"Inspect WHAT? I didn't steal anything! I'm a surgeon at Riverdale City First Hospital!"

"There's a teenager in the ER with a severed trachea. If I don't operate, he dies!"

I pulled out my phone and shoved the screen in his face, showing him the message from the department chief.

Captain Paulson glanced at it. His frown deepened, and for a second he wavered.

My mother's voice curled with mock sympathy: "Those messages are so easy to fake. That doesn't prove a thing..."

Greg Paulson's expression hardened immediately:

"She's right. If you've got nothing to hide, a quick pat-down shouldn't be a problem."

My fists clenched so tight I nearly cracked the phone screen.

"How long will the search take?"

"Five minutes, if we're quick."

Five minutes. Plus the three already wasted. Eight minutes total.

Still enough time.

I ground my teeth until I tasted iron, threw my bag on the floor, and spread my arms wide.

"Search me. Do it fast."

Two female guards stepped forward and patted me down head to toe.

Jacket pockets. Pants pockets. Every compartment of my bag. They even pulled out my insoles.

Nothing.

I bent down to grab my bag and turned to run for the exit.

My mother screamed: "WAIT!"

She looked like she'd been possessed by Sherlock Holmes himself, eyes bulging, finger trembling as she pointed at me.

"I figured it out! No WONDER they couldn't find anything!"

She lunged forward and seized my arm, terrified I'd bolt:

"At lunch! You INSISTED on ordering that soup dumpling!"

"I thought it was strange. You never eat pork, but today you were scarfing it down like your life depended on it!"

She whipped around to face the guards, her voice piercing:

"She must have hidden the gold inside the dumpling and swallowed it!"

"The gold from the jewelry store is in her stomach right now. I'm sure of it!"

I froze where I stood.

Twenty minutes earlier, my mother had insisted on dragging me to the food court, claiming she was too hungry to walk another step.

I couldn't win the argument, so I bought two baskets of soup dumplings. She ate one. I ate three.

The whole time we were eating, she kept stealing guilty glances at me.

Only at the very end did she wipe her eyes and speak up. "Your Uncle Dwight Mercer owes money again. Dora, please, help him out. Just this once..."

I'd already bailed my uncle out of his gambling debts three times. Seventy-five thousand dollars, all of it thrown down a hole.

I knew he'd never change.