Page 21 of Cruel Riches

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I thought someone came into our apartment while Sascha was asleep, because my room is all messed up, but there’s no sign of a break-in apart from that.”

“Do you want me to come up and look around?” Eric asked. “After I check the other cameras, I mean.”

“That’d be good, yes.”

He furrowed his brows as he watched the earlier footage from the front and side of the building. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” he said, glancing up at us. “No one scaling your balcony, or anything like that.”

“Are there any other ways into the building apart from the front entrance?” Sascha asked.

“There’s a staff entrance in the back, but I already checked that on the footage along with the other stuff, and there’s nothing there,” Eric replied. “There’s another service entrance door at the back too, but there’s no camera there.”

I raised a brow. “Someone could’ve come in there, right? Then they could’ve picked our apartment lock and sneaked around?”

“No. Only the super has a key to that service entrance, and it’s rigged with an alarm, so if someone tried to pick the lock or break it in any way, I’d hear it.” Eric rose to his feet. “Anyway, I’ll check out your place and see if I can spot anything.”

He followed us upstairs and inspected our front door before going through the rest of the apartment.

“You were right. Definitely no sign of tampering on any of the locks,” he said when he returned to us in the living room. “Are you sure you didn’t mess up your room like that? Maybe you forgot?”

“I didn’t,” I said stiffly. I knew that was the most obvious answer to all of this, but it wasn’t me.

He rubbed the back of his head and frowned. “Okay. In that case, all I can think of is that someone may have copied one of your keys, and they used that after figuring out a way to sneak into the building. I really don’t know how they’d do that, though.”

“What should we do?” Sascha asked, brows raised.

“I’ll arrange for someone to come and change your locks ASAP. I’d also suggest you go and stay somewhere else tonight, just in case. Can you do that?”

I nodded. “I was going to go back to my dorm at Blackthorne anyway.”

Eric looked at Sascha. “How about you?”

“I guess I can go and sleep at a friend’s place,” she said.

“You could just come back to my dorm and crash with me for the night,” I suggested. “I’ve got a big bed there.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I’m actually wide awake now, so I might just drive around for a while. Maybe go and watch a late-night movie. If I get tired, I’ll go to a friend’s place.”

“Okay. If you change your mind, I’m 3C in Redstone Hall. Just call me when you get there to wake me up.”

Eric cleared his throat. “I better head back to my desk and sort out that locksmith. You two okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Thanks for the help.”

When Eric was gone, Sascha and I trudged down the hall to look at my room again. “Maybe this is all a big deal about nothing,” she said, forehead wrinkling. “I might’ve opened a window to let some air in earlier while I was getting ready, and it’s been pretty windy tonight. Maybe your stuff just blew onto the floor.”

“Did you actually open a window, though?” I asked, lifting a brow.

“I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. Maybe I did and my memory is just really bad.”

I twisted my lips. “Wouldn’t you remember closing it afterward and seeing all the mess on my floor?”

“You’d think so, but who knows? Maybe I was wrong when I said it wasn’t like that when I left earlier. You know me. I can be pretty scatterbrained sometimes.”

“Hm. I guess.”

“It’s like you were saying this morning. We’re just paranoid because of our past.”

“Yeah.”

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