“I’m not sure that counts as a smile,” Gigi informed him after she’d snapped a picture. “But kudos for the effort. Now let’s take one posed next to the box. Say we did it!”
“We did it,” Grayson said.
“We are the best!” Gigi was snapping pictures like mad.
“We are the best,” Grayson repeated.
“Code Name Mimosa’s real name is…”
Grayson narrowed his eyes. “Gigi,” he said, putting more than a little warning in his tone.
Gigi was absolutely unabashed. “What a coincidence,” she said seriously. “My name is also Gigi.” She scrolled through the photos she’d taken. “I like this one,” she told him. “You’re actually smiling. I’ll make it your wallpaper.”
Grayson grabbed for his phone, but she dodged.
“Now, I’m sending it to myself… and also to Xander.… And… done.” Gigi stared at Grayson’s phone for a second or two longer, then flicked her gaze back to the puzzle box. “I changed my mind. Let’s not wait for Savannah.” Gigi squatted, locked her fingers around the faux USB, and pulled out the board, the last remaining barrier to the compartment that held the journal.
Not the real one. Grayson buried the guilt, buried it so deep that no amount of discussion or bonding with Gigi now could unearth it.
His sister flipped through the pages of the duplicate journal. “It’s full of numbers,” she said, frowning. “Just strings and strings of numbers.”
“Let me see it,” Grayson said, the way he would have if this was his first time in a room with that book. Gigi handed it to him, and Grayson made his own inspection of it, page by page. “It’s a code, obviously,” he said. “Some kind of substitution cipher, perhaps.”
Not perhaps. Not just any cipher.
“I’m going to need some coffee,” Gigi declared. “Oooh! Look! There’s a coffee maker!”
Grayson held out an arm to stop her. “You do not need any coffee.”
“You like me,” Gigi reminded him, poking him in the chest. “You find me charming.”
The muscles in Grayson’s throat tightened. “I like you,” he said quietly. “And I am still not giving you coffee.”
“Decaf,” Gigi countered. “Final offer!”
Grayson gave a roll of his eyes. “Fine.”
He walked into the kitchen to make her decaf. When he came back, she wasn’t sitting near the puzzle box. She was standing—and staring at his phone.
“This isn’t the picture you sent me.” Gigi’s voice was very quiet. “The passwords. The ones from Mr. Trowbridge’s office. You sent me a picture, but this…” She held up his phone, his photo roll. “These aren’t the passwords you sent me, Grayson.”
He saw, all at once, the mistakes he’d made. Letting his guard down. Letting her in. Giving her his phone. Letting her pull up his photos to scroll through the ones she’d taken of the two of them. Failing to take the phone back before he’d left the room. Was it still unlocked, or did she figure out the passcode?
Did it matter?
“And my key…” Gigi was staring at the photo roll, just staring and staring at it like she expected it to stop being what it was. “You took a picture of my key. I knew that. I didn’t think anything of it. I gave you my key, and then you gave it to Savannah. But my key didn’t work.” She looked up from the phone, stricken. “Why didn’t it work, Grayson?”
Grayson Hawthorne had been raised to take control of every situation, but he didn’t know how to make this stop. He didn’t know how to lie to her—even though he’d done nothing but lie to her so far.
“Where did you get this?” Gigi held up the not-USB. “It wasn’t in the box before, was it? Have you already opened it?” Gigi dropped the USB, and the next thing Grayson knew, she was holding the journal—holding on to it for dear life. “Is this even real?”
It was real, Gigi. In his own mind, Grayson wasn’t focused on the journal.
“This is the part where you tell me that you can explain,” Gigi said, her voice catching. “Go ahead. Explain, Grayson.”
Grayson’s brain formulated a response. He looked her straight in the eyes. “I was trying to protect you.”
“Okay.” Gigi nodded, and it was like once she started nodding, she couldn’t stop. “I believe you. Okay? Because I’m the type of person who believes in people.” She smiled, but it didn’t look like a Gigi smile. “Because what fun is it going through life any other way?”