upset. So, can you really blame him for being an asshole around you guys?"
Steele nodded, always the peacemaker. "That's all understandable, and I'm glad you had someone to support you aside from Bree. But this can't be ignored." He paused, his brow furrowed. "Obviously, you know I swept your apartment on Friday while you guys were in class."
I nodded because I’d assumed that when he’d given me new keys and a new alarm system.
"Well, I found a partial fingerprint. It looked like someone had done a pretty hasty wipe down and just missed one. A friend of ours ran it through some databases and found it matched Scott’s." He kept his tone calm and even, but his eyes watched me intently. He was trying to read my reactions.
I frowned. "Well... that doesn't mean anything. Scott's been to my apartment a bunch of times. Of course his fingerprints would be there."
Kody made a sound of disagreement. "On your underwear drawer?"
My brows shot up, my mouth parting with surprise. I shifted my gaze to Steele, who nodded confirmation.
I wracked my brain for any reason why Scott's prints would be on my underwear drawer... or anywhere in my bedroom, for that matter. I came up blank. Or rather, not blank but certainly envisioning the same conclusion they'd already drawn.
"How?" I asked in a small voice. "When would he have even had time? He was in the basement with us. Then you guys made him help clean up the bodies, right?" I directed this question to Archer, who nodded.
"We assumed your stalker entered the apartment while we were in the basement," Steele explained, "but what if that really was us who left the door open? Scott came back up when Zane arrived. He used the bathroom to wash his hands and could have done the mirror message then."
"And you were fast asleep," Kody added. "How easy would it have been for him to duck from the bathroom into your bedroom without anyone noticing? He could have raided your drawer then."
I came back over to the island with the bowl of bircher muesli and greek yogurt that Anna had left in the fridge for me. Sitting down on one of the vacant seats, I turned over this scenario in my mind.
They were right. My bathroom at the apartment had been right outside my bedroom and out of sight from the living room. If no one had been specifically watching Scott come and go from the bathroom, he could had slipped into my room unnoticed.
Fuck.
But it didn't add up. "Scott's not my stalker," I said, shaking my head. "It doesn't make sense. He wasn't even in Shadow Grove until I met him this Christmas. Not to mention he’s way too young to have stalked my mom. The timeline doesn't match up."
It was Archer who answered me, his tone cynical but not unkind. For once. Shocker. "So he says. No offense, baby girl, you kinda walk around with blinders on most of the time. Could you even identify ten other students at SGU if you saw them on the street?"
My initial reaction was to be offended, obviously, but then... yeah he had a point. I had become so used to all the negative attention my court case had caused that I'd gotten used to just blocking out everyone around me as white noise.
"Look, it's not definitive proof that Scott's somehow involved," Steele offered when I said nothing, "but we want you to be careful. I ran surveillance on him most of the weekend, and to be honest, he did nothing. Literally nothing. Barely even left his house. But he lives with two SGPD cops on Ferryman's payroll, so..." He trailed off with a shrug.
I rubbed my forehead, feeling a headache building. "Yeah, his older brother Shane or something. Zane warned me about him too—just that he was in league with the Wraiths, though. I figured it was a territorial thing."
Steele nodded. "We'll keep looking into it. Just stay alert around Scott at school, okay?"
"What he said," Kody agreed, carrying his dirty plates over to the sink. "We'll work it out, but probably best if Scott just fucks off back to wherever the hell he transferred from anyway. Just in case my fist finds his nose again."
I glared. "It could be a coincidence," I said, even though I didn't fully believe that myself. "Let's just not go killing people until we're sure, okay?"
Kody grinned broadly. "So you agree we should kill him when the evidence supports it? Excellent."