The Brothers Hawthorne (The Inheritance Games, #4)(65)

Jameson turned, rather than trying to keep his face blank. “I’m playing for myself.” That would have been true, back at the start, but now? Unwilling to dwell on the thought, Jameson returned his attention to the room.

The table. The fireplace. The logs. The design on the ceiling. The book on the window. It was the last of these that caught his attention and held it. Let the rest of the players think I’m dealing with daddy issues. Hawthornes have granddaddy issues instead.

Issues like the fact that part of Jameson’s brain would always look at the world in layers, would always question the purpose behind any action that seemed, on the surface, to have none.

Actions like Rohan bringing a book into this room—and leaving it here.

Allowing himself to look angry, maybe even hurt, Jameson faced the window… and subtly picked up the book.

The Smugglers’ Caves and Other Stories. It took nothing more than looking at the cover to determine that what he held in his hands was a collection of children’s stories—old ones. Now why, Jameson thought, not bothering to mask the smile on his face now that his back was to the room, would Rohan be reading this?

Immediately, his brain started going back through everything the Factotum had said about the Game. It would hardly be sporting, he’d told Zella, if I hadn’t given you everything you needed to win.

Jameson’s adrenaline surged. The Game? It wasn’t hide-and-seek. It’s Saturday morning. Not exactly—but Rohan had left a clue. Maybe more than one. Jameson’s brain latched on to something else that Rohan had said, when delivering the rules. Leave no stone unturned but smuggle nothing out.

The bastard had used the word smuggle. He’d left this book here. Jameson looked out the window—for real, this time, and let his eyes take in the grand scope of what he saw. Vantage wasn’t just built on a hill. It was built on a cliff, overlooking a large body of water.

The kind of body of water on which smugglers sailed, Jameson thought. He looked back down at the book in his hands. What are the chances that if we scale down the cliff, we’ll find caves?

Knowing better than to cast his lot on a single interpretation, Jameson subtly examined the book. Avery came to stand behind him. She wrapped her arms around his torso, in what likely passed for a gesture of comfort, and looked around him, to the book.

He hadn’t fooled her.

Jameson thumbed through the pages of the book, and when something fell out, he caught it before it could fall far. A pressed flower. Jameson turned that over in his mind. A poppy.

“Keep going,” Avery murmured behind him, soft words, charged ones, for only his ears.

Jameson kept going. On the back inside cover of the book, he found two words, scripted in familiar dark purple ink.

Ladies first.





CHAPTER 53





GRAYSON


Grayson stared at the photograph. He looked about sixteen in it. He was on a public street, alone. Based on the angle of the photo, it had been taking by an observer at least one story up.

A PI? Or Sheffield Grayson himself?

“This is you,” Gigi said, picking up the picture. She cradled it in her hand for a minute, then turned her attention back to the box. “And you,” she continued, lifting another photo out. “And you.”

Each photo was another slice of the knife. Suddenly, all he could hear was Acacia asking him, Do you ever play what-if, Grayson?

No, he didn’t. He wouldn’t. Assess the situation. Grayson fell back on familiar thought patterns and took a step closer to the box. It was full of photographs. Dozens of them.

“And you?” Gigi asked him, picking up a picture of him at eight.

Martial arts competition. Photographer was somewhere in the crowd. Grayson continued his assessment and parted with one and only one word in response to Gigi’s question. “Yes.”

This made no sense.

No amount of assessing this situation could make it make sense. Sheffield Grayson had a safe-deposit box full of pictures of me. His throat tightened.

“I think we’ve seen enough.” Savannah went to flip the lid to the box closed, but Gigi was faster and held it open.

“No.” With her free hand, Gigi rifled through the box, down to the photos near the bottom. “You look about four in this one,” she told Grayson. Her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop. “Maybe two here?”

It was all Grayson could do to focus on her, not the pictures.

“That must be one of your brothers with you in this one,” Gigi continued, and then she pulled out one final picture and sucked in a sharp, audible breath. “Why does my dad have a picture of you as a newborn?” She shook her head, her lip trembling. “Why does he have all these pictures?”

Grayson didn’t let himself think too hard on either question, and he answered only the first, forcing his tone to stay even. “He must have bribed one of the nurses.”

In the newborn photo, his infant self was asleep in a hospital bassinet. His baby arms were swaddled to his sides. A hat had been pulled down over his forehead, obscuring part of his tiny, squished face.

“I thought you worked for my dad.” Gigi’s words managed to break through the wall of silence in his mind. “Or maybe even that you had it out for him,” she continued. “You gave me that warning and everything, but…”