Page 87 of To the Grave

“They’ve been digitally archived, but they’re only accessible through the closed network on our system,” he said as we stepped inside. “You're the independent journalists, right?”

“Uh… yep.” I’d forgotten that was the reason Wolf had entered for our visit when we’d booked the time slot.

“Cool,” he said. “It’s a growing field. Super interesting.”

“It is.”

“You looking into a cold case or something? True crime is my jam.”

“Something like that,” Wolf said.

“Nice.” He turned on two of the monitors. “Take a seat and I’ll queue up theFree Pressarchive.”

Wolf and I sat side by side while the kid spent the next ten minutes showing us the search and navigation functions.

“You can print,” he said, “but the computer will keep a record and the fee is ten cents a page if you’re not a student.”

“Thanks,” Wolf said.

The Daily Free Presswas printed in a classic news font at the top of my screen.

I was scrolling before the kid was even out of the room.

Chapter 59

Daisy

The first drops of rain started falling as I crossed the street to the waiting Stingray. Otis jumped out when he saw me and walked around to the passenger side to open my door.

The wind had kicked up a notch while I’d been at work, but it didn’t stop me from appreciating the merits of having a smoking-hot chauffeur in worn jeans and a T-shirt that showed off his defined biceps. I was almost positive he had no idea how hot he was and somehow that made him even hotter.

“You get wet, doll?” he asked when he got behind the wheel.

“Not very. It just started raining.”

“Well, there’s still time,” he said with a grin. “I have you to myself for at least a few more hours.”

I laughed and shook my head as he started the car and pulled onto Main Street.

It started raining harder as we made our way out of town and I sat back in the Corvette’s passenger seat with a sigh. Sometimes it was nice to be driven around like some kind of A-list celebrity, and this was definitely one of those times.

I turned to look at him as he drove. “Have you heard from Wolf and Jace?”

I’d gotten a text when they’d arrived on campus but hadn’t heard anything else.

“Not in a while,” Otis said.

I took a deep breath and hoped they’d find something — anything — to move us forward. I couldn’t get April Hedges, the girl who’d gone missing from Wharton, out of my mind. It was beyond weird that the Beasts and I were looking into what had happened to the missing girls in and around Blackwell Falls while another girl two states away had gone missing after accusing a guy from Blackwell Falls of sexual assault.

Coincidence? Maybe. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that all our questions — what had happened to Jace’s dad and the mystery of Michael White and who was responsible for the missing girls — were somehow tied together.

I checked my phone to see if Ruth had responded to my texts. She hadn’t, and I stifled a sigh and settled into a companionable silence with Otis as I thought about the calls I’d made that day.

Other than Monsieur Laurent, all the VIPs had been happy with the design briefs for their villas. Olivia had been right: Monster Laurent had given me two pages of notes, so many that I wondered why he hadn’t just told Olivia what he’d wanted in the first place.

But I didn’t mind. After renovating and redecorating the Mercer family mansion, I knew all about being particular. The places where we lived were important, personal. What one person found restful, another found boring. What one person found innovative, another found tacky.

And anyway, it wasn’t Monsieur Laurent’s comments on the design brief that were nagging it at my mind. It was something else. Something about the VIPs that I couldn’t put my finger on.

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