Page 88 of The Hawthorne Legacy
If my worthless daughter had taught you the first damn thing about this family, you wouldn’t dare have dialed my number. The conversation I’d had that afternoon came back to me.
If that little bitch hadn’t run, I would have put a bullet in her myself.
If what Zara was saying about my mother’s family was true, that statement probably wasn’t metaphorical.
“What about the fisherman who pulled Toby from the water?” I asked, trying to concentrate on the facts of the case and not think too long or hard about where my mom had come from. “Did the file elaborate on that at all?”
“The storm was severe that night,” Zara replied. “Initially, my father believed there were no boats out, but eventually the investigator talked to someone who swore that there was one boat on the water during the storm. Its owner was practically a shut-in. He lives in a shack near an old abandoned lighthouse in Rockaway Watch. The locals steer clear of him. Based on the investigator’s discussions with townsfolk, most seem to think he’s not quite well in the head. Hence, taking his boat out that night, in the midst of a man-killing storm.”
“He finds Toby,” I said, thinking out loud. “Pulls him from the water. Brings him home. And no one’s the wiser.”
“My father believed that Toby had lost his memory, though whether this was the result of an injury or psychological trauma is unclear. Somehow this man, this Jackson Currie, managed to nurse him back to health.”
Not just the man, I thought. My mom was there, too. She’d helped nurse him back to life.
I was so busy thinking about my mom and reassembling that part of the story in my head that I missed the rest of what Zara had said. The name she’d said.
“Jackson,” Jameson breathed. “Heiress, the fisherman’s name was Jackson.”
I froze, just for an instant. I hope you go far, far away, Toby had written, but if you ever need anything, I hope you do exactly what I told you to do in that letter. Go to Jackson. You know what I left there. You know what it’s worth.
Not Jackson, Mississippi.
Jackson Currie. The fisherman who’d pulled Toby from the water.
“What I don’t understand,” Zara said, “is why Toby was so intent on running once he got his memory back—assuming he got it back. He had to have known that our security could protect him from any threat. The Rooneys may run Rockaway Watch, but it’s a small town. They’re small people with a small reach, and the legal situation had already been taken care of. Toby could have come home, but he fought it.”
He didn’t come home, because he didn’t think he deserved to. Having read the postcards, I understood Toby. Wasn’t that how I would have felt if I’d done what he’d done?
A ringing sound jarred me from that thought. My phone. I looked down. Grayson was calling.
I flashed back to the moment he’d kissed me. I’d kissed him back. Since then we hadn’t even managed to look at each other. We hadn’t really talked. So why was he calling now?
Where is he? “Hello?” I answered.
“Avery.” Grayson lingered on my name, just for a moment.
“Where are you?” I asked. There was a pause at the other end of the line, and then he sent me an invite to switch over to a video chat. I accepted it, and the next thing I saw was his face. Gray eyes, sharp cheekbones, sharper jawline. In the sunlight, his light blond hair looked platinum.
“After some convincing, Max told me about what was written on your postcards,” Grayson said. “About your mother. Do you remember when I told you that I was in this? That I would help you?” He turned his phone, and I saw ruins. Charred ruins. Burned trees. “That’s what I’m doing.”
“You went to Hawthorne Island without us?” Xander was absolutely indignant.
He did this for me. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel about that when, if he’d waited a few hours, we could have gone together. This didn’t feel like a larger-than-life gesture. It felt like Grayson running away.
Keeping his promise as far away from me as he could.
“Hawthorne Island,” Grayson confirmed in response to Xander’s accusation. “And Rockaway Watch. I wouldn’t call the locals friendly, but I’m optimistic that I’ll find our missing piece, whatever that might be.”
He was optimistic that he would find the answer. Had he even considered dealing me in?
“Rockaway Watch,” Xander said slowly.
The town’s name echoed in my mind. Rockaway Watch. My mother’s family. Suddenly, I had much bigger concerns than what Grayson’s behavior did or did not mean—and what it did or did not make me feel.
“Grayson.” My voice sounded urgent, even to my own ears. “You don’t understand. My mother changed her name and left that place because her family is dangerous. I don’t know what they know about Toby. I don’t know if that’s the reason they hated her so much—but they blame the Hawthornes for their daughter’s death. You have to get out of there.”
Beside me, Oren cursed. Grayson turned the phone back around and those gray eyes locked on mine. “Avery, have I ever given you reason to believe that I’m particularly averse to danger?”
