Images flashed rapid-fire through Gigi’s brain. The wetsuit. The oxygen tank. The necklace. The knife. She thought back to her altercation with Knox over the bag—and then to what Brady had said about sponsors.
They hire players, stack the deck where they can, bet on the outcome.
What if the bag Gigi had found wasn’t a part of the game? Not a sanctioned one, anyway. Knox hadn’t brought it back to the house, where Avery and the Hawthornes might have seen it.
What if that bag and its contents were Knox’s so-called sponsor’s way of stacking the deck? What if that was what he’d meant when he’d said it was his? What if Knox had known where the bag was stashed the whole time, and it was just his bad luck that she’d happened to stumble upon it?
You cheating cheater who cheats. Gigi stormed back to the chamber to find Brady and Knox avoiding eye contact with each other. For all she knew, they hadn’t said a word while she was gone.
Brady was holding the sword again.
“Family therapy,” Gigi told them. “Or, I guess, found-family therapy.
Think about it.”
If either of them heard the deadly tone in her voice, they gave no sign of
it.
“In unrelated news: You have a lot of explaining to do, Shady Brows.”
Gigi held the listening device up between her middle finger and thumb. “I found this delightful little bug in my necklace—the necklace that was in the
bag with the knife and all the rest of it.” She jabbed the Pointy Finger of Accusation at Knox. “The bag that you stole and didn’t bring back to this house, because you didn’t want anyone to see it.”
“Because I didn’t want anyone to steal it.” Knox’s correction was only somewhat barbed.
Gigi turned toward Brady. “Tell me more about sponsors. About Knox’s sponsor.”
Brady’s reply and his expression were measured. “The Thorp family owns a third of the state of Louisiana—more than that if you count the illegitimate branches of the family.” Brady shifted his steady gaze from Gigi to Knox. “Knox’s sponsor is a man named Orion Thorp.”
“This is asinine.” Knox’s tone wasn’t measured at all. “Neither my villainous sponsor nor I had anything to do with that bag.” He met Brady’s gaze. “Am I telling the truth, Daniels?”
There was a long silence. “He is,” Brady said finally. “Telling the truth.” Gigi wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. She believed that Brady knew Knox well enough to know if Knox was lying, and she believed Brady
when he said that Knox wasn’t.
She couldn’t not believe Brady.
So she changed course. “I know you’re out there.” She spoke directly into the bug. “I know you’re listening.”
It was something she’d gotten into the habit of saying a year and a half earlier—on rooftops, in parking lots, every single evening, looking out into the night. I know you’re out there. Because if there wasn’t anyone there, then no one would ever know, but if there was someone watching her, following her, then Gigi wanted that person to know that he couldn’t hide from her, no matter how much he cloaked himself in shadow.
In her defense, she’d been followed before. By a professional. “What are you doing?” Knox was bewildered—and pissed.
Gigi ignored him and tried again. “I know you’re out there.” When there was no reply—the device probably doesn’t even work both ways—she turned to Brady. “You said there were rich families, plural, who had taken an interest in the Grandest Game.”
Brady gave a little nod. “I believe most of the interested parties were contemporaries or rivals of Tobias Hawthorne.”
Rivals? That felt a bit… ominous.
“What makes you so sure,” Knox asked Gigi, “that the thing in your hand is a bug? And that it’s not a part of the game?”
“I live a life of stealth and crime,” Gigi replied pertly. “I know a bug when I see one, and I am spontaneously—but also incredibly—sure that the game makers didn’t hide a bag on the island containing a whole slew of capital-O Objects.”
It was so obvious now that she’d seen it. She’d thought that she’d hit the motherlode, but in a game that was meant to be competitive—and fair— why would there be a motherlode?
“Nash told me he liked my necklace,” Gigi continued, her thoughts racing to catch up with her mouth. “I thought he was commenting on it as a kind of congratulations, you know, well done, you tricksy Gigi. But what if he thought it was my necklace? That I’d worn it to the island?” Gigi’s thoughts weren’t just racing now. They were trying to qualify for the Indy
500. “And when Avery mentioned on the beach that some players had found hidden treasure, she looked at Odette, and she looked at Savannah, but I don’t think she ever looked at me.”
There was a single moment’s silence. “If you’re correct…” Brady’s brow furrowed in what Gigi couldn’t help noticing was a highly attractive way. “If the Objects you found aren’t a part of the game—”
“The wetsuit inside the bag,” Knox cut in abruptly. “It was damp.” “Recently used.” Gigi swallowed. What did that mean?
“Maybe Knox isn’t the only player in this game who has a sponsor.” Brady didn’t stop there. “And maybe the players and the game makers aren’t the only ones on Hawthorne Island.”
