I gave her my number and Ben's.
"Fine," she said coldly, glaring at us.
"Have a good day, Mrs. Brownell," I said.
"Bye," she muttered as she closed the door in our faces.
"Wow," I remarked. "I don't know who would be worse to be stuck in a room with – that plastic piece of work or biker Stevens. Jeez, with parents like that, no wonder the kids turned out like they did."
"Yep. But none of this helps – we still haven't been able to talk to either of them."
"Let's try to call Leon with this number," I suggested.
I dialed the number, and it rang for a long time, but nobody picked up.
"He's probably spooked," Ben commented. "Doesn't want to answer calls from numbers he doesn't know because he'll think it's the cops or something.
"You're right. So, we need to call him from a number he does know."
"Well, bitchzilla there – excuse my French – sure as hell isn't going to help us, so we can't call from her number or the house number."
"Does this kid have a girlfriend?"
"There's a good chance he has more than one. I've seen him in the hallways at school getting up close and personal with one girl who happens to be a nice enough girl. Maybe we should pay her a visit."
"Let's go," I agreed.
Ben logged into the school's information database from his phone and looked up the girl's address.
"Megan Price. Found her," Ben said as he read me her address.
We got there after a short drive and went up and knocked on the door. Megan herself answered. She was a pretty girl who looked a little too innocent to be associated with the crap we were dealing with. As soon as she saw us, she blushed deeply, and a look of worry immediately crossed her face.
"Mr. Henderson, Mr. James... you guys are here about Leon, aren't you?" she said, her voice shaky. It looked as if she was on the point of bursting into tears.
"Your boyfriend has done some bad things, Megan. Very bad things," I stated.
"I'm... he's not my boyfriend," she managed to stammer, only just holding back tears. "He just... we just hang out sometimes. I don't...I don't know about the bad stuff he does. I'm...I'm not part of it."
"Relax, Megan," I said, keeping my tone gentle and reassuring. "We never said that you were. But today, he was involved in something much more serious than his usual stunts. Today, Leon and his friend William were involved in a shooting."
Her face went pale, and her jaw dropped with shock.
"Are... are they okay?" she gasped.
"They are, but a 10th grader, Kendrick Green, he got shot, and he's not doing so well. He's in surgery now," I informed her.
"Oh no... Kendrick is in my English class! He's such a nice boy! Is he... he's not going to... will he?"
"He's not going to die. He'll be okay, eventually, but it's going to take a while to recover."
Tears were forming in her eyes now. "D-did Leon sh-shoot him?"
"No, he didn't – but he knows who did. He and William know the guy, and they've both run off somewhere. Now we need your help. Do you think you can help us? All we want to do is find out from William and Leon who the shooter is. That's all. We're not going to do anything bad to them. Do you think you can help us with that?"
She nodded, biting her lower lip as she fought back the tears. "But, h-how can I help?" she asked.
"All I need for you to do is call Leon and ask him if he wants to come over here to hang out. If he does, great, we'll talk to him here. I suspect that he won't, though. So, just casually find out where he is, but don't ask too many questions about it, alright? We don't want to put any pressure on things between the two of you by letting him know you helped us, because he and William, they, uh, they might not be too happy about answering our questions."