epiphany - lydia martin [book 1]

chapter thirty-eight. backstabber

"So this kid's the real killer?" Stiles' Dad asked as we looked at the picture of Matt in the yearbook. It was the day after the party. Scott and I were in Stiles' room, trying to figure out what the connection between Matt and the victims were.

"Yeah." Stiles confirmed.

Stilinski looked at us skeptically, "No."

"Yes!" Stiles argued. "Dad, come on. Everybody knows that the police look for ways to connect victims in a murder, okay? So all he had to do is, like, look through their transcripts and figure out which class they all had in common."

Stilinski nodded, crossing his arms over his chest, "Yeah, except for the fact that the rave promoter, Kara, wasn't in Harris's class." The rave promoter was the person that Jackson killed the night of the rave, which caused the screaming and chaos. Kara Simmons.

"All right, okay, you're right, sorry. Then I guess they dropped the charges against him?" Stiles asked rhetorically with risen eyebrows.

His Dad sighed, "No, you know what? They're not dropping the charges. But that doesn't prove anything." Stiles opened his mouth to argue before Stilinski spoke again, "Scott, Devin, do you believe this?"

Scott sighed, "It's really hard to explain how we know this, but you just gotta trust us. We know it's Matt." I nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, he took Harris' car, okay?" Stiles started again. "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's class, that they'd arrest him!"

Stilinski held up his hands, "All right, fine. I'll allow the remote possibility, but give me a motive. I mean, why would this kid want most of the 2006 swim team and its coach dead?"

"Isn't it obvious!?" Stiles exclaimed, causing confusion among all of us. "Our swim team sucks! They haven't won in, like, six years." He said weakly, causing his Dad to roll his eyes. "Okay, we don't have a motive yet. I mean, come on, does Harris?"

Stilinski sighed, "What do you want me to do?"

"We need to look at the evidence." I pleaded.

"Yeah, that would be in the station, where I no longer work." He said, giving Stiles a pointed look.

"Trust me, they'll let you in." Stiles assured him.

Stilinski rose his eyebrows, "Trust you?"

Stiles looked at him hopefully, "Trust - trust Scott?"

"Scott I trust."

>

"It's 2:00 in the morning." The Sheriff's deputy told us as we entered the station. She had an unimpressed look on her face but she didn't seem all that stern.

"Believe me, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't extremely important." Stilinski told her.

"We look at the hospital stuff first, okay?" Stiles whispered to us.

I furrowed my brows, "Why?"

"Because all the murders were committed by Jackson, except for one, you remember?"

I nodded, "The pregnant girl, Jessica."

Stiles nodded, "Yeah. Since Matt had to kill her himself, somebody from the hospital could've seen him."

"Thank you." I heard Stilinski say before we were welcomed behind the desk. We made our way into his old office before pulling up the security camera footage for the hospital on his computer. Stilinski sighed, "I don't know, guys. I mean, look at this. There was a six - car pileup that night, the hospital was jammed."