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    Identity Theft: Book Two in the Identity Mystery Trilogy
    Identity Theft: Book Two in the Identity Mystery Trilogy
    Identity Theft: Book Two in the Identity Mystery Trilogy
    Ebook132 pages1 hour

    Identity Theft: Book Two in the Identity Mystery Trilogy

    By Carolyn Keene

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    About this ebook

    With George and Bess's help, I joined the online group BetterLife to unmask the identities of some nasty cyberbullies who were harassing a friend of Bess's sister online. Little did I know that my sleuthing would lead me into even more trouble!

    Now the cyberbullies are after me. Someone has hacked into my BetterLife account and manipulated my avatar to do things I would never do in real life.

    Now this case is personal. My friends and I need to do some major cybersleuthing to identify the bullies before it's too late!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAladdin
    Release dateSep 13, 2011
    ISBN9781439153413
    Identity Theft: Book Two in the Identity Mystery Trilogy
    Author

    Carolyn Keene

    Carolyn Keene is the author of the ever-popular Nancy Drew books.

    Read more from Carolyn Keene

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      Book preview

      Identity Theft - Carolyn Keene

      Is it just a case of mistaken identity?

      After everything that had happened in the past week, the last thing I felt like doing was spending even more time online.

      I should go, I said, checking my watch.

      Hang on, George said. Don’t you want to check your in-box?

      She clicked to open my BetterLife mailbox. As usual since the virtual Incident, there were tons of new e-mails. But another message popped up at that very moment. The sender was someone called UrNewReality, and the subject line read WHAT IS REALITY? That’s different, I said. Wonder what that’s about?

      George clicked on it, and the message text popped up on the screen in what must have been about forty-two-point type.

      UNR KNOWS ALL ABOUT U. UNR DOESN’T LIKE U. HOW R U

      LIKING UR NEW REALITY SO FAR? B/C IT’S ABOUT 2 GET

      EVEN MORE UNREAL!

      #1 Without a Trace

      #2 A Race Against Time

      #3 False Notes

      #4 High Risk

      #5 Lights, Camera . . .

      #6 Action!

      #7 The Stolen Relic

      #8 The Scarlet Macaw Scandal

      #9 Secret of the Spa

      #10 Uncivil Acts

      #11 Riverboat Ruse

      #12 Stop the Clock

      #13 Trade Wind Danger

      #14 Bad Times, Big Crimes

      #15 Framed

      #16 Dangerous Plays

      #17 En Garde

      #18 Pit of Vipers

      #19 The Orchid Thief

      #20 Getting Burned

      #21 Close Encounters

      #22 Dressed to Steal

      #23 Troubled Waters

      #24 Murder on the Set

      #25 Trails of Treachery

      #26 Fishing for Clues

      #27 Intruder

      #28 Mardi Gras Masquerade

      #29 The Stolen Bones

      #30 Pageant Perfect Crime

      #31 Perfect Cover

      #32 The Perfect Escape

      #33 Secret Identity

      #34 Identity Theft

      Available from Aladdin Paperbacks

      This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

      An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

      1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

      www.SimonandSchuster.com

      Copyright © 2009 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

      All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

      NANCY DREW, NANCY DREW: GIRL DETECTIVE, ALADDIN PAPERBACKS, and related logo are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      First Aladdin Paperbacks edition January 2009

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      Library of Congress Control Number 2008922947

      ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-6831-3

      ISBN-10: 1-4169-6831-8

      eISBN-13: 978-1-4391-5341-3

      1 Hack to Square One

      2 Threatening Words

      3 A Bad Call

      4 Danger in Numbers

      5 Too Much Reality

      6 Special Delivery

      7 Dead Ends and Delays

      8 Message Received

      9 A New Suspect?

      10 Answers and Questions

      11 Unexpected Dangers

      12 A Question of Character

      13 Virtually Busted

      14 Double Trouble

      IDENTITY THEFT

      HACK TO SQUARE ONE

      "You can stop apologizing, Nancy. I forgive you, I promise. Ibrahim al-Fulani smiled at me from his seat across the coffee shop table. I knew you wouldn’t have done such a thing. Not someone as nice and kind as you."

      I smiled back weakly, clutching my cappuccino with both hands. It was late Saturday morning and Barbara’s Beans was crowded, but we’d managed to snag a private table over near the brick wall in the back. That was good. I definitely didn’t want half of River Heights to overhear our conversation.

      Thanks, Ibrahim, I said. Not everyone would be so understanding about this.

      That was the understatement of the year. . . . But maybe I’d better back up and explain. For the past week or so I’d been investigating a case involving some cyberbullying that had spilled over into real life. See, that’s what I do—investigate. I’m pretty well-known around my hometown of River Heights for being ready, willing, and able to solve any puzzle or mystery, great or small.

      And I thought I’d solved this one, too. I’d been called in by a popular middle schooler named Shannon Fitzgerald. She was getting teased and harassed at school after flirting with a certain boy on an online game called BetterLife. In order to get to the bottom of things, I’d signed on to BetterLife myself, creating an avatar named VirtualNancy that looked just like me, from her strawberry-blond hair to her comfortable shoes. My sleuthing had led me all over town. Well, towns, actually—both the real and virtual versions of River Heights. In the end, I’d been able to pin the origin of the bullying on Shannon’s so-called best friend, Rebecca, who was getting back at her for a previous tiff.

      The end, right? Well, not exactly. After delivering both girls, plus a couple of others who’d gotten involved, to the proper authorities—aka their parents—I’d logged on to BetterLife to close out my avatar, only to find my e-mail in-box crammed with angry messages. The game has a feature in which players can post short video clips of their online activities and interactions, and it seemed a lot of people had viewed a video of VirtualNancy harassing Ibrahim’s avatar, hatefully telling him to go back to Iran and even spray painting the words GO HOME on his virtual house.

      There was just one problem. I hadn’t done that. I would never have done something like that. For one thing, Ibrahim is a super-nice guy. He’s the sixteen-year-old son of a visiting Iranian professor at River Heights University. Due to a mix-up, the al-Fulanis’ university housing was delayed for a few weeks, so in the meantime the whole family was staying with the family of my boyfriend, Ned Nickerson. I’d been spending quite a bit of time with Ibrahim and his younger sister, Arij, and they were both great people—smart, friendly, and eager to fit in at the local middle and high schools. Besides that, I’m just not the harassing type (although some of the crooks and lowlifes I’ve busted in the past might beg to differ, I suppose).

      So who had done it? I didn’t know, but I definitely intended to find out.

      Naturally, I’d called Ibrahim immediately to explain and apologize. He’d agreed to meet me at the coffee shop right away.

      I still don’t know how this happened, I mused, staring across the open, airy room at the bank of computer terminals along the front wall. George says someone must have hacked into my account so he or she could control my avatar and make it do that stuff.

      I was referring to George Fayne, one of my best friends, who also happens to be a whiz with computers and anything electronic. She was supposed to meet me at the coffee shop soon, along with her cousin and my other best friend, Bess Marvin.

      Checking my watch, I saw that they were due at any moment. We’d arranged to meet at noon, figuring that would give me enough time to apologize to Ibrahim in private.

      Anyway, I hope George can help me figure out exactly how someone did this, I said. Then it’ll be up to me to figure out exactly why.

      Ibrahim shrugged and took a sip of his mochaccino. I have heard that some hackers do it just for the fun and challenge of it—for kicks, as you might say.

      I suppose that’s true. As usual, I couldn’t help being impressed with Ibrahim’s command of English slang. Then again, he and his family had lived in the United States for a while; Professor al-Fulani had taught at several other universities before being invited to come to River Heights. But in this case, I’m not so sure that’s what’s going on. It just seems too coincidental for it to happen just as I’d solved the other mystery.

      Yes, that makes sense. Ibrahim gazed at me with admiration in his dark eyes. I still find it very cool that you are an amateur detective, Nancy. I’m sure not many people your age can say the same! So do you have any suspects in mind yet?

      Well . . . I leaned on one elbow and stirred my drink, staring thoughtfully into the tiny whirlpool I created. I suppose the obvious place to look would be the middle schoolers I busted for the Shannon business. They’re the ones with an obvious motive—revenge.

      Rebecca wasn’t the only one who’d been in trouble when I turned her in to her parents. Shannon herself hadn’t come out smelling like roses, either, since it turned out the whole thing had been prompted by some major bullying on her part. There were also a couple of other middle school girls who’d joined in on Rebecca’s plot and probably weren’t too happy with me right now.

      Still, this seems pretty extreme for those girls, I mused aloud, thinking over the potential list of suspects. "I mean, we know Shannon is a bully and Rebecca is

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