“I’m not sensitive, you silver-spooned jerk. I just have self-esteem. And I’m not going to take any crap from anyone, much less some ‘roided-out wannabe master of the universe. Do we understand each other?”
Casterly looked slightly taken aback before recovering. “I like her,” he said to Finn before stepping aside. “Please come in.”
As he closed the door behind them, Hannah took stock of the room. It was a double, though his roommate wasn’t around. The walls had the standard frat guy posters, a mix of athletes and models in bikinis. She supposed that it could have been worse. There was a mini-bar set up in the corner of the room. Hannah noted that it was stocked with top shelf stuff, including a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue scotch and Beluga Gold Line Vodka.
“Did you want something?” Casterly asked, seeing her eye the bottles.
She ignored the question, taking a seat on the bed that was actually made.
“Show me the note you got,” she instructed.
Casterly moved over to his desk and opened the top drawer. He pulled out a sheet of paper with a short paragraph typed on it:Your days of treating people like serfs in your kingdom are numbered. You are a boil on the flesh of humanity. You deserveto be lanced. And you will be. Hope you have eyes in the back of your head.
“Pretty well written,” she noted wryly. “Quite vivid.”
“Hey, I didn’t ask for you to grade it,” Casterly said, showing irritation for the first time. “I want to know who sent this thing.”
“Careful,” Hannah said, pointing a finger at him. “Remember what I said about the asshole factor? It’s making another appearance and I don’t like it.”
“Sorry,” he said, almost sincerely. “It’s just—this is pretty messed up. I don’t have any idea who wrote this or why. I don’t know what I did to piss them off. It’s freaking me out a little.”
“I can see why,” Hannah acknowledged. “But if you want my help, then you have to answer my questions honestly, even if they make you look bad, okay?”
Casterly nodded, though he seemed hesitant about it.
“First of all,” she said. “How did you get this?”
“Someone slid it under the front door of the house,” he said. “It was in an envelope that said ‘Casterly: Urgent.’ I was told that one of the brothers found it and brought it up to me this morning.”
“When exactly?”
“I’m not sure,” Casterly said. “All I know is that it was this morning. When I woke up at 11, it was resting against the door.”
Finn raised his hand as if he needed permission to speak. Hannah nodded at him.
“I checked around after Jennings mentioned the note,” he said. “Kevin Stone found it. He thought it was around 9 A.M., although he wasn’t positive.”
“That’s helpful,” Hannah noted. “So we can assume it was left here sometime between the end of the party and 9-ish this morning. When did this rager last night finally peter out?”
“I don’t know,” Jennings said. “I came up to crash around three, I think. Things were starting to wind down but it couldhave been another hour or more before everyone got kicked out.”
“Okay,” Hannah said, “before we get into who might have left the note, maybe we can resolve this right off the bat. Do you guys have any security cameras in the front of the house?”
“We did,” Jennings said, “but some guys got drunk earlier this week and threw baseballs at it. It got knocked down. We’re waiting for a new one.”
“Some guys?” Finn said, his eyebrows raised.
“I might have been one of those guys,” Casterly said, looking mildly sheepish.
“Too bad,” Hannah said, trying not to sound scolding. “This thing might have been solved by now if not for that. Let’s move on. Did you piss anyone off at the party?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Because the note showed up right afterward,” she said, “which suggests there might be a connection.”
“But we just got back to school,” Casterly said. “Maybe it was someone who was holding a grudge all summer over something from last school year.”
“Maybe,” Hannah conceded, “but let’s eliminate the most obvious option first, then work our way backward. So who did you alienate last night?”
