Before Katharine opened it, she deigned to look at Jameson one more time. “You don’t have to be a player to win the game,” she said, and he was reminded again of his grandfather, of the old man’s many lessons. “All one really has to do to win is control the players.”
That bit of wisdom imparted, the older woman fit the key inside the lock and turned it. The lock gave. The lid popped open. Inside, there was a small silver ballerina standing on one toe, the other leg extended. The figurine began to turn in a silent, steady dance.
Katharine made a quick and frighteningly efficient search of the box. Finding nothing else, she took the ballerina in her hand and viciously tore it out. Her goal met, she shoved the now-empty box back at Jameson and began to descend the stone staircase.
Jameson watched her go, then frantically began his own search of the box. This wasn’t over. It didn’t have to be over.
“Leave it,” Zella told him gently.
Jameson didn’t. He pulled up the velvet fabric that lined the chest’s interior. Nothing. In the back of his mind, he heard voice after voice.
Compared to your brothers, your mind is ordinary.
You love a challenge. You love to play. You love to win. And no matter what you win, you always need more.
What are you without the Hawthorne name?
“It’s over,” Branford told him.
Jameson paid no attention to those words, because in his memory, the old man spoke again. A person can train their mind to see the world, to really see it.
Jameson stared at the box. He thought about the silver ballerina—and then about one of his grandfather’s Saturday morning games and another ballerina, made of glass. Jameson thought about misdirection, double meanings, and what it meant to see your way to the answer.
Once you see that web of possibilities laid out in front of you, unencumbered by fear of pain or failure, by thoughts telling you what can and cannot, should and should not be done… What will you do with what you see?
Jameson closed his eyes. He thought back to the very beginning of the game. He remembered the instructions that Rohan had given them. And then he smiled.
CHAPTER 86
GRAYSON
Gigi was gone. Savannah was gone. And Grayson was alone. That wasn’t a problem. It shouldn’t have been a problem.
Being alone had never been a problem.
“It’s done.” Grayson’s voice sounded steady to his own ears. Good. He bolted his hotel room door and began packing his bag.
He’d come to Phoenix to get Gigi out of jail, and she was out. He’d stayed to defuse the situation with the safe-deposit box, and it was well and truly defused. His sisters would never read their father’s actual journal. They had no idea why Grayson had betrayed them.
And they never would.
Avery was safe. The secret of Sheffield Grayson’s demise was safe.
And I’m alone. Picking up his phone, Grayson opened his work email and began assembling a mental to-do list.
It was better this way.
He managed to believe that, until, for some unknowable reason, his index finger navigated away from his email and to the photo roll on his phone. He’d made a critical error in leaving the original photograph of Trowbridge’s password accessible. Just like he’d made an error in giving Gigi his phone in the first place. He’d made far too many mistakes, and now he was paying the cost. Because when Grayson Davenport Hawthorne made mistakes, there was always a cost.
He’d taken Emily cliff-jumping, and she’d died.
He’d failed to go to Avery when his father’s bomb had nearly killed her, and he’d lost her to his brother.
He’d trusted Eve, and she’d betrayed him.
Some people can make mistakes, Grayson. But you are not one of those people. He knew that. He’d known it since he was a child, but he just kept making them anyway, and every time he fell short, every time he made an error in judgment, every little mistake cost him someone he cared about.
Every time he let himself care about someone, he lost them.
Grayson scrolled across the photo roll and saw himself with Gigi. Every picture she’d taken of the two of them was a little off-center or too close-up. She was beaming in every single one.
Minimizing the photos, Grayson focused on what had to be done. He arranged a flight back to Texas. Robotically, he finished packing his suitcase. That only left the puzzle box, the photographs, and the withdrawal slips.
I can’t leave them here. There was still the FBI to consider. If they ever obtained the box, if they realized the journal was a fake, if they found his fingerprints all over it…