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looking in every cabinet. They were acting as Ross and John Rackham, looking for the office safe. I just stood there, watching them in confusion until I remembered what I was supposed to do.
    “Mr. Mahoney will be here any minute,” I said, frowning as I tried to remember my lines. “You two had best stop your nosing around.”
    Ben, as Ross Rackham, laughed. “Calm down, Sissy,” he said. “We’re just curious.” He came over and helped me into one of the office chairs. While he distracted me, Luke, as John Rackham, pulled aside a painting of a sunset to reveal an old-fashioned safe.
    “And … cut!” Morris called.
    I heard applause and cheers from my friends, but my head was still spinning. Morris came onto the set to talk to us while the production assistants moved the painting back over the safe. “Ben, I’d like you to sound a bit more guilty when you talk to Esther,” Morris said. “You’re lying to your little sister, after all.”
    Ben nodded.
    Then Morris turned to me. “Nancy, you wereperfect,” he gushed. “The confusion on your face was completely real.”
    No wonder why! Lucky for me, my stage fright worked in my favor—Esther is
supposed
to be confused in this scene. She has no idea why her brothers are snooping around the office, and she’s baffled by their behavior.
    I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves. I had gotten through that take, but it wasn’t because I did a good acting job. I happened to be feeling the way my character was feeling. But in the next take, I was going to have to
act.
I didn’t think I could do it.
    “Action!” Morris called.
    Somehow I managed to stumble through two more takes. Morris didn’t give me any more compliments—he focused mainly on the Alvarez brothers, since they were the real stars of the movie.
    By the time I had changed back into my regular clothes to go home, my heartbeat had slowed a tiny bit. The nervousness had been replaced by embarrassment. Morris and the Alvarez boys had told me that I did a good job, but I couldn’t help wondering if they were only saying that to be polite. I was convinced that I had made a fool of myself.
    When I went down to the dining room for dinner that night, my dad greeted me with a big smile. “There’s my favorite actress,” he teased.
    I knew what
that
meant. He was going to ask me all about my day on the set, but that was the last thing I wanted to talk about. Time to change the subject.
    “Hi, Dad,” I said. I sat down at my place across from him. “How did your meeting with Peter Wyszinski go?”
    It worked like a charm. Dad’s face grew serious, and I could see that my adventures in acting were forgotten. “It was pretty disturbing, actually,” he said. “Peter hasn’t even been the CFO of Rackham Industries for a month, and already he’s running into major trouble.”
    I frowned. “What sort of trouble?” Usually I wouldn’t give much thought to the worries of corporate bigwigs, but Rackham Industries is the biggest company in River Heights. They employ more people and create more city revenue than anyone else. If Rackham Industries was in trouble, it meant that all of River Heights was in trouble.
    “Accounting problems,” Dad said.
    I wrinkled my nose. That sounded boring. “You mean their accountants messed up?”
    Dad shook his head. “No, I mean someone has been cooking their books,” he said grimly.
    I gasped. “Mr. Wyszinski thinks the accounts have been purposely falsified? Who would do something like that?”
    Dad shrugged. “Any number of people could have done it. The big problem is that there’s no proof. All of this happened before Peter took over as CEO. He doesn’t even know if the books have been altered to hide some kind of overspending by the company, or if it’s a simple case of embezzling.”
    “Then how does he know there’s a problem?” I asked.
    “The numbers just don’t make sense,” Dad told me. “He’s got a new team of accountants looking