Shit. Shit. Shit. My phone was up there. I didn’t know what this was, but I needed to be recording it. Who was this man? And was Alice in on whatever this was? I could try to write down what he was saying. That would be better than nothing. As I stuck my finger between the two zippers in the top of my backpack and started easing one down silently, it hit me: my burner phone! I had a burner phone! I could record this!

I dug around as quietly as possible. The man was saying, “My intention was never to steal from them. And that was the beauty of the situation.”

I grabbed the phone and hit record just as he said, “See, they would invest in a share of Capstone. I would move nine-tenths into the actual fund and one-tenth into my shadow account.” He paused. “I was buying options to mirror the return of the Capstone Fund, but actually making more than the fund. So the clients were getting their fair share, and I was pocketing the difference.”

I scrunched my nose. What, now? I was glad I wasn’t taking notes because this sounded complicated, and I wasn’t sure I would get it right.

“Okay,” Alice said. “So the clients were actually making what they were supposed to make, but you were kind of skimming off the top?”

“Exactly,” he said. “So it wasn’t stealing.”

“Sure,” she said. “Definitely not stealing.”

I rolled my eyes and shifted just a little. Squatting on the landing behind the stair post wasn’t exactly comfortable.

“I created an algorithm to mirror the returns, and it worked ninety-eight percent of the time. And who was going to notice the two percent? As it turns out, no one. Not for, like, ten years.”

“So you were making a lot of money off of this?” Alice asked.

My thoughts exactly. I realized that we were in the middle of an all-out confession here. Yeah, my phone was recording, but this might be a good time to get the police involved. I opened a message over the recorder and typed in my mom’s number. She had messaged Merit that she didn’t have her phone, but I knew her iMessage was probably up. At least, I hoped. Mom!!! Call 911 to the mommune right now!!

Then I clicked back to the voice recorder. Still on. We were good.

“Over the ten years, I was saving every single month in the hopes that one day I’d have enough to come here, sweep you off your feet, and get you to run away with me.”

Um. Plot twist. What? My heart started beating really fast. This was someone who loved Alice? And if so, what did that mean about her involvement?

She put her hand on his. “That is so sweet.”

Um. No. Framing my dad is not sweet at all.