“Something to purge the poison.” Nash’s tone was hard to read.
They’d known the old man. I hadn’t. What they were saying—it made sense tothem. In their eyes, this hadn’t been a whim. It had been a very risky gamble.Ihad been a very risky gamble. Tobias Hawthorne had bet that my presence in the House would shake things up, that old secrets would be laid bare, that somehow, someway, one last puzzle would change everything.
That, if Emily’s death had torn them apart, I could bring them back together.
“I told you, kid,” Nash said beside me. “You’re not a player. You’re the glass ballerina—or the knife.”
CHAPTER 89
Oren met me the moment I stepped foot into the Great Room. That he’d been waiting made me wonder why he’d left my side in the first place. Had it really been a phone call—or had Tobias Hawthorne left him with instructions to let the five of us finish the game alone?
“Do you know what’s down there?” I asked my head of security. He was more loyal to the old man than he was to me.What else did he ask you to do?
“Besides the tunnel?” Oren replied. “No.” He made a study of me, of the boys. “Should I?”
I thought about what had happened down there while Xander was gone. About Rebecca and what she had told me down below. About Skye. I looked at Grayson. His eyes caught mine. There was a question there, and hope, and something else I couldn’t name.
All I told Oren was “No.”
That night, I sat at Tobias Hawthorne’s desk, the one in my wing. In my hands, I held the letter he’d left me.
Dearest Avery,
I’m sorry.
—T. T. H.
I’d wondered what he was sorry for, but I was starting to think I’d had things reversed. Maybe he hadn’t left me the money as an apology. Maybe he was apologizing for leaving me the money.For using me.
He’d brought me here forthem.
I folded the letter in half and then in half again. This—all of it—had nothing to do with my mom. Whatever secrets she’d been keeping, they predated Emily’s death. In the grand scheme of things, this entire life-changing, mind-blowing, headline-grabbing chain of events had nothing to do withme.I was just a little girl with a funny little name, born on the right day.
I have some grandsons at home, I could hear the old man telling me,who are just about your age.
“This was always about them.” I said the words out loud. “What am I supposed to do now?” The game was over. The puzzle was solved. I’d served my purpose. And I’d never felt so insignificant in my life.
My eyes were drawn to the compass built into the desk’s surface. As I had my first time in this office, I turned the compass, and the panel on the desk popped up, revealing the compartment underneath. I traced my finger lightly over theTetched into the wood.
And then I looked down at my letter—at Tobias Hawthorne’s signature.T. T. H.
My gaze traveled back to the desk. Jameson had told me once that his grandfather had never purchased a desk without hidden compartments. Having played the game, having lived in Hawthorne House—I couldn’t help seeing things differently now. I tested the wood panel on which theThad been etched.
Nothing.
Then I placed my fingers in theT, and I pushed. The wood gave.Click. And then it popped back up into place.
“T,”I said out loud. And then I did the same thing again. Anotherclick.“T.”I stared at the panel for a long time before I saw it: a gap between the wood and the top of the desk, at the base of theT. I pushed my fingers underneath and found another groove—and above it a latch. I unhooked the latch, and the panel rotated counterclockwise.
With a ninety-degree turn, I was no longer looking at aT. I was looking at anH. I pressed all three bars of theHat the same time.Click.A motor of some kind was engaged, and the panel disappeared back into the desk, revealing another compartment underneath.
T. T. H.Tobias Hawthorne had intended for this to be my wing. He’d signed my letter with initials, not his name. And those initials had unlocked this drawer. Inside, there was a folder, much like the one that Grayson had shown me that day at the foundation. My name—my full name—was written across the top.
Avery Kylie Grambs.
Now that I’d seen the anagram, I couldn’t unsee it. Unsure what I would find—or even what I was expecting—I lifted the folder out and opened it. The first thing I saw was a copy of my birth certificate. Tobias Hawthorne had highlighted my date of birth—and my father’s signature. The date made sense. But the signature?
I have a secret, I could hear my mother saying.About the day you were born.
