The situation—Gigi, the key, the party, the search—had changed. That much was clear. Before, his objective had been to make sure that Gigi didn’t find her way into their father’s safe-deposit box. Now, however, he needed in that box himself.
Before the FBI realizes it exists. Grayson didn’t have a guess about what white-collar crimes his father might have committed, but he did know that the man had paid money to have Avery followed, stalked, attacked, and kidnapped. Assuming Sheffield Grayson had covered his tracks, that suggested the existence of offshore accounts or otherwise untraceable funds. If the FBI somehow managed to find a trail, however slim, of those transactions—or any other proof of Sheffield Grayson’s plot against the Hawthorne heiress—they might begin to view his disappearance through another lens.
They might start asking questions and pulling at threads that Grayson could not let unravel.
That in mind, Grayson picked up the small, discreet USB drive he’d taken from Sheffield Grayson’s study. He plugged an adapter into his laptop, but when he went to plug the drive into the adapter, he realized that it didn’t fit. Not a USB. It was slightly wider, slightly taller. He turned the end upward and examined it. Definitely not a USB. Grayson could make out what looked like small, wire-thin pegs inside. So what is it? He prodded at the casing, then set it down and reached into his pocket, withdrawing the index card he’d taken from Sheffield Grayson’s office.
A fake USB. An index card, cut down in size. Grayson felt like he was
back at Hawthorne House, playing one of the old man’s Saturday morning games. A collection of objects would be laid out in front of Grayson and his brothers, but their purpose, their use, where to begin? Figuring that out was the challenge.
Sheffield Grayson is not the old man, and this is not a game. Grayson told himself that, but it did no good: He had to examine every inch of the card. There was a slight notch in one side and two on another, spaced about an inch apart.
Three notches in a white card. A fake USB drive. Before Grayson could puzzle over—and through—that, his phone rang, and Xander’s name flashed across the screen. Deciding to save himself the trouble—and the yodeling—of ignoring the call, Grayson picked up. “Hello.”
“What’s wrong?” Xander demanded immediately.
Grayson frowned. “What would make you think there’s something wrong?”
“You said hello.”
Grayson’s frown deepened. “I say hello.”
“No, you don’t.” Xander’s grin was audible in his voice. “Now say it in French!”
Grayson did not oblige. “I stole what appeared to be a USB drive from Sheffield Grayson’s home office,” he reported instead. “He had it hidden in a secret compartment in a framed portrait of his family.”
Xander processed that. “Gray, would now be an appropriate time to talk about your feelings?”
Hands in cement, paintings on the wall. “No.” Grayson didn’t belabor that point. “Whatever the drive is, it’s not a USB. I don’t think it’s digital at all. There was also an index card, apparently blank.”
“Invisible ink?” Xander said.
“Possibly,” Grayson replied. “I’ll try the basics.”
“Light, heat, blacklight,” Xander rattled off, a grin audible in his voice. “Sodium iodide.”
“Exactly.” Grayson let his eyes go back to the card.
“And how is everything going with the sister?” Xander probed.
Still staring at the index card, Grayson corrected him. “Sisters.” The word escaped him. He’d been careful not to think of the girls that way up to this point, but he could feel himself on a slippery slope.
They were his to protect, even if he wasn’t their family. “Sisters, plural? As in you met the other one?”
“She knows who I am and despises me on principle.” Grayson gave a slight shake of his head. “I’m a threat to her family.”
“And threats must be extinguished,” Xander intoned. “Is she blonde?” Grayson scowled. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Does she like giving orders?” Xander asked excitedly. “What are her thoughts on suits?”
The point Xander was making did not escape Grayson. “The fact that she doesn’t trust me is going to make my job more difficult.”
“Gray?” Xander said gently. “That’s not the difficult part.”
Grayson thought fleetingly of the family portrait. Of the picture of Colin. Of Acacia saying that if she’d known about him earlier, things might have been different.
Damn Xander.
“Repeat after me, Gray: My feelings are valid.” “Stop talking,” Grayson ordered.
“My emotions are real,” Xander continued. “Go on. Say it.” “I’m hanging up on you now.”
“Who’s your favorite brother?” Xander called loudly enough that Grayson could still hear him even as he removed the phone from his ear.
“Nash,” he answered loudly. “Lies!”
Grayson’s phone vibrated. “I’m getting another call,” he told Xander. “More lies!” Xander said happily. “Give my regards to Girl Grayson!” “Good-bye, Xander.”
“You said good-b—”
Grayson hung up before Xander could finish, switching over to take the incoming call. “Yes?”
On the other end of the line, there was silence.
“Hello?” Grayson tried. See? He aimed a mental retort at Xander. I say hello.
“Is this Grayson Hawthorne?” The voice that asked that question was female and unfamiliar. There was something about it—the tone, the timbre, the spacing in that question—that kept him from hanging up.
“To whom am I speaking?” Grayson asked.
“That doesn’t matter.” She said that like a simple truth, but the subtle rise and fall of her pitch and the way her voice sounded to his ears made him think that she was wrong.
Who this girl was mattered very much.
“To whom am I speaking?” Grayson repeated. “Or would you prefer I rephrase the question: On whom am I about to hang up?”
“Don’t hang up.” That wasn’t a plea, but it wasn’t quite an order, either. “You’re speaking with someone from whom the Hawthorne family has taken a great deal.”
The way she tossed the word whom right back at him did not go unnoticed—and neither did the way her voice got a little quieter and a little deeper.
“I presume that when you say the Hawthorne family, you mean my grandfather.” Grayson kept his own tone even. “Whatever Tobias Hawthorne did or didn’t do, it’s none of my concern.”
That was a lie, the kind that even Grayson couldn’t will into being true. “My father shot and killed himself when I was four years old.” The
girl’s voice was calmer than it should have been. “I was the only one in the house with him when it happened. And do you know what the last thing he said to me was?”
Twin muscles in Grayson’s throat tightened. “How did you get this number?” he demanded. In the back of his mind, he could see it. A small girl. A man with a gun.
“Shockingly, asshole, my father’s last words were not How did you get this number.”
Grayson waited for her to tell him what those last words had been, and when she didn’t, he realized: She’d hung up.
I am not responsible for the things the old man did. Grayson stared at the phone for far too long, then put it down. The only things he was responsible for right now were testing that blank index card for invisible ink and getting dressed.
What the hell did people wear to high school parties?
