The Brothers Hawthorne (The Inheritance Games, #4)(71)

“And what everything might that be?” Grayson prompted. Acacia hadn’t wanted her daughters to know about the family’s current situation. Trowbridge knew that.

“The FBI. The frozen accounts. Mom’s trust.” Savannah stared at him—didn’t narrow her eyes, didn’t glare, but he felt the power of that look all the same. “That was why you wanted to get into Dad’s safe-deposit box, wasn’t it? Evidence. At first, I thought you probably wanted him caught, charged, and convicted, but”—she arched a brow—“family first.”

He’d said those words back at the bank. “Exposing your father was never my intention,” Grayson said quietly.

“But you were looking for evidence,” Savannah countered, and then she paused, the first hint of uncertainty she’d shown. “So you could destroy it?”

Grayson could feel her trying to make this make sense, make him make sense. “Destroying evidence would be a felony.” Grayson let her read between the lines there, giving her nothing to use against him.

“It would,” Savannah agreed. She looked at him a moment longer, her pale eyes clear, and then she looked past him. After a moment, she seemed to come to a decision. “Family first.”

There was nothing mocking or prodding in Savannah’s tone this time. She wasn’t questioning his priorities. She was stating her own.

“My mom isn’t strong enough to protect this family,” Savannah said, still not looking at him. “Gigi’s a kid.”

“You’re twins,” Grayson pointed out.

“Your point?” Savannah asked crisply, swinging her gaze back toward him. “Because mine is that we need to handle this.”

“We.” Grayson kept his voice neutral, but the fact that she’d decided that trusting him was the lesser of two evils hit Grayson like a blade slid between ribs. Betraying Gigi, who’d worn her heart on her sleeve from the moment he’d met her, was bad enough.

But Savannah? I should send her home to her mother.

“KM—the letters on the back of the withdrawal slip, they aren’t initials.” Savannah looked smug. “After Duncan’s father told me everything, I went home. I got on Dad’s computer and pulled up his calendar, from right before he left.”

Grayson wondered what exactly she’d been looking for.

“Here.” Savannah held out her phone. She waited for him to take it, a silent battle of wills.

Grayson let her have this one. He took the phone. There was a photo pulled up on it, of a monthly calendar—presumably Sheffield Grayson’s.

“Tuesday night,” Savannah instructed. “Third Tuesday of the month.”

Grayson’s gaze went reflexively to the date. There were three events scheduled, but it was the last one that drew his attention: SVNNH GM.

“I had a game that night,” Savannah told him, her voice high and clear and steady in a way that told him she was working to keep it that way. “It was the last one he ever saw.”

Grayson registered the notation that Sheffield Grayson had used. He skimmed over the rest of the calendar and found a few other events written the same way.

“Savannah game.” His sister spelled it out for him, in case he’d missed it.

He hadn’t. “No vowels. KM isn’t mentioned on this calendar, but CC is.” Not initials. A name written without the vowels. “CC—Acacia. JLT—Juliet.”

“Which seems to suggest,” Savannah replied calmly, “that KM might be Kim or Kam. He only used that shorthand for family, but him using it for a mistress isn’t out of the question.”

Grayson shook his head. “It’s Kim, and she wasn’t his mistress.” He’d assigned Zabrowski to keep an eye on the girls and their mother—and the rest of Sheffield Grayson’s family. “Kimberly Wright.”

There was no spark of recognition in Savannah’s eyes.

“Your aunt,” Grayson clarified. “Your father’s sister.”

Savannah saw to the core of that in an instant. “Colin’s mother.” She’d known about her cousin. She must have inferred there was an aunt or an uncle, but from Zabrowski’s reports, it didn’t appear there was much, if any, interaction between Kimberly Wright and the girls.

“Dad said she was an addict. He didn’t ever talk about her. Didn’t want her anywhere near us.”

“She’s sober now,” Grayson reported. “Her other children are adults. They don’t seem to visit her much.”

If Savannah wondered how Grayson knew that, she didn’t give any visible sign of it. “It might be nothing,” she said. “The slips. KM. It might not matter. We should stop.”

But she’d already told him she was tired of should.

“I’ll look into it,” Grayson told her.

Savannah’s eyes narrowed. “Gigi still hadn’t come home when I left. Whatever this is—the withdrawal slips, whatever laws Dad may or may not have broken—Gigi doesn’t need to know.” Savannah’s light gray eyes locked on to his. “She doesn’t, but I do.”

The sound of the elevator opening down the hall alerted Grayson to the fact that they had company. Xander stepped out, followed by Nash.

Nash was carrying a limp Gigi.