The Brothers Hawthorne (The Inheritance Games, #4)(47)

She didn’t pause, but Grayson’s brain latched on to those words, forcing him to play catch-up as she continued speaking.

“And then he turned and started walking away, and that’s when I saw the gun.” Now she paused. “I couldn’t move. I just stood there, holding what was left of that candy necklace and the flower, and I watched my father and his gun walk up the stairs.”

There was something in the way she paced the words that made it sound like she was relaying something that had happened to someone else.

“And at the top of the stairs, he turned around, and he said words that didn’t even make sense, gibberish. And then he disappeared. Less than a minute later, I heard the gun go off.”

The deliberate lack of intensity in her voice hit him almost as hard as her words, as the mental image she’d given him.

“I didn’t go upstairs.” That sounded almost like a question. “I remember dropping the flower, and then, all of a sudden, my mom and stepdad were there, and it was over.” This time, he heard her inhale, audibly, sharply. “I forgot about it. Blocked it out. And then a couple of years ago, I started hearing and seeing the name Hawthorne all over the news.”

It wasn’t a full two years ago. Grayson pushed down the urge to make that point. “My grandfather died.”

“There was a new heiress. Mystery. Intrigue. A real Cinderella story. Hawthorne. Hawthorne. Hawthorne.”

Grayson thought about what she had said—what she had been told. A Hawthorne did this. “You remembered.”

“In dreams, mostly.”

For some reason, that hit him hard. I almost never dream. The words very nearly escaped him. “You said you had two questions.” Grayson needed to keep this conversation on track.

“I said that I wanted two answers.” Her correction was cutting and precise. She wasted no more time in specifying the first. “What did your grandfather do?”

Grayson could have argued with her, could have pointed out that Hawthorne was not an uncommon name. But instead, he thought of a room in Hawthorne House filled with stacks and stacks of files. “I could not say.” He kept his voice just as curt as hers. “But probabilities being what they are, whatever Tobias Hawthorne did or did not do, it likely ruined your father financially.” That was all he intended to say, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he owed her more.

Couldn’t shake the thought of a little girl holding a single lily and a mostly eaten candy necklace. Staring at an empty staircase. A gunshot ringing in her ears.

“If you tell me your father’s name…” Grayson started to say.

She cut him off. “No.”

Annoyance surged. “What do you expect me to do without a name?”

“I don’t know.” She sounded… not vulnerable. Not angry, exactly. “The last thing he said, at the top of the stairs…”

“Words that didn’t even make sense,” Grayson murmured.

“What begins a bet?” she quoted. “And then he said: Not that.” The girl waited for Grayson to speak, but impatience didn’t let her wait long. “Does that mean anything to you, Hawthorne boy?”

What begins a bet? Not that.

“No.” Grayson almost hated to say that to her.

“I shouldn’t have called. I don’t know why I keep doing this.”

She was going to hang up. Grayson realized that simultaneously with another, more unexpected realization: He didn’t want her to. “It might be a riddle.” Grayson heard a little hitch of breath, then continued. “My grandfather was very big into riddles.”

“What begins a bet?” The girl’s voice took on a different tone now. “Not that.”

And then she really did hang up. Grayson kept holding the phone to his ear for the longest time. He realized that he was dripping water onto the mat, that his skin, still pink from the punishing heat of the shower, was now chilled.

Grabbing a towel, he turned the riddle over in his head, and then he texted Xander. Are you back at Hawthorne House?

The reply came almost instantly: Nope, followed by a suspicious array of tiny illustrated symbols: a party popper, musical notes, a flame, and a crown. But I have connections, Xander’s next text read. What do you need?

“Connections?” Grayson snorted—but that didn’t stop him from replying to Xander’s text. I need someone to look back through the old man’s List.





CHAPTER 38





GRAYSON


That night, Grayson dreamed of a labyrinth. He stood at the center, glass shards suspended in the air all around him. He couldn’t walk forward, couldn’t step back without one slicing into his flesh. In the shining surface of each shard, he saw an image.

The black opal ring. Avery. Emily. Eve. Gigi and Savannah—

Grayson bolted up in bed, a phantom fist locked around his lungs. He tossed back the covers and reached over to hit a switch on the wall. The shade covering the bedroom window slowly rose, revealing that the sun was high in the sky.

He’d slept late.

Grayson checked his phone. No updates on the old man’s List yet—and none from Gigi, for that matter. He considered reaching back out but fought the urge to do so. Patience was a virtue. He’d seen to it that she wouldn’t get anywhere with her search of any password-protected files. That gave him time.