MARGOT STARED OUT THE WINDOW OF THE LOCAL BUS AS it lumbered through the streets of western Menlo Park. She passed tree-lined parks and fancy houses with highly manicured lawns, but she didn’t see any of it. The only image before her eyes was a photo of a twelve-year-old Amber Stevens posing outside Margot’s bedroom window.
The mystery of who had sent her the photos paled in comparison to that of the identity of the photographer. Peanut and Jezebel were the prime suspects—they’d been Amber’s toadies since junior high. Wendy Marshall and Christina Huang were just as horrible, though a year ahead of them. Rex went to a different school, Tyler and Kyle hadn’t morphed into mindless sychophants yet, and Olivia didn’t start hanging out with Amber’s crowd until eighth grade.
Would Ed the Head be able to help? She certainly hoped so. While she could still hate Amber for putting her through three years of junior high hell, apparently there was someone else who deserved Margot’s enmity. Someone else who deserved revenge.
“Atherton Avenue,” the bus driver cooed in a chipper tone more appropriate to a conductor on the Disneyland Railroad than public transit.
Margot forced thoughts of Amber and the photograph out of her mind as she hopped off the bus and trekked up the street to the public library. She had more important things to worry about.
Margot was a familiar fixture at the West Menlo branch; other than home, it was the only after-school destination preapproved by Margot’s parents. The librarians all knew her by name, all recognized that she was a diligent, hardworking student who wasn’t there to cause any trouble. She’d earned a reputation as someone who could be trusted to, say, borrow the keys to the special collections room without damaging, stealing, or otherwise defacing the contents therein.
Which meant she could get away with murder.
Margot winced. Horrendous choice of words, subconscious.
Perhaps not so ironically, murder was the reason Margot had spent three out of the last five afternoons parked at a table in the far corner of the main reading room, her back to the wall, poring through the personal computer files of Ronny DeStefano.
“Why hello, Margot,” Mrs. Shi said with a beaming smile as Margot approached the circulation desk. “How are you this afternoon?”
“Tons of research to do today,” Margot said, laying the honor roll student routine on thick.
Mrs. Shi clicked her tongue in concern. “They do load you up so at Bishop DuMaine.”
Margot nodded. “And my Stanford extension classes.”
“My, my.” Mrs. Shi patted Margot’s hand. Her elderly skin was tissue-thin. “You need to make sure you have a little fun, too, dear. Can’t be all work and no play.”
Margot forced a smile. “I’m volunteering for the theater production at school. That should be fun.”
Mrs. Shi winked at her. “And an excellent place to meet cute boys, yes?”
Margot blushed. She didn’t even need to fake it.
“Now, what can I do for you?”
Margot tried to look suitably embarrassed. “I hate to ask this, Mrs. Shi. . . .”
Mrs. Shi leaned forward with a conspirator’s grin. “Yes?”
“Would it be possible to get into the special collections room? I know it’s like the third time in a week, but I desperately need to double-check my notes against the Filoli archives. I’ll be sure to leave everything as I found it.”
Mrs. Shi winked again as she reached into her pocket and retrieved a set of keys. “Our little secret.”
The library was one of Margot’s favorite places in the world. A converted manor house with a modern wing added on for the lobby, study hall, and computer lab, the bulk of the library’s collection was housed in a series of winding interconnected rooms stretching from the old wine cellar to the slanted-roofed servants’ quarters. Part haunted mansion, part M. C. Escher print, there were areas that could only be accessed by rickety spiral staircases, adjacent rooms with no connecting doors, and nooks and crannies that looked as if they hadn’t been fully explored since World War II.
As a child, Margot would wander off from her parents and instantly find herself happily lost in a labyrinth of books.
The special collections room was actually an alcove bored into the bedrock next to the wine cellar, accessible only by a metal spiral staircase that shook precariously when used. The special collections room was locked 95 percent of the time behind a thick glass door, except when the special collections librarian kept brief office hours every other Thursday. There really weren’t any books of note in the collection, so it was a rare occasion that someone actually requested access, and Margot guessed that no one else had gone through the collection in over a year.
Which made it the perfect hiding place.
Immediately after Ronny’s death, Margot realized two things: (a) being caught in possession of the stolen contents of his hard drive was as good as an admission of guilt, and (b) said hard drive might be even more useful than she’d expected. If there was a clue as to why Ronny was killed, it might be on his computer. That said, she couldn’t exactly keep it in her bedroom. So she came up with the perfect plan: the special collections room.
The pungent aroma of moldering wood hit her the moment she unlocked the door. As usual, the room was empty, but Margot locked the door behind her anyway.
She kept the stark overhead lights off as she padded across the room, just in case there was a library patron perusing the infrequently visited yearbooks and city council records housed in the wine cellar. She had chosen her hiding place carefully. A bookshelf in the corner held tomes of livestock records from the estate that used to encompass most of the area, massive old ledgers with six-inch-thick spines crammed onto each metal shelf. Margot squeezed her arm between the bookcase and the stone wall, and her fingers immediately found what they were looking for: a magnetic box, attached to the back side of the second-to-last shelf.
Margot was just about to pry the box from the metal shelf when she froze. Outside the glass door, something moved.
It was just a flash, a half second of shadow and light, but in that moment, Margot could have sworn she saw a figure peek into the special collections room, then disappear back into the wine cellar.
Margot fought to keep her nerves in check. Even if someone was out there, they wouldn’t be able to see her in the darkened interior of the room.
Unless they’d followed her down there.
She inhaled slowly, eyes fixed on the glass door, waiting to see the figure again. One minute. Two minutes. There was no motion except the steady rise and fall of Margot’s chest.
Margot needed to get a grip on her paranoia. She’d imagined it, obviously. She was tense and stressed and her brain was on alert.
She shook her head and pried the magnet from its prison, then grabbed a couple of boring volumes on the Filoli estate for cover and hurried upstairs without looking back.
After three days of searching, Margot wasn’t particularly optimistic that she’d find anything of value on Ronny’s computer. So far, his personal files contained the most comprehensive collection of pornographic photos, videos, manga, erotica, and product site screen grabs than she’d imagined possible. The pursuit of sex seemed to have occupied at least 75 percent of Ronny’s brain. She’d been through all of his files and downloads, forcing herself to scan through increasingly graphic thumbnails, just to make sure she didn’t miss anything important, and breathed a sigh of relief when she realized she only had about thirty thousand personal emails left to sift through before she could call Ronny’s hard drive a bust.
Two hours of tedious school and family emails later, Margot’s diligence was finally rewarded. An email response to Ronny from a friend named Chris.
From: [email protected]
Dude, that’s crazy. Old Creed turned up at your dad’s alma mater? What are the odds? I doubt he’ll be there for long. Only a matter of time before they fire his ass. If he couldn’t cut it at Archway, no way some fancy prep school will put up with his bullshit. Maybe we can hurry that probability along like last time? BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA.
Margot went rigid in her chair. Based on the evidence before her, not only did Ronny know Coach Creed from their mutual time at Archway Military Academy, but Ronny might even have had a hand in getting Creed fired from that position.
Which gave Coach Creed a strong motive for murdering Ronny DeStefano.
Margot had blown the investigation wide open.
Fingers tearing across the keyboard, Margot executed a keyword search for all emails from [email protected]. There had to be more information about how and why Coach Creed was fired from Archway. Three hundred and forty-seven emails and chat logs popped up right away. Margot’s hands trembled with excitement as she scrolled down to the oldest email, dating from Ronny’s eighth-grade year. She was about to double click on the file when her cell phone buzzed.
Incoming text from her mom.
I’m almost there, mija. Be outside in the parking lot in five minutes.
Margot stared at the thumb drive. Maybe she should take it home with her and comb through the emails during the “reading for pleasure” portion of her evening schedule? The temptation was intense: it would be Saturday’s library study session with Logan before she got a chance to access the files again. But even the .05 percent chance of her room being searched for a connection to Ronny was a risk not worth taking.
With a heavy sigh, Margot ejected the drive and trudged it back down to the special collections room with the untouched research books. At least she’d have a solid lead to share with the girls at tomorrow night’s meeting, but the 347 emails to and from the mysterious Chris would have to wait until the weekend.
