“But what about what I told you?” I whisper.
He lets out an exasperated sigh. “Yet again, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Preston,” I say flatly. “Cut the crap. Royal knows you’re Mr. D. I already told him.”
He shrugs. “What about it?”
“Let’s start at the beginning. How’d you find me?”
“I was tracking the twins’ cars,” he says. “When they parked on the road for half the night, I knew something must be going down. So I watched until they left, and then I went the way they’d come. And after a while, I found you.”
“No, not that night,” I say. “Before that.”
“He didn’t have a tracker on my car,” Royal says, glaring past me. “I’d just gotten a new one after he blew up the old one.”
“I didn’t blow up your car,” Preston says, sounding annoyed. “Though I wish I had. I would have done a better job, and you wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Then who did?” Royal demands.
“I don’t know,” Preston says with a shrug. “A lot of people want you dead. But you’re right about me not having a tracker on it because you’d just gotten a new one.”
Royal glowers at him.
“No,” I say, trying to get back to Mr. D. “I mean last year. Online.”
“Oh,” Preston says. “Lindsey didn’t know who pulled her out of the house, but she identified the person on the security camera from the front door. I had her show a picture around, and someone at Faulkner recognized you and said you’d transferred to Willow Heights. I showed it to Colt, and he knew you right away. I got your messenger handle from him.”
“I never messaged Colt,” I say, my skin prickling.
“He probably got it from Dixie,” Royal says.
“Wait,” I say, holding up a hand and shaking my head to try to settle the amount of information pouring in. “What are you talking about? I was talking about before that, at the beginning of the year. When you first messaged me on the Faulkner High computer. You knew who I was. And then you kept finding me after I made an account. If you didn’t think I was a Darling, why were you stalking me?”
He sighs. “For the last time, I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about, Harper. That was the first time I messaged you. I thanked you for saving Lindsey. That’s it. I’d never even heard of you before.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “You’re not the Silver Swan.”
He glances at Royal and grumbles, “That’s my screen name on that app.”
“No,” I say again. “You’re Mr. D. I called you that all summer. It was on the jewelry tag.”
“Yeah,” he says slowly. “My dad is also Mr. D, and every other Darling, and all the Dolces, and anyone else whose name starts with D. Just like you’re Miss A. What does that have to do withOnlyWords?”
“I asked the Silver Swan if he knew Mr. D, and if that’s you, you said no.”
He looks at me blankly. “I… Vaguely remember something like that, now that you mention it. It was part of a conversation, and you asked if I knew that person’s messenger handle, and I didn’t, and then we kept talking. I don’t know who that is.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” I growl. “You told me you were Mr. D.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Royal says. “He’s either the Silver Swan, or you were fucking some other asshole all summer and sending me videos of it.”
I look back and forth between them, fighting the rising panic in my chest. “But… If you’re not Mr. D, then who gave me the scholarship? You said you did.”
“I went down there,” Preston admits, dropping his gaze. “You told me to fight for you, that I owed you that much. But someone had already taken care of it when it got there. I can show you the records if you want. I have accounts of all the Darling estate money. I was going to make a second scholarship. Normally we donate one scholarship every year, but we’d already given it to someone else this year.”
“Who?” I ask.
He glances at Royal, looking distinctly grumpy about his presence. “I don’t know.”