The Brothers Hawthorne (The Inheritance Games, #4)(23)

This was a half-court. Basketball. A girl stood on the free-throw line. Pale blonde hair braided back from her face framed her head like a wreath. Or a crown. She wasn’t dressed for sports. A pleated silver skirt hit just below her knees. She was barefoot, a pair of black heels beside her on the line. On her other side, there was a rack of balls.

As Grayson watched, the girl—presumably Gigi’s fraternal twin—sank three shots in a row.

Don’t interrupt, Gigi had advised him. And don’t comment on the music. It seemed to be blasting from all sides. Tchaikovsky, he recognized.

When there were four balls left, the girl in the silver skirt took three steps back. She picked up a ball and sent it arcing high, straight into the basket.

Three balls left. Two. By the last shot, she was back past the three-point line, and the music had built to a painful crescendo. Nothing but net.

Abruptly, the music cut off. And just as abruptly, Savannah Grayson stalked toward them—and past them—without a word.

“Her room’s this way,” Gigi announced helpfully.

They followed Savannah all the way back down the long hall, only to have the door to her room shut in their faces.

“She’ll be out in a minute,” Gigi translated. “And she says it’s very nice to meet you.”

“Patio.” That word was issued from the other side of the door. Savannah’s voice was high and clear, but her intonation was almost… familiar. “Ten minutes.”

“So it has been spoken,” Gigi intoned beside Grayson in a stage whisper. “And so it shall be.”





The patio was covered, tiled, and larger than most homes. Grayson counted seating for thirty. There was a full outdoor kitchen despite the fact that the actual kitchen was visible through four sets of double glass doors. Twin tile staircases stretched up to a second story of outdoor seating.

To his own annoyance, Grayson caught himself staring at the pool. It was wide in some parts, narrower in others, and curved like a river around twin palm trees, each of which sat opposite a firepit. The water was dark blue, the pool lit, even in the daytime.

A treacherous part of Grayson’s mind conjured up the image of his younger self swimming. He tried to direct his attention elsewhere, but his gaze caught on the pool’s edge—and two sets of tiny handprints immortalized in cement.

“Let me do the talking,” Gigi advised as the sound of heels clicking against tile announced her twin’s arrival.

Savannah’s braids were gone now, her long, pale hair held back by a silver headband. Where Gigi was dimples and animated features that looked almost too big for her face, Savannah was angles carved out of ice. She had Grayson’s high cheekbones, his sharp jawline, and eerily familiar eyes that straddled the line between silvery gray and unforgiving ice blue.

She’d looked softer in the pictures he’d seen of the twins together. Less like me.

“I see we have a visitor.” Savannah stayed standing long enough to cast him an assessing look, then sank into one of the many outdoor dining chairs.

“Sav, this is ‘Grayson.’ He’s helping me look for Dad.” The air quotes Gigi put around his name did not go unnoticed, but Grayson was more focused on Savannah’s response.

“Is he?” Savannah returned. Her eyes locked on Grayson’s, and though her expression was perfectly pleasant, it was the kind of pleasant that called to mind his aunt Zara: a sharply feminine smile that said I could kill you with a strand of pearls. Having taken Grayson’s measure and found him wanting, Savannah turned back to her twin. “I told you, Gigi. Dad left.”

Gigi blew at a piece of hair that had settled over her eyes. “He wouldn’t just leave,” she said mutinously.

“Yes. He would.”

Undaunted, Gigi shot her sister the same round-eyed look she’d used to obtain all that coffee from the cops. “How much do you love me?”

“That question never bodes well,” Savannah replied.

“Grayson and I are throwing a party, but the thing is… we kind of need Duncan’s help.”

“And Duncan would be…,” Grayson prompted.

“Savannah’s boyfriend,” Gigi explained. “Duncan Trowbridge.”

Suddenly, Gigi’s insistence that a party was the obvious next step made more sense. If she could talk the Trowbridge boy into hosting at his house…

Savannah laid her left hand on her knee and her right on her left wrist. Poise. Elegance. “Sure, Gigi. I left my phone in my room if you want to grab it.”

Gigi beamed at her sister then jackrabbited off, leaving Grayson with her twin. Savannah sat in her chair like a queen on her throne, letting the silence stretch out between them.

It was almost endearing, the way she thought she could intimidate him.

“You’ll be gone by the time she gets back,” Savannah decreed.

“That doesn’t sound like a request,” Grayson noted.

Savannah turned her gaze toward the pool. A slight wind caught her hair, but not a strand ended up in her face. “Do I look like the kind of girl who makes requests?”

Grayson thought back to watching her sink shot after shot. Something twisted inside of him, and he felt an inexplicable desire to save her from herself. If you never give, Savannah, someday you’ll break.