Howling to the Heart || Isaac Lahey

46.

I stood behind Stiles who was sitting at his desk in his room with Scott while his dad observed our school yearbook with a red circle drawn around Matt's photo. We've explained to him what we know so far, but I had a strong feeling he didn't believe us.

"So this kid's the real killer?" Mr. Stilinksi asked us with an unsure look on his face.

"Yeah," Stiles said confidently, nodding his head.

Mr. Stilinski looked at us three and then back at the photo. "No," he stated, and I shared a 'I told you so' look with Scott.

"Yes!" Stiles objected.

"No," his dad said more firmer, crossing his arms over his chest while looking down at him.

"Dad, come on," Stiles pleaded, getting up from the chair in front of me. "Everybody knows that the police look for ways to connect victims in a murder, okay? So all you have to do is, like, look through their transcripts and figure out which class they all had in common."

"Yeah, except for the fact that the rave promoter, Kara, wasn't in Harris' class," he pointed out, and that was a valid point.

"All right, okay, you're right, sorry." Stiles put a hand up with attitude. "Then I guess they dropped the charges against him?"

Mr. Stilinksi pointed a finger at him, looking annoyed. "No, you know what? They're not dropping the charges. But that doesn't prove anything."

"H—" Stiles cut himself off, looking like he was ready to explode with everything on his mind.

"Do you two believe this?" Mr. Stilinski asked me and Scott while Stiles groaned.

"It's really hard to explain how we know this, but you just gotta trust us. We know it's matt," Scott said.

I nodded, agreeing with him. "If we can go through incident reports or anything at all that relates to the victims and Matt, then that could be a motive," I pointed out.

"Yeah, he took Harris' car, okay?" Stiles jumped back into the conversation. "Look, he knew that if a cop found tire tracks at one of the murders, and that if enough of the victims were in Harris' class, that they'd arrest him."

"All right, fine," his dad sighed. "I'll allow the remote possibility but give me a motive. I mean, why would this kid want most of the two thousand and six swim team and its coach dead?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Stiles threw his arms out. "Our swim team sucks! They haven't won in, like, six years." I groaned, looking up at the ceiling.

"Okay, we don't have a motive yet," I cut in, looking at Mr. Stilinksi. "I know we need a motive to get an arrest warrant or any warrant in that case, but I've gone through nearly every closed case in this town that didn't have a motive. How many serial killers just kill because they're a sadist and enjoyed it with no motive? Kate murdered my family and that bit—lady had no motive, but the case still got closed. I mean, come on, does Harris?"

"When did you find the free time to look at cases?" Stiles mumbled, looking at me.

"How did you get those cases?" Mr. Stilinksi asked, furrowing his brows.

Ah shit. I nervously laughed, shrugging my shoulders. "The internet?"

Mr. Stilinksi furrowed his brows deeper but looked at the three of us. "What do you want me to do?"

Stiles sighed, looking back at us in relief and then to his dad.

"We need to look at the evidence," I answered. "And basically, everything you have on the case so far."