“You know something funny, Heiress? My grandfather always said that Hawthorne men have nine lives.” Jameson turned back to me. “Hawthorne men,” he repeated, “have nine lives. He was talking about Toby. The old man knew his son had survived. He knew that Toby was out there. But he never did more than drop hints until he left that message for Xander.”
“Find Tobias Hawthorne the Second,” I said quietly.
After holding my gaze for a moment longer, Jameson disappeared behind a nearby column and came back with what appeared to be a roll of Astroturf and a bucket of golf balls. He set the bucket down, then rolled out the turf. He disappeared a second time, then came back with a golf club and snatched a ball from the bucket. He laid the ball on the turf and lined up his shot.
“I come up here,” he said, looking out at the picturesque woods on the back side of the campus, “to get away.” His feet shoulder width apart, he swung the club back, then took his shot. The golf ball soared off the roof of the Art Center and into the woods. “I’m not saying that I think you’re overwhelmed, Heiress. I’m not saying that I think you’re hurting. I’m just saying”—he held the golf club out to me—“sometimes it feels good to smack the hell out of something.”
I stared at him, incredulous, then smiled. “This has got to be against the rules.”
“What rules?” Jameson smirked. When I didn’t move to take the club, he got another ball and lined up another shot. “Allow me to let you in on a Hawthorne trade secret, Heiress: There are no rules that matter more than winning.” He paused, just for a moment. “I don’t know who my father is. Skye was never what one would call maternal. The old man raised us. He made us in his own image.” Jameson swung, and the ball went soaring. “Xan has his mind. Grayson got the gravitas. Nash has a savior complex. And I…” Another ball. Another shot. “I don’t know when to give up.”
Jameson turned back to me and held the club out once more. I remembered Skye telling me that the word to describe Jameson was hungry.
I took the club from his hand. My fingers brushed his.
“I’m the one who doesn’t give up,” Jameson reiterated. “But Xander’s the one the old man asked to find Toby.”
On the other side of the door to the roof, Eli was still banging. I should put him out of his misery. I looked at Jameson. I should walk away. But I didn’t. This was the closest Jameson had come to opening up to me about what it was like growing up Hawthorne.
I walked over to the bucket of golf balls and tossed one onto the turf. I’d never held a golf club before. I had no idea what I was doing, but it looked satisfying. Sometimes, it did feel good to smack the hell out of something.
The first time I swung, I missed the ball.
“Head down,” Jameson told me. He stepped up behind me and adjusted my grip, his arms wrapping around mine, guiding them from shoulder to fingertips. Even through my uniform blazer, I could feel the heat of his body.
“Try again,” he murmured.
This time, when I swung back, Jameson swung, too. Our bodies moved in sync. I felt my shoulders rotating, felt him behind me, felt every inch of contact between us. The club connected with the ball, and I watched it soar.
A rush of emotion built up inside me, and this time I didn’t push it down. Jameson had brought me up here to let go.
“If Toby’s my father,” I said, louder than I’d meant to, “where has he been all my life?”
I turned to face Jameson, well aware that we were standing far too close. “You know the way your grandfather’s mind operated,” I told him fiercely. “You know his go-to tricks. What are we missing?”
We. I’d said we.
“Toby ‘died’ years before you were born.” Jameson always looked at me like I had the answer. Like I was the answer. “It’s been twenty years since the fire on Hawthorne Island.”
I felt my thoughts fall in sync with his. It had been twenty years since the fire. Twenty years since Tobias Hawthorne had revised his will to disinherit his entire family. And just like that, I had an idea.
“In the last game we played,” I told Jameson, my heart thudding, “there were clues embedded in the old man’s will.” My pulse jumped, and it had nothing—almost nothing—to do with the way he was still looking at me. “But that wasn’t the old man’s only will.”
Jameson knew exactly what I was saying. He saw what I saw. “The old man changed his middle name to Tattersall right after Toby’s supposed death. And right after that, he wrote a will disinheriting the family.”
I swallowed. “You’re always saying he had favorite tricks. What do you think the chances are that the old will is part of this puzzle?”
CHAPTER 16
Wind whipping in my hair, I called Alisa from the roof to ask about the will.
“I’m unaware of any special copies of Mr. Hawthorne’s prior will, but McNamara, Ortega, and Jones certainly has an original on file that you could view.”
I knew exactly what Alisa meant when she said “special,” but just because there wasn’t an equivalent to the Red Will didn’t mean that this was a dead end. Not yet.
“How soon can I see it?” I asked, my eyes still on Jameson’s.
“I need you to do two things for me first.”
I scowled. When I’d asked to see the Red Will, Alisa had leveraged my request to put me in a room with a team of stylists. “Not another makeover,” I groaned. “Because this is about as made over as I get.”
“You’re perfectly presentable these days,” Alisa assured me. “But I will need you to clear some time in your schedule for an appointment with Landon right after school.”
Landon was a media consultant. She handled PR—and prepping me to talk to the press.
“Why do I need to meet with Landon right after school?” I asked suspiciously.
“I’d like you interview-ready within the next month. We need to be sure that we’re the ones controlling the story, Avery.” Alisa paused. “Not your father.”
I couldn’t say what I wanted to say, which was that Ricky Grambs wasn’t my father. It wasn’t his signature on my birth certificate.
“Fine,” I said sharply. “What else?” Alisa had said “two things.”
“I need you to recover your senses and let your poor bodyguard onto that roof.”
After school, I met with Landon in the Oval Room.
“Last time we met, I taught you how not to answer questions. The art of answering them is a bit more complicated. With a group of reporters, you can ignore questions you don’t want to answer. In a one-on-one interview, that ceases to be an option.”
I tried to at least look like I was paying attention to what the media consultant was saying.
“Instead of ignoring questions,” Landon continued, her posh British accent pronounced, “you have to redirect them, and you must do so in a way that ensures that people are interested enough in what you’re saying that they fail to notice when you take a detour directly toward one of your preordained talking points.”
“My talking points,” I echoed, but my thoughts were on Tobias Hawthorne’s will.