Page 87 of The Rival's Obsession
Just in time to see her.
But not stop her.
Not catch her.
Not save her.
My fingers hover over the keyboard. Something feels... off. Too rehearsed. Too precise.
Jaxon reads the report beside me, brows low. “You said you were looking for the break.”
“This is it.”
Because even though the father’s name was cleared, even though the case never made it past the inquiry stage—the timelines don’t make sense.
Not unless you account for something else.
Because based on the layout of the house, the study is nearly forty feet from the top of the staircase. William Harrow would’ve had to sprint—full speed, without a single soul seeing him—to get out of sight before Grant found her.
He didn’t.
He couldn’t.
And someone wanted to make sure the report made that very clear.
But the glaring omission slams into me like a second impact.
Grant clears his father.
Not once—not in the witness report, not in the follow-up interviews, not in the press—does he ever mention wherehewas before the fall.
There’s no detail. No location. No denial.
Just a single statement:
“I heard her fall. I saw her on the first floor. I called for my father. He came from the study seconds later.”
I stare at the words, reading them again and again.
Grant never says what he was doing or what room he was in.
He never says he didn’t touch her.
It’s not an omission that screams guilt.
It’s the kind of silence that only happens when someone knows the truth wouldn’t make sense out loud.
Something happened in that house.
I don’t say it out loud, but the words are practically tattooed on my tongue now.
Jaxon scrolls beside me, leaning his chair back just far enough to tempt gravity. “There’s more here. You want me to keep digging?”
I nod slowly, eyes still locked on the cold, clean report from sixteen years ago. “Yeah. But this time, try the nameAshwood.”
He quirks a brow. “Is that your new bestie who wears a full face of Chanel to brunch and looks like she’s planning your funeral behind her mimosa?”
“That would be the one,” I mutter. “Corrine Ashwood. She’s been leeching onto Grant since childhood. If there was ever a moment he was vulnerable—this was it.”
