I woke up tied to an antique chair. The room around me was packed tight with boxes and knickknacks. The entire place smelled like it had been soaked in gasoline.
Two people stood across from me: Mellie, who looked like she might throw up any second. And Sheffield Grayson.
“Where am I?” I asked, and then the memory of what had happened in the passageway came flooding back. “Where’s Thea? And Rebecca?”
“I assure you, your friends are fine.” Sheffield Grayson was wearing a suit. He had me tied to a chair in what appeared to be some kind of storage unit, and he was wearing a suit.
He has Grayson’s eyes.
“I am sorry about all of this,” Grayson’s father said, flicking a speck off the cuff of his shirt. “The chloroform. The restraints.” He paused. “The bomb.”
“The bomb?” I repeated. The police had arrested Ricky and Skye weeks ago. They had motive, and there was evidence—there had to be, for an arrest. “I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t.” Grayson’s father closed his eyes. “I am not a bad man, Ms. Grambs. I take no joy in… this.” He didn’t specify what this was.
“You kidnapped me,” I said hoarsely. “I’m tied to a chair.” He didn’t reply. “You tried to kill me.”
“Injure you. If I’d meant for you to die, my man would have timed the explosion differently, wouldn’t he?”
I thought of Oren telling me that if I’d been a few steps closer to the plane when the bomb had detonated, I would have died.
“Why?” I said lowly.
“Why what? The bomb or—” Sheffield Grayson gestured to the bindings on my wrists. “The rest?”
“All of it.” My voice shook. Why kidnap me? Why bring me here? What is he planning to do to me next?
“Blame your father.” Sheffield Grayson broke eye contact then, and for reasons I couldn’t quite pinpoint, that sent a chill down my spine. “Your real father. If Tobias Hawthorne the Second weren’t such a coward, I wouldn’t have had to go to such lengths to lure him out.”
My captor’s voice was calm, commanding. Like he was the rational one here.
The muscles in my chest tightened, threatening to wring the air from my lungs, but I forced myself to breathe, to stay focused. Stay alive. “Toby,” I said. “You’re after Toby.”
“The bomb should have worked.” Sheffield began cuffing the sleeves on his dress shirt, a furious motion—and a familiar one. “You were rushed to the hospital. It made worldwide news. I was ready. The trap was set. All that was left to do was wait for that bastard to come to your bedside, the way any self-respecting father would. And then your lawyer had the audacity to have you moved.”
To Hawthorne House, with all its security.
“So here we are,” Sheffield Grayson said, “as unfortunate as that may be.”
I tried to read between the lines of what he was saying. It had been clear from Grayson’s meeting with his father that the man blamed Toby for Colin’s death. My captor must have realized, somehow, that Toby was alive. He’d convinced himself that I was Toby’s daughter.
And this entire place smelled like gasoline.
“I’m sorry.” Mellie’s voice shook. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” My head pounded. My body was screaming at me to flee, but I couldn’t.
I had no idea why Mellie would have helped this man kidnap me—or what exactly he planned to do to me now.
“Toby won’t come for me,” I said. Emotion welled up in my throat, and I bit it back. “He isn’t my father.” That hurt—more than it should have. “I’m nothing to him.”
“I have reason to believe he’s in town. He stuck his head out of whatever hole he’s hiding in long enough for me to verify that much. You are his daughter. He will come for you.”
It was like he wasn’t hearing me. “I’m not his daughter.” I’d wanted to
be. I’d believed that I was.
But I wasn’t.
Sheffield Grayson’s achingly familiar eyes settled on mine. “I have a DNA test that says otherwise.”
I stared at him. What he’d just said made no sense. Alisa had done a DNA test. Ricky Grambs was my father. That meant, obviously, that Toby wasn’t. “I don’t understand.” I really didn’t.
I couldn’t.
“Mellie here was quite obliging about providing a sample of your DNA. I’d acquired a sample of Toby’s from the Hawthorne Island investigation years ago.” Sheffield Grayson straightened. “The match was definitive. You have his blood.” Sheffield gave me a chilling smile. “And you really should pay your help more.”
For the first time, I looked at Mellie, really looked at her. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. Was she the one who’d knocked me out in the passageway?
Why? Like Eli, had she sold me out for money?
“You can go now, dear,” Sheffield Grayson told her. Mellie shuffled toward the door.
She’s leaving me here. Panic began slithering up my spine.
“You think he’s just going to let you go?” I called after her. “You think he’s the kind of man who leaves loose ends?” I didn’t know Sheffield Grayson. I didn’t even know Mellie, really, but everything in me was saying that I couldn’t let her leave me here with him alone. “What do you think Nash would say if he knew what you’re doing?”
She hesitated, then kept walking. I was getting frantic—and she was getting farther away. The sound of her footsteps grew fainter.
“And now,” Sheffield Grayson told me, in the same calm, commanding voice, “we wait.”
