Page 26 of The Hawthorne Legacy
Mellie nodded, her dark brown eyes fixed on his. Alisa had told me once that Mellie was “one of Nash’s.” I had no idea how many of the household staff the oldest Hawthorne brother had saved—or how many of “my” people saw me as a villain who’d stolen Nash’s inheritance.
“I need you to talk to folks for me,” Nash told Mellie. “Make it clear: This ain’t open season. I don’t care who’s looking the other way or why. Hands off. You got me?”
Mellie laid a hand on Nash’s arm and nodded. “Of course.”
CHAPTER 21
There will be some changes to your security protocol on the estate until we get this figured out,” Oren told me after everyone else had left. “But before we talk about those, we need to talk about the Laughlins. More specifically, we need to talk about how you upset them.”
I grappled for a way to respond without giving too much away. “Jameson, Xander, and I were messing around in Toby’s wing.”
Oren folded his arms over his chest. “I know. I also know why.”
Oren had access to the security system—and one of his men had been in the Black Box that afternoon. What exactly did Eli overhear?
My head of security laid it out for me. “Tobias Hawthorne the Second. You think he’s alive.”
“I know he is.”
Oren was silent for a long moment. “Have I told you how I came to be in Mr. Hawthorne’s employ?”
I had no idea where that question had come from. “No.”
“I was career military, ages eighteen to thirty-two. I would have stayed in until I hit twenty years, but there was an incident.” The way Oren said the word incident sent ice down my spine. “Everyone in my unit was killed except me. By the time Mr. Hawthorne found me a year later, I was in bad shape.”
I couldn’t picture Oren out of control. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because,” Oren said, “I need you to understand that I owe Mr. Hawthorne my life. He gave me a purpose. He dragged me back into the light. And the last thing he asked of me was that I stay on to head your security team.” Oren let that sink in. “Whatever I have to do to keep you safe,” he continued, his voice low, “I will do it.”
“Do you think there’s a threat?” I asked him. “A real one? Are you worried about whoever left that heart?”
“I’m worried,” Oren replied, “about what you and the boys are doing. About the ghosts you’re digging up.”
“Toby’s alive,” I said fiercely. “I knew him. I think he’s—”
“Stop,” Oren ordered.
My father, I finished silently. “Grayson would kill me for telling you this,” I said. “He thinks that if it gets out that Toby’s alive—”
Oren finished my sentence for me. “The repercussions could be deadly.”
“What?” That hadn’t been what I was going to say. At all.
“Avery,” Oren said, his voice low, “right now the family believes that there is no effective way of challenging the will—no way of getting ahold of the fortune that Mr. Hawthorne left to you. Zara and Constantine would much rather deal with you inheriting and the law firm holding the reins than with the fortune passing to your heirs, and that’s assuming that your death wouldn’t count as defaulting on the terms of the will and revert the entire fortune to charity. Mr. Hawthorne always thought ten steps ahead. He tied their fortunes to yours. He made you as safe as he could. But if the will isn’t ironclad? If there’s another heir…”
Someone might decide that killing me is worth it? I didn’t say that out loud.
“You need to lie low,” Oren told me. “Whatever it is you and the boys are up to—stop.”
I couldn’t stop. That night, with security posted right outside my door, I resumed the search I’d started conducting that afternoon.
The Allport Institute was a center for memory research. Camden House was an addiction treatment facility—and, based on my conversation with Nan that afternoon, Toby had been a patient there. A new search on the Rockaway Watch Society told me that Rockaway Watch was a small coastal town directly across from Hawthorne Island. Kaylie Rooney was from Rockaway Watch. It took me a good fifteen minutes to put it together, but once I did, the neurons in my brain started firing painfully fast.
There was a story here—one that started with Toby angry and addicted, one that involved the fire and the young people who’d died there. What about the Allport Institute? Had Toby lost his memory after the fire? Was that why he’d never returned home?
With laser focus to rival Jameson’s, I did a search for the last remaining charity on Grayson’s list: Colin’s Way. I’d verified earlier that it existed, but I hadn’t dug deep. This time I did a once-over of the website. The first thing I saw on the landing page was a picture of a bunch of elementary schoolers playing basketball. I clicked on a tab labeled Our Story and read.
Colin’s Way provides a safe after-school environment for kids between the ages five and twelve. Founded in memory of Colin Anders Wright (pictured at right), we are in the business of Playing, Giving, and Growing—so all children have a future.
