Page 148 of The Rival's Obsession
Inside—dozens, maybe hundreds—of newspaper clippings. Stacks and stacks of carefully folded articles.
All about Grant Harrow.
Social pages.Forbeswriteups. Society wedding coverage. Gala photo recaps. If there was a piece of media with the Harrow name on it, Corrine has it in this box.
He’s younger in most of the ones toward the front. Late teens to early twenties. Always in a suit. Always with that practiced Harrow smile.
My stomach tightens.
They begin after his mother died. The age. The fact most of them have photos of only Grant and his father.
I pull one out and snap a picture with my phone. Another. And another. I tuck each one back where I found it, keeping them in order just in case there’s a method to her madness.
The newer ones seem to be toward the back. I want to know what happened all those years ago, so I stay toward the front.
“Eve...” Jaxon’s voice is tight. “This is giving serial-killer scrapbook. I’m officially creeped out.”
But I don’t answer. I’m already flipping through more of the stack, scanning each article like it’s a clue. A map. A confession. I’m not even sure what I’m looking for yet—but I’ll know it when I see it.
Why keep all of this?
What does it mean?
I dig deeper, pulling out a dense stack of folded pages, and something clinks at the bottom of the box.
Two busted USB drives.
They both look like they’ve been crushed. On accident or on purpose, I can’t tell.
I cradle them in my palm, staring down like they might whisper something.
“Hey,” I call softly, holding them up. “World’s youngest tech genius. Can you do anything with these?”
Jaxon walks over, squints at them in my hand, and snorts. “I can’t resurrect the dead.”
“Weakling.”
“I can try to recover data. But not here. I need tools. And time. And ideally, no psycho socialite showing up to murder me with her disinfectant wipes.”
His phone pings and we both look at it.
“Shit,” Jaxon mutters, eyes glued to his phone. “She’s pulling in.”
He’s in full-on panic mode now—darting looks around the room like he’s expecting to find a telepad to beam him out of suburbia and into a nice, safe server farm somewhere.
I stay crouched, flipping through the last stack of clippings because I’ve only got seconds left on the clock. We can’t leave here without getting the answer.
“Eve—Eve!” Jaxon whispers, voice shrill. “This isnota drill. She’s coming in. Like, inside the house. We need to go!”
“Two seconds,” I hiss back, snatching the last few clippings and jamming them into my pocket. I’ll sort them later. Or never. Who knows if we’re surviving the next five minutes?
From downstairs, the unmistakable click of the front door unlocking.
Followed by the sharpclack-clackof stilettos on marble floors.
And then her voice, floating up like a ghost from hell:
“I swear I set my alarm this morning.”
