No go.
“It’s a combination.” Savannah stared at the box but didn’t move to touch it. “We just have to figure out the right keys to hit.”
Grayson stared at the board. Seven keys, which can be pushed down on either side or left neutral. “There’s more than two thousand possible combinations,” he said.
Gigi grinned. “Then we better get started!”
It took forty minutes of systematic attempts before they got lucky and hit on the right combination. When they did, there was another audible click, and this time, when Grayson hooked his finger through the hole in the wood panel, he was able to remove the entire top of the box.
Underneath, they were faced with more wood. Darker, smoother, polished. Grayson ran his hand lightly over its surface. It was made from a single a piece of wood. There wasn’t a single seam, no parts that could be moved or removed.
There was, however, a small rectangular hole cut into its surface. No, Grayson realized. Not a hole.
“We need something to insert in that, right?” Gigi said. She leaned over him and aimed the light from her phone at the rectangle. “Something with teeny tiny pins?”
Savannah reached for the tool that Grayson had uncovered earlier, but it was much too big. The entire rectangle wasn’t much bigger than…
A USB port. Grayson stilled. He thought of the object he’d found, hidden in a frame in Sheffield Grayson’s office. The object that wasn’t a USB.
The object that was, quite obviously now, a key.
SIX YEARS, ELEVEN MONTHS AGO
Fourth of July at Hawthorne House meant a carnival—a private one complete with Ferris wheel, bumper cars, a massive roller coaster, and dozens of challenges and games. From his perch on top of the tree house, Jameson could see it all.
And no one could see him.
“You don’t have to carry me, Grayson.” Emily. Jameson would have recognized her voice anywhere. He couldn’t make out Grayson’s reply, but soon, the two of them were ensconced in the tree house, and Jameson could hear every word.
“Be careful, Em.”
“I’m not going to fall.” Her tone was teasing. There weren’t many people who made a habit of teasing Hawthornes. “Though it would serve my mother right for trying to make me stay in tonight. I mean, honestly, I think my heart could handle one little roller coaster.”
The roller coaster in question wasn’t little, and with Emily, there was never just one anything. She always wanted more.
Jameson and Emily were alike in that way.
I should have been the one to sneak her out, Jameson thought. I should have brought her up here.
But he hadn’t. Grayson had. Perfect, never-broke-the-rules Grayson was breaking them now. At twelve, Jameson had an inkling of why that might be the case. Emily was twelve, too, Grayson thirteen.
And he brought her to our tree house.
“I’m going to kiss you, Grayson Hawthorne.” Emily, her voice as clear as day.
“What?” Grayson, stupefied.
“Don’t tell me no. I am so tired of no. My entire life is no. Just this once, can’t the answer be yes?”
Jameson waited, unnaturally still, for his brother’s reply. It never came, and Emily spoke again. “When you’re scared,” she told Grayson, “you look straight ahead.”
“Hawthornes don’t get scared,” Grayson said stiffly.
“No,” Emily shot back. “I don’t get scared. You’re scared all the time.”
Jameson knew an opening when he saw one. He dropped from the branch he was sitting on, catching it with his hands and swinging his body in through the tree house window. He landed rough but smiled. “I’m not.” Scared. He didn’t say the word, and Emily didn’t need him to.
“You’re not scared of anything,” she told him with a toss of her hair. “Even when you probably should be.”
Jameson looked at Grayson, then back at Emily. She and her sister, Rebecca, were the only two non-Hawthorne children allowed to spend any significant amount of time on this side of the gates. The Hawthorne brothers. The Laughlin sisters. It was a thing.
“I’ll kiss you,” Jameson offered boldly.
Emily stepped toward him. “Do it.”
He did. His first kiss—and hers. Emily smiled. And then she turned to Grayson. “Now you.”
Jameson felt his brother’s eyes dart to his, but they didn’t stay there long. “I can’t,” Grayson said.
“Can’t. Shouldn’t. Will anyway.” Emily placed a hand on the side of Grayson’s face, and Jameson watched as the girl he’d kissed a moment before brought her lips very close to his brother’s.