Chapter 35
To my surprise, Stephanie excused herself and stepped into the hall to join us. She was already the talk of the school, and I had no doubt this would add to the intrigue.
"What do you guys want?"
"I'm not sure if you're aware, but Liam was poisoned."
She lifted a surprised eyebrow. "Poisoned?"
"It's not common knowledge yet, so I'd appreciate it if you kept that between us." Stephanie nodded.
Keeping secrets was a way to bond. I figured it might inspire confidence.
“Did Liam ever talk to you about his mother?"
She nodded.
"Did he talk to you about the cause of her death?”
Stephanie shifted uncomfortably and nodded.
“So you know about the drug?”
Stephanie's face tensed with torment. "I don't know what to do," she said in a hushed voice. Her nervous eyes glanced around to see if anyone else was in the hallway. "I loved Liam. We wanted to get married.”
I lifted a surprised brow. Maybe it was just something he said to her.
"I don't know what to do.”
"About what?”
"The only reason Liam slept with Blair was to get access to her husband's computer. David knew the whole time that his drug would cause harm. They covered it up. Suppressed the research. Manipulated the data.”
She wasn't telling us anything we hadn't considered, but it was good to get confirmation.
"Someone broke into Liam’s condo looking for something,” I said. “I'm guessing he had copied the data and was about to blow the whistle.”
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 for anybody to 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.