60. Wolf
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 of The 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.”
“The fuck you say.”
“I’m telling you, it’s him.” I pointed to the guy at the end of the back row. “Add thirty pounds and subtract ten years.”
Jace leaned in. “Fuck me.”
“Notice anything else?” I asked.
Jace studied the picture. “Fuck me twice. Is this that rich asshole who tried to rape Daisy outside the Mill?”
“Sure looks likes him, except…”
“It can’t be.” Jace minimized the picture to normal size, then scrolled up to see the date on the article. “This was thirty years ago. Gray Cantwell wasn’t even born yet.”
I scrolled back down to the caption: MBA Students Pose with Chamber Members .
And then a list of names. I almost stopped breathing when I saw the name of the guy at the end of the last row.
“The motherfucker changed his name when he left Wharton,” Jace said.
The guy in the picture wasn’t listed as Michael White and he definitely wasn’t listed as Gray Cantwell.
He was listed as Piers Cantwell, Gray’s father.
Daisy’s boss.