Trust Me, I'm Trouble Read Online Free PDF

me an application and a pen.
    “Thank you,” I say, and fill out the form.
    When I hand her the completed form, she takes it with an arch expression. “You’ll still have to convince the program director you deserve special consideration.”
    “Who’s the program director?”
    “Dean Porter.”
    • • •
    Murphy enjoys a hearty guffaw at my expense later that night as we’re sitting in the Ballou office, regrouping. I lean against my desk and tap my fingers on the scratched wood, waiting for him to get his hilarity under control.
    “Why is that funny?” Lily asks, referring to my news that I have to get special permission from Dean Porter to get into the NWI program.
    “Julep and the dean are like orcs and elves.”
    Lily looks at Murphy blankly.
    “Meaning they loathe each other,” he explains. “There’s no way the dean is going to let Julep in.”

    “There’s a way. I just haven’t figured it out yet,” I say. Really, he should have more faith in me. I did get Bryn to say yes to his invitation to the formal, after all. If that’s not a miracle, I don’t know what is.
    “Well, while you’re chewing on that, I have something else for you. Which do you want first, the bad news or the slightly less bad news?” Murphy swivels his chair around to grab a couple of papers from his desk.
    I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Why is it never good news?”
    “Slightly less bad is slightly good,” Lily points out.
    “Thanks for the input, Lily,” I say. “Let’s go with the bad news first.”
    “I just wasted the greater part of two days—which I can never get back—following the paper trail for the New World Initiative. Every publicly available document confirms they’re legit. There’s not so much as a building code violation on these guys.”
    “There has to be something,” I say. “Even companies entirely on the up-and-up have a little dirt under their nails.”
    Murphy shakes his head. “I’ve checked property records, incorporation documents, court records, police reports. I even checked UCC lien records. No red flags. Not even yellow ones. And get this…”
    Murphy rolls his chair across the floor. He sets some papers on my desk, turning them to face me. A printout of the pristine Better Business Bureau reviews of the New World Initiative Corporation glares mockingly at me.
    “There are no complaints,” Murphy continues. “Not one.”

    “That’s…weird,” I say.
    “Because it means there’s nothing shady going on? Or because it means there is?” Lily asks.
    I think of Petrov’s pet senator, Tyler’s dad, who ended up in prison, but not before he paved the way for Petrov to wreak all sorts of havoc on a lot of innocent girls’ lives. If NWI has that kind of connection, that’s more power than I really want to pit myself against. Even if the blue fairy lies on the other side, even if Mrs. Antolini is another kind of innocent in need of my help, I don’t know that I can go through another Petrov.
    “What have you got, rookie?”
    “Not much,” Lily says. “Duke Salinger is the founder and CEO. Several articles mention his checkered past, but nothing I found spelled out what that past was. Almost every article was a glowing endorsement of NWI. The only detractors were crazy, tinfoil-hat-wearing types who live off the grid and write manifestos. And even they were luke-brimstone at best. The NWI is just—”
    “Too clean to be real,” I finish for her.
    A quiet moment passes as we all consider the implications of this.
    “Maybe we should just let this one go,” Murphy says at last.
    I skim through the Better Business review. None of them convinces me continuing this job is a good idea. “Maybe we should,” I say.
    “Why?” Lily asks. “You brought down an entire mob. What’s one little pyramid scheme compared to that?”

    I look up in surprise at the note of bitterness in her voice and catch a glimpse of pain before she manages to cover it up.
    “Sometimes a