Had he continued to add information to the safe-deposit box over the last eight years?
“What do you think he meant,” Grayson said slowly, “about legacies we shouldn’t have to bear?”
“I care less about that,” Jameson replied, “than about the list at the bottom. What do you make of it, Heiress?”
Coming to stand between Jameson and Grayson should have been awkward. It should have been unbearable—but in this moment, it wasn’t.
Slowly, I looked back down at the letter, at the list. There were dozens of locations listed, scattered all over the world, like Toby had never stayed in one place for long. But one by one, certain locations jumped out at me. Waialua, Oahu. Waitomo, New Zealand. Cuzco, Peru. Tokyo, Japan. Bali, Indonesia.
I literally stopped breathing.
“Heiress?” Jameson said.
Grayson stepped toward me. “Avery?”
Oahu was one of the islands of Hawaii. Cuzco, Peru, was the nearest city to Machu Picchu. My eyes roved back over the list. Hawaii. New Zealand. Machu Picchu. Tokyo. Bali. I stared at the page.
“Hawaii,” I said out loud, my voice shaking. “New Zealand. Machu Picchu. Tokyo. Bali.”
“For a guy on the run,” Xander commented, “he sure made his way around.”
I shook my head. Xander didn’t see what I was seeing. He couldn’t. “Hawaii, New Zealand, Machu Picchu, Tokyo, Bali—I know this list.”
There were more. At least five or six that I recognized. Five or six places that I had imagined going. Places that I had held in my hand.
“My mother’s postcards,” I whispered, and took off running. Oren bolted after me, and the others weren’t far behind.
I made it to my room in a matter of seconds, to my closet in less than that, and soon I was holding the postcards in my hand. There was nothing written on the back, no postage. I’d never questioned where my mother had gotten them.
Or from whom.
I looked up at Jameson and Grayson, Xander and Nash.
“You Hawthornes,” I whispered hoarsely, “and your invisible ink.”
CHAPTER 69
A black light revealed writing on the postcards, the same way it had on Toby’s walls. The same handwriting. Toby had written these words. The answers we were looking for—there was a chance that they were all here, but it took everything in me just to read the salutation, the same on every postcard.
“Dear Hannah,” I read, “the same backward as forward.”
Hannah. I thought about the tabloid’s accusations that my mom was living under a fake identity. I’d spent my whole life thinking she was Sarah.
The words on the postcards blurred in front of me. Tears. In my eyes. My thoughts were detached, like this was all happening to someone else. The room around me was still filled with the buzzing electricity of the moment, of what I’d just discovered, but all I could think was that my mom’s name was Hannah.
I have a secret.… How many times had we played? How many chances had she had to tell me?
“Well,” Xander piped up, “what do they say?”
Everyone else was standing. I was on the floor. Everyone was waiting. I can’t do this. I couldn’t look at Xander—or Jameson or Grayson.
“I’d like to be alone,” I said, my voice rough against my throat. I realized now how Zara must have felt reading her father’s letter. “Please.”
There was a beat of silence and then: “Everyone out.” The realization that it was Jameson who had spoken those words, Jameson who was willingly stepping back from the puzzle—for me—rocked me to my core.
What was his angle here?
Within moments, the Hawthornes were gone. Oren was a respectful six feet away. And Libby knelt beside me.
I stole a glance at her, and she squeezed my hand. “Did I ever tell you about my ninth birthday?” Libby asked.
Through a fog, I managed to shake my head.
“You were about two then. My mom hated Sarah, but sometimes she’d let her babysit. Mom always said it didn’t count as charity if that bitch did it, because if it weren’t for Sarah and for you, maybe Ricky would have come back to us. She said your mom owed her, and your mom acted like she did so she could spend time with me. So I could spend time with you.”
I didn’t remember anything like that. Libby and I had barely seen each other growing up—but at two, I wouldn’t have remembered much.
“My mom dumped me at your place for almost a week. And it was the best week of my life, Ave. Your mom baked me cupcakes on my birthday, and she had all these cheap Mardi Gras beads, and we must have been wearing about ten apiece. She got these clip-on hair streaks in a rainbow of neon colors, and we wore them in our hair. She taught you to sing ‘Happy Birthday.’ My mom didn’t even call, but Sarah tucked me in every night, into her bed, and she slept on the couch, and you would crawl into bed with me, and your mom would kiss us both. Every night.”