have to hand it to the guy. He’s not taking any chances with his potential six-figure insurance payout. I’d feel bad about calling out another con, but this guy’s just a dabbler. He’s not really my people. He is thorough, though. Installing the intercom was a nice touch. Most insurance scammers fake their injuries for their doctor’s visits and court appearances and then resume waterskiing the next weekend. This guy is maintaining character even when he thinks nobody’s looking, which makes him a tough nut to crack.

Or he could be legitimately injured, I suppose. The tacos will tell us for sure.

“I didn’t order anything,” he says.

“Really?” I pause, pretending to check an address on my phone. “The order says 675 North Hamlin Avenue.”

“Must have been a typo,” he says, sounding grumpy.

“Man, my boss is going to kill me,” I say, scrolling through my phone with my thumb. “This is the second time this week. And it’s a prepay.”

I pretend to fret, weighing my options. “I don’t suppose you want these tacos? I can’t take them back. Cemitas Puebla has a strict policy about taco delivery time.”

“Cemitas Puebla?” the mark says.

I can almost hear the pros-and-cons debate going on in his head. Risk detection. But tacos…I’ve got him interested. Time for the shutout.

“I’ve got to get back. Thanks anyway, mister.”

“Wait!” he says. “Is it the Orientales?”

“Yes, and the Gov. Precioso.”

A few seconds of silence follow, and then the door opens. The mark—a skinny man in his midforties with a receding hairline and an honest face—stands in the doorway, fully erect and lacking any mechanical aid. Bessie’s camera had better be getting this, or Murphy will be on paperwork duty for the next three months.

“Extra cheese?” he says.

“Salsa on the side,” I say, and hand him the bag.

I could have kept the tacos, I guess, but the man is about to lose a five-hundred-thousand-dollar insurance settlement. He deserves a consolation prize.

“Thanks,” he says, smiling, as he shuts the door.

“No sweat,” I say, more to myself than to him.

Five minutes later, I’m climbing into the van’s passenger seat. I toss the visor into the back for Bryn to pick up later and stow in the disguises compartment. She likes to feel useful.

“You couldn’t have kept the tacos?” Murphy asks when I fasten my seat belt.

“Home, Jeeves,” I say, taking off the glasses.

“That’s not as funny as you think it is.”

I smile around the pang in my chest. God, I miss Sam.