“Austin, what did you find?” Jesse led them into the cottage.
“It’s such good news,” Livy grinned. “Show them.”
Austin took out his laptop and snapped it open. The screen brightened, and he pointed at it. “I found out how to get to the backups. Luckily this service keeps deleted files for thirty days. See these files? Here’s Blake’s original file.”
Livy thrust a paper toward them. “We printed it out for you.”
“And here is when it was deleted and the new file uploaded. And it gives me the IP address—that’s like the location—of where the upload occurred. It was uploaded from the school late Friday afternoon.”
“That would have beenafterhe turned in his paper.” Heather frowned.
“And Blake couldn’t have done it. He was working at Parker’s at that exact time. We have tons of people who can say they saw him.” Livy flung her arms wide triumphantly.
“I’ve done a screen print of the file time stamps.” Austin handed them a page. “And if this isn’t enough for the principal, I’d be happy to go to the high school and login in front of her and show her all this. Or here, I’ll show you how to bring all this up for her on your laptop.”
“Austin, I can’t thank you enough.” She threw her arms around him and hugged him.
“I’m glad I could help.”
Jesse pulled out his phone and dialed. “I’d like to speak to Mrs. Grimshaw. This is Jesse Brown.”
His face clouded. “I see. Well, I’d like an appointment first thing in the morning.” His scowl deepened. “Tell you what. I’m going to show up first thing and I’ll wait until shedoeshave time to see me.” He clicked off the phone.
“She won’t see you?” Heather asked.
“The very important Mrs. Grimshaw is very, very busy. I swear I’ll sit there all day until she’ll see me,” he said fiercely. “I’m not letting this go on any longer.”
“We need to tell Blake.” Heather grabbed Jesse’s arm. “Let’s go to Parker’s and tell him right now.”
Jesse frowned. “Let me talk to Mrs. Grimshaw first. See how this plays out. It’s been such an emotional roller coaster for him this week. Let me see if we can present him with a done deal.”
“Then I’ll bring breakfast over tomorrow and wait here with him until you get back.”
“Hopefully you won’t have to wait all day,” he muttered.
Chapter 19
The next morning Jesse arrived at the school as soon as the doors were unlocked and stalked down the vinyl-clad—and very ugly—hallway to Mrs. Grimshaw’s office. The lights were out, so he took a seat in a chair in the reception area. The receptionist came in and barely acknowledged him with a tiny—no,minuscule—nod.
Well, okay then. It was going to be like that. He was the interloper, the parent the principal didn’t want to deal with. Ah, but she would have to. Or he’d go to the school board. Anyone who would listen to him.
An hour later—an hour spent tapping his foot and getting angrier by the minute at the injustice that had been done to his son—Mrs. Grimshaw came in. He jumped to his feet. “Principal Grimshaw, I need to talk to you.”
She frowned. “I didn’t see you on my schedule.”
“No, you didn’t. Your receptionist wouldn’t give me an appointment. It won’t take long, but I have something you need to see.”
“I know every parent wants to believe their child, but I’ve been in this business long enough to know when there is no way a student is telling the truth.”
He stood in front of her. “And that’s where you’re wrong. Blake is telling the truth. And I can prove it.”
She frowned, shaking her head. “Five minutes. That’s all the time I have.” She turned and strode into her office, her heels clicking on the tile, and flipped on the lights.
He followed her and placed his laptop on the desk. “Here, look at this.”
He logged in like Austin had explained to him, and the backup files for Blake’s account appeared on the screen. “Here are the backups for Blake’s SupremeMax Drive account. The account the school has the students use.” He stabbed a finger at the screen. “See this file? The date and time stamp on it? That’s the original paper he wrote.” He clicked on it, and it popped open on the screen.
Mrs. Grimshaw put on reading glasses and leaned closer, frowning. “I don’t understand.”
