Page 143 of The Brothers Hawthorne
Grayson searched through the photos, for another one he could precisely date. The year was right. The day was, too.
But the month was wrong.
Grayson grabbed another picture, then another.The month is always wrong.
He hadn’t let himself spend much time thinking about these pictures, about what might have led a father who had made it very clear that he was not wanted to take and keep them. Maybe part of it was a sense of possession. A desire for ason. But these pictures had been in a box with the withdrawal slips that served as a key for decoding the journal. And in that journal, Sheffield Grayson had documented illegal transactions by identifying the countries in which he kept accounts. Just the countries.
There hadn’t been a single account number, no routing numbers, no numbers at all.
It took Grayson three days to piece together all of the account information, using the numbers on the back of the pictures—the wrong months, in chronological order based on the photos they corresponded to. There were seven accounts total, millions of dollars.
All of it untraceable.
When he was sure he had it all, Grayson called Alisa. “Hypothetically, if information about all of Sheffield Grayson’s offshore accounts somehow made its way to the FBI, how likely do you think it is they’d keep looking for the man himself?”
Alisa considered the question. “Hypothetically,” she said, “if the right strings were pulled? Very unlikely.”
Grayson hung up the phone. It was as good as done, another thread tied off, another secret buried—for good, he hoped.
Gigi knows the truth, and I didn’t lose her. She knows, and she didn’t leave.
Later that night, Grayson unpacked the bag he’d taken with him to London and Phoenix. He unpacked the velvet ring box that Nash had entrusted to his keeping. And for the first time since Nash had given him the damn thing, when that question echoed in his mind, Grayson didn’t run from it.
Why not you, Gray? Someday, with someone—why not you?
He thought about the made-up story he’d spun for Gigi about his “girlfriend,” about meeting someone at the damn grocery store buying limes.
He thought about phone calls and riddles, about burying himself in his work, about Nash breaking things off with Alisa, certain that there was something wrong with him.
About the way Nashfitwith Libby.
Moving with purpose—the way he always did—Grayson took the black opal ring out of the box and turned it over in his hand. He stared at it, at the flecks of color in the jewel, at the diamond leaves that surrounded it, and he swallowed.
“Why not me?”
CHAPTER 97
JAMESON
It was Jameson’s idea to rebuild the tree house. Every now and then, as they worked, he dropped tantalizing bits of information about the father he’d met, the castle he’d won, the duchess he’d saved—not in that order.
He didn’t tell his brothers about the Devil’s Mercy, but he did tell them about the Game—not about the prizes at stake or the powerful figures behind it, but about the riddles, the cliffs, the stone garden, the chandelier, the bell tower.
The silver ballerina.
It took his brothers the better part of a day to figure out the final answer, though Jameson knew they would have been much quicker if they’d seen the silent silver music box themselves.
After that riddle had been solved, Grayson offered up a challenge of his own. “Another riddle,” he told them.“What begins a bet? Not that.”
No matter how much Jameson prodded, Grayson wouldn’t tell them where he’d heard the riddle, but one night, Jameson caught him looking at a file, one of their grandfather’s, which he quickly hid away.
A bet began with a challenge, a wager, an agreement, a risk.A handshake?Jameson’s mind turned the possibilities over, examining them from every angle.Not that. So what’s the opposite of a handshake?
The night the tree house restoration was completed, Jameson found himself alone with Avery in one of the towers, looking out over the Hawthorne estate.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said.
Jameson smiled. “Thinking is a good look for you, Heiress.”
