Page 75 of Priceless
Raina came back in, waving the pocket-sized slice of pain.
“Don’t turn it on!”
She stopped in her tracks and called me a chicken-shit with her face.
“I’m serious, Raina. Don’t turn it on. I swear I will have a heart attack and die just so you’ll feel guilty for the rest of your life. Don’t think I can’t do it. I’ve practiced.”
“Practiced?”
“On that boat. When the killer whales came. In fact, I feel like they’re swimming up to the front door, right now.”
She rolled her eyes and turned the phone on. The little jingle played and I ran to the sink, sure those last two pizzas were coming up again, even though I’d eaten one of them yesterday.
“Wow. Your acting skills have improved.” She came up behind me. “Unlock this and show me how to text Jocko.”
“And then you’ll let me turn it off again?”
“As soon as we figure out how he conned you.” She pushed it into my hand. “Unlock it.”
“He probably hasn’t tried to call. The joke was over when I left, right?” I slid my finger in a pattern and unlocked it, then pushed the phone back into her hands. “I don’t want to look.”
“Wow. No. He hasn’t tried to call at all.”
My heart tried to fall out the front of my chest. “See?”
“Only forty-one times.”
“Forty-one times? You’re lying.”
She turned the phone to show me, then looked again. “Sixteen texts. He just doesn’t want to give it up. Probably thinks you have a lot of money. You told him about the business, didn’t you?” She pushed my hand away. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to read them right now.” She flicked her finger up the screen. “Four texts from Whitney. Ten from me. And one from this other long number with a U.K. code.”
“What’s a U.K. code?”
“Four-four.”
“Jocko’s code starts with 011.”
“011-44 Something?”
“Yeah.”
“That explains it.”
“What?”
“That’s aphone number.The 011 sends the call out of the US, then the country, which is the 44. The 7 means it’s a mobile number. The rest is his number. You were texting Jocko justlike you said. But it wasn’t some AI program. Weren’t you even suspicious?”
I tried to defend myself. “It doesn’t look like a phone number.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “How can you possibly be my sister?”
“I must have gotten the looks.”
“Okay. So. You haven’t told him you know?”
“I’m sure he’s figured it out by now.”
“If that was true, he wouldn’t keep calling. Maybe if he knows for sure that he’s busted, he’ll stop calling.”
