The Final Gambit (The Inheritance Games #3)(55)

Mallory stared at her for the longest time. “Could you call me Mom?”

she asked softly. I saw Rebecca shake her head—not at her mother or at Eve or at anyone. She was just shaking it because this was not a good idea.

“Tell me about Toby’s father?” Eve asked. “Please, Mom?”

Mallory’s eyes closed, and I wondered what dead places inside of her had seized with life when Eve had uttered that one little word.

“Eve,” I said sharply, but Rebecca’s mother spoke over me.

“He was older. Very attractive. Very mysterious. We used to sneak around the estate, up to the House, even. I had free rein of it all in those days, but I was forbidden to bring guests. Mr. Hawthorne valued his privacy. He would have lost his mind if he’d known what I was getting up to, what we did in his hallowed halls.” Mallory opened her eyes. “Teenage girls and the forbidden.”

“What was his name?” Rebecca asked, taking a step toward her mother.

“This really doesn’t concern you, Rebecca,” Mallory snapped.

“What was his name?” Eve co-opted Rebecca’s question. Maybe it was supposed to be a kindness, but it felt cruel because she got an answer.

“Liam,” Mallory whispered. “His name was Liam.”

Eve leaned forward. “What happened to him? Your Liam?”

Mallory stiffened like a marionette whose strings were suddenly pulled tight. “He left.” Her voice was calm—too calm. “Liam left.”

Eve took both of Mallory’s hands in hers. “Why did he leave?”

“He just did.”

The doorbell rang, and Oren strode to the door. I followed him to the foyer. As his hand closed over the knob, he gave an order, doubtless to one of his men outside.

“Close in.” Oren glanced over his shoulder at me. “Stay put, Avery.”

“Why is Avery staying put?” Xander asked, coming into the foyer beside me. Rebecca took one step to follow him, then hesitated, frozen in her own personal purgatory, caught between us and the words being murmured between Eve and her mother.

My brain got to the answer to Xander’s question before Oren could articulate it. “This is the first time I’ve left the estate since the last package was delivered,” I noted. “You’re expecting another delivery.”

In reply, my head of security answered the door with his gun drawn.

“Hello to you, too,” Thea said dryly.

“Don’t mind Oren.” Xander greeted her. “He mistook you for a threat of the less passive-aggressive variety.”

The sound of Thea’s voice shattered the ice that had frozen Rebecca’s feet to the ground. “Thea. I wanted to call, but my mom took my phone.”

“And someone turned mine off,” Thea said. She looked from Rebecca to me. “While I was in the shower, someone came into my house, into my bedroom, turned off my phone, and left this beside it, with handwritten instructions to bring it here.”

Thea held out an envelope. It was a deep golden color, shining and reflective.

“Someone broke into your house?” I asked, my voice hushed.

“Into your bedroom?” Rebecca was beside Thea in a heartbeat.

Oren took possession of the envelope. He’d set a trap for the courier here, but the message had been delivered elsewhere—to Thea.

Did you see her photos? That video? I asked Toby’s captor silently. Is this what she gets, for helping me?

“I had a guard on your house,” Oren told Thea. “He didn’t report anything unusual.”

I stared at the envelope in Oren’s hand, at my full name written across the front. Avery Kylie Grambs. Something in me snapped, and I snatched the envelope, turning it over to see a wax seal holding it closed.

The design of the seal took my breath away. Rings of concentric circles.

“It’s like the disk,” I said, the words catching in my throat.

“Don’t open it,” Oren told me. “I need to make sure—”

The rest of his words were lost to the roar in my mind. My fingers tore into the envelope, like my body had been set to autopilot at full throttle.

Once I’d broken the seal, the envelope unfolded, revealing a message written on the interior in shining silver script.

3631982.

That was it. Just those seven digits. A phone number? There was no area code, but— “Avery!” Rebecca yelped, and I realized the paper I was holding had caught fire.

Flames devoured the message. I dropped it, and seconds later, the envelope and the numbers were nothing but ashes. “How…” I started to say.

Xander came to stand beside me. “I could rig an envelope to do that.”

He paused. “Honestly? I have rigged an envelope to do that.”

“I told you to wait, Avery.” Oren gave me what I could only describe as a Dad Look. I was clearly on very thin ice with him.

“What did the message say?” Rebecca asked me.

Xander produced a pen and a sheet of paper shaped like a scone, seemingly out of nowhere. “Write down everything you remember,” he told me.

I closed my eyes, picturing the number—and then wrote: 3631982.

I turned the paper around so that Xander could see it. “Nineteen eighty-two.” Xander latched on to the numbers after the dash. “Could be a year.