Stephanie nodded. After a pause, she said, "He gave me a copy."
I tried not to look too excited. It was exactly what I wanted to hear. "Where is it?”
Stephanie gave another nervous glance around before speaking. "It's on my laptop.”
"Where is your laptop?”
"It's in my locker.”
"Take us to it.”
She frowned and hesitated. "I like Alexis.”
"Alexis who?”
"Duval. If I give you the laptop, her father's going to go to jail. I don't want to do that to her. You see my dilemma.”
"If you don't, there's no telling how many more people could die. David Duval killed Liam. If he didn’t do it himself, he hired someone to do it.”
"Are you saying my father didn't kill Liam?”
"Your father beat him to death with a racket. But Liam was going to die anyway."
She frowned, and her eyes filled. "I don't know how I'm supposed to deal with this. It’s just too much,” she sobbed.
I didn’t have any answers for her. It was a heavy thing for a teenager to deal with. It was a heavy thing foranybodyto deal with.
"You know, Mr. Duval killed somebody before,” Stephanie said through sniffles.
I lifted an intrigued eyebrow.
"That's what Alexis told me. I mean, there's rich, then there's David Duval rich. He makes most of the people in Stingray Bay look poor. He can do whatever he wants and get away with it.”
Stephanie was understandably scared.
“Who did he kill?”
“I don’t know the details. Somebody he was having problems with who tried to blackmail him.”
It could have been BS, but I was of the mind it was probably true. If I could pin Liam’s murder on Duval, he’d go away for a long time. Long enough to pay for all his crimes.
Stephanie finally escorted us to her locker and spun the combination. It was a typical teenage girl’s locker, with pictures of heartthrobs taped inside the door. Trigonometry, English, History, and other books lined the shelf. There were cutesy magnetic knick-knacks stuck to the walls, and it smelled floral.
Stephanie's eyes rounded with disbelief when she surveyed the contents. The laptop was gone.
36
“Does anyone else have access to this locker?” I asked.
“Well, yeah,” Stephanie said. “Megan. But she wouldn’t take it.”
“Why does Megan have access?” I asked, trying to hide my annoyance.
“Because her locker is on the other side of the school with the losers. Totally not cool.”
“When was the last time you saw the laptop?”
“I put it in my locker before lunch. I didn’t have time to grab it before Chemistry.”
