Date: 1/13/2006, 1:24 pm

Dear Diary,

I can't sleep. It's hard to get yesterday's conversation out of my head. The only other person I ever told was Catherine and that was during the rebirthing case. Yesterday, I think I really only spoke out of guilt and surprise. I didn't mean for that to come up, but once it was out I couldn't turn back…

Grissom is anxious to solve this case. I think he's noticed just how hard this case is hitting. We went back to Mark's house today. At least this time, his parents were home. Turns out they're missing a .22 revolver. That caught our interest, so we once again presented our warrant to search Mark's room and the rest of the house and got to work. While Sara and Grissom worked inside, I checked the outside of the house… They pulled prints from the gun cabinet, and guess what I found buried outside Mark's window? Our missing revolver, freshly buried. The parents wanted it back, but we had to explain that it was evidence in our investigation. They weren't happy, especially that we were "treating their son as a suspect" (which, I'm sorry, but he is), but they also wanted the investigation to be over and Dylan's killer to be found, so they came around.

After it was printed, we took the gun back to Bobby D., and he confirmed that this was indeed our murder weapon. The test bullets were a perfect match to those pulled from Dylan's skull. When we got back to Jacqui for the fingerprint results, she had good news: AFIS spit out a name... Well, two names. The first one was what we suspected. Unfortunately, there was another set of prints overlapping Mark's, and it was out of left field… Stephanie.

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Date: 1/14/2006, 9:45am

Dear Diary,

Today we did an interrogation with Mark. We asked him how his fingerprints got on the gun. He just looked at the floor. The lawyer present advised him to clear his name if he could. He sighed, but said that he tried to use the gun behind the pool house, but Dylan and Stephanie found him and got in the way. When we asked why Stephanie's prints were on the gun, he said that she had tried to take it from him and he dropped it. He didn't want to get in trouble, so he ran. He actually seemed upset.

Stephanie was next. She'd waved her right to an attorney, and when we came into the room to question her, she was livid. The gist:

"What do you think you're doing? What right do you have to butt into our personal lives?"

"Stephanie, Dylan was sexually assaulted, abused, and killed. That gives us all the right in the world," Sara said.

"So you should be investigating his parents, not arresting mine!"

It was at that moment that I looked down at the notes and realized that we had overlooked something. Stephanie's mother was the community club owner. I could feel the anger rising in my chest as I thought of what her mother had done, and I fought to suppress it as I took control.

"Stephanie, listen to me. We're here to talk about you and your fingerprints on the gun that killed Dylan. You were there that night behind the pool house. Wanna tell us what happened?"

"I didn't shoot him."

"Then why were your fingerprints on the trigger, overlapping Mark's?" Grissom cut in.

"Or maybe we should just tell you," sneered Brass. "You and Dylan met Mark behind the pool house. The boys got into an argument, over you oddly enough, and Mark got ready to fire the gun, but you tried to stop him."

"Yeah," she interjected. "From shooting himself."

"Really?" Sara said, disbelievingly. "That's one we haven't heard."

"Yeah, well, he was mad that I chose Dylan over him. So he blurted out that Dylan had been having sex with my mom, but that if I wanted to choose the pedophile over him, then fine... and then he tried to shoot himself. Dylan turned away, but I didn't have time to think about what Mark had said. All I did was try to take the gun from him. He jerked away and his finger slipped and fired twice. The bullets hit Dylan in the back of the head. We got scared and we ran."

At this point, it was Grissom who shook his head and looked at her in disbelief. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and angry.

"If there's one thing I hate, it's people who hurt kids. You see, I would be inclined to believe your story if there weren't two bullets. Two shots in the head indicates anger and deliberate action, not accident. You shot him on purpose, Stephanie, and we know it, so why don't you tell us what really happened?"

She looked as shocked as the rest of us. Sara and I looked from Grissom to each other, amazed that he would show such emotion, especially on a case. Even Brass looked at him questioningly.

After a minute, Stephanie sat back and crossed her arms. "Fine… I told you the truth when I said that Mark tried to shoot himself. I tried to take the gun away, but after a few moments, he gave up and dropped it. Said he couldn't be there any more, and just took off. Dylan tied to take off after him, but I stopped him. I asked him if what Mark had said about him was true. He wouldn't answer, and I got angry. He was going to date me, but he was having sex with my mother! ... Look, I'm not sorry he died, and I'm not sorry that I killed him, but you should be arresting me, not Mom. Can't you let her go, now that you know what really happened?"

"Oh, no," I said. "No, you're going to join her. See, what you didn't let Dylan tell you was that he stayed late every night at work because his parents abused him… He didn't want to go home, and your mother took advantage of that. He was molested, raped, and humiliated, and because of that, your mother's not going anywhere for a long time... and neither are you."

I couldn't take it anymore. I got up and I left.

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