The Final Gambit (The Inheritance Games, #3)(51)

There had to be a fortune down here in alcohol alone. Think about that. Nothing but that.

“We’re looking for a red wine.” Grayson’s voice cut into my thoughts. “A Bordeaux.”

Jameson reached for my hand. I took it, and he stepped away, allowing his fingers to trail down mine—an invitation to follow as he wound into the next room. I did.

Grayson pushed past me, past Jameson, snaking his way through aisle after aisle, scanning rack after rack. Finally, he stopped. “Chateau Margaux,” he said, pulling a bottle out of the closest rack. “Nineteen seventy-three.”

The caption on the photograph. Margaux. 1973.

“You want to guess what the steamer’s for?” Jameson asked me.

A bottle of wine. A steamer. I took the Chateaux Margaux from Grayson, turning it over in my hand. Slowly, the answer took hold. “The label,” I said. “If we try to tear it off, it might rip. But steam will loosen the adhesive.…”

Grayson held the steamer out to me. “You do the honors.”





CHAPTER 48


On the back of the label of the lone bottle of Chateau Margaux 1973 in Tobias Hawthorne’s collection, there was a drawing. A pencil sketch of a dangling, tear-drop crystal.

“Jewelry?” Grayson ventured a guess, but I’d already been in the vault.

“No,” I said slowly, picturing the crystal in the drawing and thinking back. Where have I seen something like that before? “I think we’re looking for a chandelier.”





There were eighteen crystal chandeliers in Hawthorne House. We found the one we were looking for in the Tea Room.

“Are we going up?” I asked, craning my neck at the twenty-foot ceilings. “Or is that thing coming down?”

Jameson strolled over to a wall panel. He hit a button, and the chandelier slowly lowered to eye level. “For dusting purposes,” he told me.

Even the thought of trying to dust this monstrosity gave me palpitations. There had to be at least a thousand crystals on the chandelier. One wrong move, and they could all shatter.

“What now?” I breathed.

“Now,” Jameson told me, “we take it one by one.”

Examining the individual crystals took time. Every few minutes, I brushed against Jameson or Grayson, or one of them brushed against me.

“This one,” Grayson said suddenly. “Look at the irregularities.”

Jameson was on top of him in a heartbeat. “Etching?” he asked.

Instead of responding to his brother, Grayson turned and handed the crystal to me. I stared at it, but if there was a message or clue contained in this crystal, I couldn’t make it out with my naked eye.

We could use a jeweler’s loupe, I thought. Or—

“The flashlight,” I breathed. I reached inside the leather satchel. Locking my hand around the flashlight, I took a quick breath. I held out the crystal, then shined the light through. The irregularities caused the light to refract just so. At first, the result was incomprehensible, but then I flipped the crystal over and tried again.

This time, the flashlight’s beam refracted to form a message. As I stared at the light projected onto the floor, there was no missing the words—the warning.

DON’T TRUST ANYONE.





CHAPTER 49


A chill hit the base of my neck, like the feeling of being watched from behind or standing knee-deep in long grass and hearing the rattle of a snake. My grip tightening around the crystal, I couldn’t look away.

DON’T TRUST ANYONE.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I said, my stomach lined with dread as I finally looked to Jameson and Grayson in quick succession. “Is it a clue?”

We still had one object left in the bag. This wasn’t over. Maybe the letters of this warning could be rearranged, or the first letter in every word made out initials, or—

“Can I see the crystal?” Jameson asked. I gave it to him, and he slowly rotated it under the flashlight’s beam until he found what he was looking for. “There, at the top. Three letters, too small and faint to make out without the light.”

“Fin?” Grayson said, an edge to the question.

“Fin.” Jameson placed the crystal back in my hand, then brought his dark green eyes to mine. “As in finished, Heiress. The end. This isn’t a clue. This is it.”

My game. Quite possibly the last bequest of Tobias Hawthorne. And this was it? Don’t trust anyone. “But what about the USB?” I said. The game couldn’t be over. This couldn’t be all that Tobias Hawthorne had left us with.

“Misdirection?” Jameson tossed out. “Or maybe the old man left you a game and a USB. Either way, this started with the delivery of the bag, and it ends here.”

Setting my jaw, I righted the crystal in the flashlight’s beam, and the words reappeared on the floor. DON’T TRUST ANYONE.

After everything, that was all the billionaire had for me? My grandfather always thought seven steps ahead, I could hear Jameson saying. He saw dozens of permutations in how things could play out, planned for every eventuality, strategized for each and every possible future.

What kind of strategy was this? Was I supposed to think that Toby’s captor was closer than he appeared? That his reach was long, and anyone could be in his pocket? Was I supposed to question everyone around me?