Page 88 of To the Grave

“You good?” Otis asked. I’d gotten used to the Beasts doing that: seeming to read my mind, sensing when I was thinking about something and sometimes even knowing the exact thing I was thinking about. “Good day at work?”

I nodded. “I had a lot of calls.”

I didn’t know how to tell him what I couldn’t articulate.

“I know I’m not the best at this,” he said, looking over at me before glancing back at the road, “but am I missing something?”

I shook my head. “Nothing I can explain. Just a weird feeling.”

“Weird feelings definitely aren’t my area of expertise,” he said.

I smiled. “That’s okay. I’m glad you’re here, and for what it’s worth, I’m glad you’ll have me all to yourself for a few hours.”

I loved being with the Beasts together, but it was always nice to get alone time with each of them too.

He put his hand on my knee and slid it up my thigh, under the pencil skirt I’d worn to work. “You are?”

“I am.” I removed his hand with a squeeze. “But you should keep both hands on the wheel. It’s really starting to come down.”

Chapter 60

Wolf

I’d never done as much research — on anything — as I’d done in the weeks since we’d started looking for Jace’s dad. I’d always liked libraries. Now I wondered if I would ever want to enter one again.

I started with a search of each issue ofThe Daily Free Press: Michael White. When that didn’t turn up a result, I had no choice but to scroll through endless back issues, skimming the text for anything that might be important — I looked for references to the law school, law review, debate team, graduate programs, and anything else that might point to White — and looking closely at the pictures that accompanied the articles.

Some of them were obvious duds: pictures of buildings on campus and off, pictures of female students interviewed for articles on campus assault and affirmative action, pictures of faculty.

Others took longer to comb, especially the ones that featured groups of students congregating in local settings or having their pictures taken as part of a club or Greek life.

I lost track of time, the room eerily silent except for the hum of the building's heating system and the tap of keys as Jace worked next to me. Every now and then we’d ask each other a question or point something out on our screens, but none of it seemed to get us closer to what had happened to Michael White after he’d left Wharton for grad school in Boston.

Muzak played at a low volume in the back of mind, the kind you might hear on an elevator in an old building.

At some point the woman who’d entered with us walked past the glass wall of our room, obviously finished with her research. I had no idea how long we’d been scrolling through the archives when I stopped at a picture accompanying an article with the headline:MBA Students Join Chamber for Fundraiser.

A group of about twenty-five people stood together, looking at the camera in front of a partially blocked Chamber of Commerce sign. Some of them wore suits, others khakis and button-down shirts. They looked like poster children for Future Rich Assholes of America.

I started in the back, leaning in to look closely at the faces of the men. I was almost to the end of the back row when my pulse ratcheted up a notch.

What the fuck?

I expanded the picture, thinking maybe I was wrong, but nope.

Gone was the scruffy, chubby kid from the Blackwell High yearbook, the one who’d posed with Mac and Arlo. This guy was older, lean, clean-cut and confident.

The kid from Blackwell had been beaten down, lost. The MBA student in the photograph was ready to take on the world from behind a sharp jaw and a shrewd gaze.

But there was something else. I knew this guy.

And not just from the Blackwell High yearbook.

“I don’t fucking believe it.”

Jace looked up from his screen. “What?”

“It’s him,” I said. “It’s Michael White.”

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