The Final Gambit (The Inheritance Games #3)(10)

He’d used me to force the boys to confront their issues, to pull Toby back onto the board.

It should have been her.

A creak sounded behind me. I turned to see Xander stepping out of the wall. One look at his face told me that my BHFF had seen our visitor.

“I come in peace,” he announced gravely. “I come with pie.”

“He comes with me.” Max stepped into the room behind Xander. “What the ever-faxing elf is going on, Avery?”

Xander set the pie down on the desk. “I brought three forks.”

I read meaning into his grim tone. “You’re upset.”

“About sharing this pie?”

I looked away. “About Eve.”

“You knew,” Xander told me, more injury than accusation in his tone.

I forced myself to meet his eyes. “I did.”

“All those times playing Cookie Golf together, and you didn’t think this was worth mentioning?” Xander pulled off a piece of pie crust and brandished it in the air. “This might have escaped your attention, but I happen to excel at keeping secrets! I have a mouth like a steel trap.”

Max snorted. “Isn’t the expression ‘a mind like a steel trap’?”

“My mind is more like a roller coaster inside a labyrinth buried in an M.

C. Escher painting that is riding on another roller coaster.” Xander shrugged. “But my mouth is a steel trap. Just ask me about all the secrets I’m keeping.”

“What secrets are you keeping?” Max asked obligingly.

“I can’t tell you!” Xander triumphantly dug his fork into the pie.

“So if I’d told you that Toby had a daughter out there who looked exactly like Emily Laughlin, you wouldn’t have told Rebecca?” I said, referring to Emily’s sister and Xander’s oldest friend.

“I definitely, one hundred percent, entirely… would have told Rebecca,”

Xander admitted. “In retrospect, good on you for not telling me. Excellent call, shows solid judgment.”

My phone rang. I looked down at it, then back up at Xander and Max.

“It’s Oren.” My heart beating in my ears, I answered. “What do we know?”

“Not much. Not yet. I sent a team to the rendezvous point where Eve said she was supposed to meet Toby. There was no physical evidence of an altercation, but with a little digging, we did find record of a nine-one-one call, placed hours before Eve said she showed up.”

My hand tightened around the phone. “What kind of nine-one-one call?”

“Shots fired.” Oren didn’t soften the words. “By the time a patrol unit got there, the scene was clear. They put it down to fireworks or a car backfiring.”

“Who called nine-one-one?” I asked. “Did anyone see anything?”

“My team is working on it.” Oren paused. “In the meantime, I’ve assigned one of my men to shadow Eve for the duration of her stay at Hawthorne House.”

“Do you think she’s a threat?” My hand went reflexively, again, to my Hawthorne pin.

“My job is to treat everyone like a threat,” Oren replied. “Right now, what I need is for you to promise that you’ll stay put and do nothing.” My gaze went to the research spread across the desk. “My team and I will find out everything we can as quickly as we can, Avery. Toby might be the target here, but he also might not be.”

I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Give us twenty-four hours, and I’ll let you know.”

Twenty-four hours? I was just supposed to sit here, doing nothing, for twenty-four hours? I hung up the phone.

“Does Oren think Eve is a threat?” Max asked in a dramatic stage-whisper.

Xander made a face. “Note to self: Cancel the welcome festivities.”

I thought about Oren telling me to let him handle it, then about Eve swearing that all she wanted was to find Toby. “No,” I told Xander. “Don’t cancel anything. I want to get a feel for Eve.” I needed to know if we could trust her because if we could, maybe she knew something I didn’t. “Got any particular festivities in mind?” I asked.

Xander pressed his hands together. “I believe that our best option for assessing the truth of the mysterious Eve’s character is… Chutes and Ladders.”





CHAPTER 10

The Hawthorne version of Chutes and Ladders wasn’t a board game.

Xander promised he would explain further once I got Eve to agree to play.

Focused on that task, I made my way to the Versailles wing. At the top of the east staircase, I found Grayson standing statue-still outside the wing, dressed in a silver three-piece suit, his blond hair wet from the pool.

A poolside cocktail party. The memory hit me and wouldn’t let go.

Grayson is expertly deflecting every financial inquiry that comes my way. I glance toward the pool. There’s a toddler balanced precariously on the edge. She leans forward, topples over, goes under, and doesn’t come up.

Before I can move or even yell, Grayson is running.

In one liquid motion, he dives into the pool, fully clothed.

“Where’s Jameson?” Grayson’s question drew me back to the present.

“Probably somewhere he’s not supposed to be,” I answered honestly, “making very bad decisions and throwing caution to the wind.”