On the drive home, Vera explained a solution she had thought up. They and Jason went to the same elementary school, and the school gave the students' parents phone directories containing contact information for the faculty and other families. Vera's plan was for Jade to text her mother and ask if she still has the directory at her house. She knew that Jason's family hadn't moved and thus still used the same contact information, so all they had to do was contact Jason's parents.
"Jason will deny he has Mike's phone," she said. "We give them the phone number so they can dial it and find where he's hiding it."
"You think they'll believe it was stolen?" asked Jade.
"As long as the phone's there," Vera assured her.
Jade nodded and texted her mother. To her surprise, they did have the phone directory. After a few moments of flipping pages, her mother found Jason's contact information and texted her the phone number. Suddenly, however, Jade felt nervous about calling Jason's house in case he picked up and recognized her voice.
Lani volunteered to call in her place, so Jade reluctantly read her the number, which Lani then dialed.
"Mr. King?"
Lani greeted him as cordially as possible.
"Hi, I go to school with your son. Listen, I'm sure this will be hard for you to hear, but a friend of mine says Jason stole his cell phone . . . sorry?"
Lani's change of tone was concerning, to say the least.
"Oh, you did? . . . No, not at all . . . Certainly. Thank you so much."
The call ended, she turned to the other two and explained that Jason's father had already discovered the stolen phone and had spoken to Jason about it.
Jade was very surprised, slapping herself on the forehead and wondering why she hadn't thought to do that sooner.
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