“Thanks,” I murmured, feeling torn between relief that we could pin a crime on the guy for once and frustration that despite the messages, videos, the weird gift, and the word that stared out at me from the place that had been my refuge, there was still nothing the police could do about me being harassed. Unless I was directly threatened or harmed, or unless they managed to find evidence of who had damaged my car, they couldn’t arrest a stalker just for taking an unhealthy interest in me. It was so damned unfair.

Nate nodded toward the uniformed officer. “This is Constable Mehrtens. She’s been trained to gather evidence from crime scenes. We’re not able to get crime scene technicians out here, so Mehrtens will gather what she can. While she does that, why don’t we head into the main house, and you can talk me through everything again?”

“Yeah, okay.”

I leaned against Blair as we went inside. Grace busied herself in the kitchen, making tea and coffee. Meanwhile, Nate asked for permission to record our conversation, and I granted it. He might be a hothead when it came to his friends and family, but I trusted him to do things by the book.

While Grace served hot drinks, I recounted the whole story from start to finish. By the time I stopped talking, Grace had brought her laptop over and was replaying the video recorded by the security cameras that morning. We all watched, glued to the screen, but only a few minutes after the video showed me leaving, the image was blotted out, as if something had been used to cover the camera lens. A short time later, whatever was blocking the lens vanished, but there was no one visible in the recording. Grace rewound and played the feed at quarter speed, but we couldn’t see enough for it to be useful. Whoever had spray-painted the door had been incredibly careful.

“I want a copy of this,” Nate said. “With our tech, we might be able to isolate part of the perp while they’re covering or uncovering the camera lens.”

“Absolutely,” Grace agreed, and I echoed the sentiment. Whatever he needed, he could have.

Nate turned to me, his expression solemn. “We’re going to do as much as we can to find the person behind this. In the meantime, don’t take any risks with your safety. It would be best if you could stay, at all times, with someone you trust.” He hesitated, then added, “Have you told Liam about this latest development?”

“Not yet.”

He caught my eye and held it. “You should. He’ll want to know.”

Strange how that statement felt like a taciturn acceptance that things had changed for the better between me and Liam.

“I’ll call him when we’re done here.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

LIAM