The Brothers Hawthorne (The Inheritance Games, #4)(36)

“That’s enough.” Grayson didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. And still, not a single one of them looked at him the way they’d looked at her.

“Friiiiiigiiiiiiiid.” A guy joined them. He’d apparently been close enough to hear the topic of their conversation, but not close enough to realize that he was, in fact, taking his life in his own hands with that comment.

Grayson took a single step forward, and then Gigi appeared at his side. “This wasn’t what I meant,” she whispered, as a vein pulsed in Grayson’s temple, “when I said dance.”





CHAPTER 30





GRAYSON


So your name really is Grayson.” That was Gigi’s takeaway once the two of them had extricated themselves from the party. “And you’re famous. That could complicate things, but as a rule, I’m in favor of complications.” She led him to a door in another wing that definitely should have been locked. “I am also in favor of lock-picking.” Gigi smiled serenely as she pushed the door inward. “Voilà.”

Grayson glanced at the lock as he stepped into the room. It wasn’t an easy model to pick. “Been planning on a life of crime for a while?” he asked.

“I get bored easily,” Gigi informed him. “And when I’m bored, I learn things. All kinds of things.” The emphasis she put on the word all was mildly concerning, but it wasn’t his priority at the moment.

Grayson scanned Kent Trowbridge’s home office with military precision and a Hawthorne’s eye for detail. There were built-in shelves along three walls, and the spacing on two of them didn’t match the third. The expensive rug covering the dark wood floors had a fringe that was tangled at one corner. All the cabinets and drawers had locks. There wasn’t a single family photo, though there was a painting of Trowbridge himself, hanging just behind the desk.

Gigi made a beeline for the computer. She tapped at the keys, then began searching through papers on the top of the desk. “I’ve known Mr. Trowbridge my whole life. He thinks he’s tech-savvy, but I would bet big money he has his passwords written down somewhere.”

Leaving Gigi to her search, Grayson squatted to observe the tangled fringe on the rug. He flipped the corner back and was rewarded with the key to the desk.

“You are magic,” Gigi declared. She slid across the desk, ballerina leapt to his side, snatched the key from his hand, and had the desk drawers open in three seconds flat.

“Victory!”

Grayson crossed to her side of the desk. There, taped to the bottom of the drawer, was a piece of paper containing at least forty passwords.

Gigi scanned them. “This one’s labeled DTC.” She pointed to a password three down from the top, which began with those three letters. “Desktop computer.”

Grayson considered trying to get between Gigi and the computer but assessed his likelihood of success as poor. Instead, he slipped his phone out of his pocket, took a picture of the passwords, closed and locked the drawers, and returned the key to its original location under the rug.

“Covering our tracks,” he told Gigi. And assuring that I’m the one with the rest of the passwords. As an attorney, tech-savvy or not, Trowbridge would almost certainly have privileged documents password-protected or saved to a secure server. For now, the computer would keep Gigi busy, allowing Grayson to tend to other matters.

One couldn’t grow up in Hawthorne House without learning to spot a shelf that wasn’t just a shelf. It didn’t take Grayson long to locate a hinge—or the release. As soon as he’d triggered it, the shelf opened like a door. Behind it, built into a recess on the wall, was a safe.

Grayson glanced back at Gigi, who was so thoroughly immersed in searching the computer that she noticed nothing. She’s got an external hard drive. Grayson registered that as he returned his attention to the safe. Unlike Gigi, he hadn’t learned to pick locks out of boredom. The walls of his childhood playroom had been lined with them, each one a puzzle, a challenge. And when it came to challenges, a Hawthorne never really had a choice. All four brothers knew how to crack certain types of combination locks.

The only question was if this was one of them.

Grayson brought his hand up to the dial, and then he heard something. Voices, out in the hall. Without a moment’s hesitation, he righted the bookshelf, obscuring the safe. He darted to the door, flipped the lock, then looked back at Gigi, who was staring at the shelves now obscuring the safe, which she had most definitely noticed.

The voices in the hallway drew closer.

Grayson met Gigi’s eyes. She shook her head, then gestured emphatically to the computer and the external hard drive. Her meaning was clear: She wasn’t done. He heard the distinct sound of a key being slipped into a lock. In a single motion, Grayson bounded across the room, grabbed Gigi, and sank with her to the floor behind the desk. She wiggled out of his grasp enough to dart a hand up and turn the monitor off just as the door to the office opened.

“You wanted privacy.” That voice was male, but it did not belong to Kent Trowbridge. “You’ve got it.”

“I just needed a moment to breathe.” Savannah. Grayson recognized her voice instantly. Which suggests the other belongs to a Trowbridge—just not the father.

“You’re breathing just fine, baby.”