I knew he’d struggled in some classes and that he’d had a hard time keeping his grades up, but maybe it’d been worse than I’d thought.
That couldn’t really be that big of a scandal though, could it? Wasn’t that how these things went? I knew Oak Park had the transcripts from my old high school, and my grades had been fine—but that school hadn’t exactly been challenging. I was sure Jacqueline had greased the wheels as much as she had to to assure me a spot here.
Still, I pulled the little black notebook out of my bag and flipped the pages open, then wrote admissions to Oak Park rigged under Finn’s section.
It didn’t seem as damaging as the information I had on the other two, but maybe that was just because I didn’t know this world. The commenters in that forum had seemed pretty pissed about it.
I looked for more info but couldn’t find it, so after I flipped over onto my back and rested the laptop on my stomach, I tried a new search.
Element Investments Founders.
Then I typed in the names of all the people I knew and scrolled through the search results. Several of the websites and articles were ones I’d already visited, but at the bottom of the second page, I found something new.
It was a short piece on both the beginning and end of the company, the only one I’d found that even referenced the firm going under. According to the article, Element Investments was disbanded just over a year after its creation, and it sounded like everyone involved had lost money on it.
Was that why the Princes hated me so much? Because of this business their parents had started with my mom, and the fact that it went under?
That didn’t make any sense though. Jacqueline had told me the Prescotts were one of the richest families in Roseland, so it wasn’t like they’d suffered from the loss.
Although… hadn’t she also said that the Van Burens had dealt with some money issues a while ago? Could that be related to Element Investments? Had they had more on the line than the others somehow?
Tugging my bottom lip between my teeth, I lifted my head off the pillow a little, leaning toward the screen as I continued to read. The sun had gone down while I was studying, and I hadn’t bothered to turn on a light yet, so the glow of my laptop was the only thing illuminating the room.
The piece was short, and obviously no one involved had been interviewed, because details were sparse—but the article seemed to be a general precaution against mixing business with friendship. At the very bottom of the page, there was a picture of a group of smiling people gathered around a sign that read Element Investments. There were no babies present in this picture, unlike in the photo in my grandparents’ hallway, but I was sure they’d both been taken around the same time.
The extra man was in this picture, the one whose name I hadn’t been able to find out. But the caption below the image listed each person individually, and I scanned the screen with my finger until I found his. Adam Pierce.
Huh. Why don’t your kids go to this school with all the others, Adam?
Maybe they’d graduated already, or were too young to attend. Or maybe they were here, and had been cut out by the Princes like I had been for some reason. I should be able to find a current student roster and search for any Pierces.
Still chewing on that thought, I grabbed my notebook and pen. Under Mason’s name, I scribbled family has money problems. And on a separate page, since I wasn’t quite sure where to put it, I added who is Adam Pierce? does he have kids? where’s that legacy?
I Googled the name, but there were thousands of Adam Pierces in the country, and I couldn’t narrow it down far enough to find the one I wanted.
Exhausted, my eyes stinging from staring at a screen too long, I closed the lid of the laptop and blinked into the sudden darkness. I’d gotten sucked into the rabbit hole of the internet, and it had to be close to midnight by now. Yawning, I set my computer on the coffee table and sat up to stretch—but as I did, movement on the lawn outside caught my eye.
I froze, peering out at the dimly lit grounds.
Yup. I hadn’t imagined it.
Figures were crossing furtively across the