I had a brief and infuriating urge to tell him, to let him protect me, the way he’d sworn he would. But not everything was Grayson Hawthorne’s business. “Where’s this list?” I asked, stepping away from him and redirecting the conversation to the reason I was here.
Oren nodded to Eli, and the younger man handed me an actual, literal list. Names. The one at the top was RICKY GRAMBS. I scowled but managed to scan the rest of the list. There were maybe thirty names, total. “Who are these people?” I asked, my throat tightening around the words.
“Would-be stalkers,” Oren answered. “People who’ve attempted to break onto the estate. Overly zealous fans.” He narrowed his eyes. “Skye Hawthorne.”
I took that to mean that my head of security knew why Skye had left Hawthorne House. I’d promised Grayson secrecy, but this was Hawthorne House. Most of the occupants were far too clever for their own good—or anyone else’s.
“Could you give me a moment with Avery?” Grayson did Oren the courtesy of pretending that was a request. Unimpressed, Oren glanced toward me and arched a questioning brow. I was tempted to keep Oren there out of spite, but instead, I nodded at my head of security, and he and his men slowly filed out of the room. I half expected Grayson to cross-examine me about what I’d told Oren about Skye, but once the two of us were alone, that cross-examination never came.
“Are you okay?” Grayson asked instead. “I can see how this would be a lot to take in.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, but this time I couldn’t muster the will to tell him that I didn’t need his protection. I’d known, objectively, that I would need security for the rest of my life, but seeing the threats laid out on paper felt different.
“My grandfather had a List as well,” Grayson said quietly. “It comes with the territory.”
With being famous? With being rich?
“Regarding the situation we discussed last night,” Grayson continued, his voice low, “do you understand now why you need to leave it alone?” He didn’t say Toby’s name. “Most of these people on the List would lose interest in you if you lost the fortune. Most of them.”
But not all. I stared at Grayson for a moment, my eyes lingering on his face. If I were to lose the fortune, I’d lose my security team. That was what he wanted me to understand.
“I understand,” I replied, ripping my eyes from Grayson’s, because I also understood this: I was a survivor. I took care of myself. And I wouldn’t let myself want or expect anything from him.
Turning away, I stared at the security monitors. A flash of movement on one of the feeds caught my eye. Jameson. I tried not to be too obvious as I watched him striding with purpose through a corridor I couldn’t place. What are you up to, Jameson Hawthorne?
Beside me, Grayson’s attention was on me, not the monitors. “Avery?” He sounded almost hesitant. I hadn’t been sure that Grayson Davenport Hawthorne, former heir apparent, was capable of hesitating.
“I’m fine,” I said again, keeping half an eye on the screen. A moment later, the feed flashed to another corridor, and I saw Xander, walking with just as much purpose as Jameson. He was carrying something in his hands.
A sledgehammer? Why would he have a—
The question cut off in my mind because I recognized Xander’s surroundings, and suddenly I knew exactly where he was going. And I would have bet my last dollar that Jameson was on his way there, too.
CHAPTER 7
At some point after his son’s disappearance and supposed death, Tobias Hawthorne had walled off Toby’s wing. I’d seen it once: solid bricks laid over what I had assumed to be a door.
“Sorry,” I told Grayson, “I have to go.” I understood why he wanted me to leave the Toby situation alone. He probably wasn’t wrong. And yet…
Neither Oren nor his men trailed me when I left. The threats on the List—they were external. And that meant that I could make my way to Toby’s wing without a shadow. I arrived to see Xander hoisting the sledgehammer over his shoulder. He caught sight of me out of the corner of his eye. “Pay no attention to this sledgehammer!”
“I know what you’re doing,” I told him.
“What sledgehammers were put on God’s green earth to do,” Xander replied solemnly.
“I know,” I said again, waiting for those words to sink in.
Xander lowered the business end of the sledgehammer to the ground. Brown eyes studied me intently. “What is it you think you know?”
I took my time with my reply. “I know that you didn’t want to answer my question about Toby. I know that you and Rebecca and Thea were up to something at lunch today.” I was building my way up to the true gambit here. “I know your uncle’s alive.”
Xander blinked, his incredible brain moving at what I could only assume was warp speed. “Did the old man say something in your letter?”
“No,” I said. Tobias Hawthorne had left us each a letter at the end of the last puzzle. “Did he say something in yours?”
Before Xander could answer, Jameson strolled up to join us. “Looks like a party.” He reached for the sledgehammer. “Shall we?”
Xander pulled it back. “Mine.”
“The sledgehammer,” Jameson replied loftily, “or what’s behind that wall?”
“Both,” Xander gritted out, and there was a note of intensity in his voice that I’d never heard from him before. Xander was the youngest Hawthorne brother. The least competitive. The one who’d been in on their grandfather’s last game.
“Is that the way it is?” Jameson eyes narrowed. “Want to wrestle for it?”
That did not strike me as a rhetorical question. “Xander, your uncle and I know each other.” I cut in before any actual wrestling could take place. “I met Toby right after my mother died.” It took me a minute, maybe less, to lay out the rest of it, and when I’d finished, Xander stared at me, a little bit in awe.
“I should have seen it.”
“Seen what?” I asked him.
“You weren’t just a part of their game,” Xander replied. “Of course you weren’t. The old man’s mind didn’t operate that way. He didn’t just choose you for them.”
Them being Grayson and Jameson. Their game being the one we’d already solved. “He left you a game, too,” I said slowly. It was the only thing that made sense. Nash had warned me once that their grandfather had, in all likelihood, never intended me to be a player.
I was the glass ballerina or the knife. A part of the puzzle. A tool. I narrowed my eyes at Xander. “Either tell us what you know, or give me that sledgehammer.”
No matter the old man’s intentions—I wasn’t here to be used.
“Not much to tell!” Xander declared jollily. “The old man left me a letter congratulating me for getting my hardheaded and much less handsome brothers to the end of their game. He signed the letter as Tobias Hawthorne, no middle initial, but when submerged in water, that signature became ‘Find Tobias Hawthorne the Second.’”
Find Toby. The old man had left his youngest grandson with that charge. And there was a good chance that the only real clue he’d left him… was me. Twelve birds with one stone.