Jaxon types the name in, pausing only to sip his wine like this is a casual Tuesday.
“She irritates you,” he says dryly.
“She slithers.” I stab my fork into the last bite of cheesecake. “There’s a difference.”
But as the search results populate... there’s nothing.
No mention of the Ashwoods connected to the Harrow family during that year. No press. No records. Not even a passing quote about a neighbor or family friend stepping in during the funeral.
It’s like they weren’t there at all.
“Convenient,” I murmur. “She’s tied to Grant’s entire life, but nowhere to be found during the single most traumatic moment of it?”
He clicks into another archived database, this one more obscure, and hums. “Huh. Okay, this is juicy.”
I glance over. “Please don’t sayjuicywhile we’re digging into dead people’s secrets.”
“A year before Sylvia Harrow’s death,” he goes on, ignoring me, “there was a murder-suicide on the same street. Looks like one of the neighbors.”
But I’m not listening anymore, because my thoughts are already turning to someone else.
Dante.
Where the hell was he?
He and Grant were inseparable back then. Practically glued at the hip by age ten. There’s no way he wasn’t around. Not with how close their families were.
“Pull up Dante’s name,” I say suddenly.
Jaxon gives me a look. “First names now? You sound like a woman ready to spiral.”
“Shut up and do it.”
He opens a new tab, searchingDante Marchesiand filtering for the same narrow window of time.
For a moment, there’s nothing.
And then—tucked in the corner of a blurry, badly archivedPage Six–style socialite blog—he finds it.
“Here,” he says, highlighting the line. “Right there.”
“Marchesi Heir Transfers to UK Boarding School”
That’s it.
No fanfare. No scandal. Just a one-paragraph blurb wedged between an engagement announcement and a charity gala recap.
Dante Marchesi, previously enrolled at The Dalton School in Manhattan, has transferred to St. Audric’s, an elite boardingschool in the UK. The young heir will prepare to begin his studies with the fall semester.
Posted: one day after Evelyn Harrow’s death.
My stomach dips.
A mother dies under suspicious circumstances.
Grant gives the alibi.
Dante disappears overnight.
