He didn’t answer.
“You have a daughter now,” I told him, my voice low.
He looked at me, his expression never wavering. “I have two.”
In the span of a heartbeat, fury gave way to devastation. Tobias Hawthorne the Second wasn’t my father. He hadn’t raised me. I didn’t carry a single drop of his blood.
But he’d just called me his daughter.
“I want you to go outside, princess. Get in the car and drive north.”
“I can’t do that,” I said. “Sheffield Grayson is dead! There’s a body. The police are going to want to know what happened. And as screwed up as what Mellie did is, she doesn’t deserve to go down for murder. If we tell the police what really happened—”
“I know men like Sheffield Grayson.” Toby’s expression shifted, until it was utterly impossible to read. “He’s covered his tracks. No one knows where he is or who he was after. There will be nothing to tie him to this warehouse—nothing to even suggest he was in the state.”
“So?” I said.
Toby looked past me, just for a moment. “I know more than I wish I did about what it takes to make something—or someone—disappear.”
“What about his family?” I asked. Grayson’s family. “I can’t let you—”
“You’re not letting me do anything.” Toby reached out to touch my face. “Horrible girl,” he whispered. “Don’t you know by now? No one lets a Hawthorne do anything.”
That was the truth.
“This is wrong,” I said again. He couldn’t just make that body disappear.
“I have to, Avery.” Toby was implacable. “For Eve. The spotlight, the media circus, the rumors, the stalkers, the threats—I can’t save you from that, Avery Kylie Grambs. I would if I could, but it’s too late. The old man did what he did. He pulled you onto the board. But if I stay in shadows, if I make this disappear, if I disappear—then we can save Eve.”
It had never been clearer: To Toby, the Hawthorne name, the money—it was a curse. The tree is poison, don’t you see? It poisoned S and Z and me.
“It’s not all bad,” I said. “Kidnapping and murder attempts aside, I’m doing fine.”
That was a ridiculous statement, but Toby didn’t even laugh. “And you will stay fine, as long as I stay dead.” He sounded so certain of that. “Go. Get in the car. Drive. If anyone asks you what happened, claim amnesia. I’ll take care of the rest.”
This was really it. He was really going to walk away from me. He was going to disappear again. “I know about the adoption,” I said, desperate to keep him here—to make him stay. “I know your biological mother was the Laughlins’ daughter and that she was coerced into the adoption. I know that you blame your parents for keeping secrets, for ruining the three of you. But your sisters—they need you.”
Skye was sitting in a jail cell, but she wasn’t guilty—this time, at least. Zara was more human than she wanted to admit. And Rebecca? Her mother was still mourning Toby.
“I read the postcards you wrote to my mom,” I continued. “I talked to Jackson Currie. I know everything—and I’m telling you: You don’t have to stay away anymore.”
“You sound just like her.” Toby’s expression softened. “I never could win an argument with Hannah.” He closed his eyes. “Some people are smart. Some people are good.” He opened his eyes and put a hand on each of my shoulders. “And some people are both.”
I knew, with a strange kind of prescience, that this moment would never leave me. “You’re not staying, are you?” I asked. “No matter what I say.”
“I can’t.” Toby pulled me in. I’d never been much of a hugger, but for a moment, I let myself be held.
When Toby finally let me go, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small metal disk, the one he’d told my mother was valuable. “What is this?”
It was the last question I had for him. The last chance I had of making him stay.
Toby moved like lightning. One second, I held the disk in my hand, and the next, he had it. “Something I’ll be taking with me,” he said.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Horrible girl,” he whispered, his voice tender.
I thought of my mother, of every word she’d written to him about me, of the way he’d come for me tonight.