The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1)(62)

Grayson. I couldn’t think beyond that. It wasn’t until Rebecca had left that I had realized she’d never gotten around to telling me what, specifically, she ought to have been warning me about.





CHAPTER 56


It was another three hours before Oren and his team cleared me to go back to Hawthorne House. I rode back in the ATV with three bodyguards.

Oren was the only one who spoke. “Due in part to Hawthorne House’s extensive network of security cameras, my team was able to track and verify locations and alibis for all members of the Hawthorne family, as well as Ms. Thea Calligaris.”

They have alibis. Grayson has an alibi. I felt a rush of relief, but a moment later, my chest tightened. “What about Constantine?” I asked. Technically, he wasn’t a Hawthorne.

“Clear,” Oren told me. “He did not personally wield that gun.”

Personally. Reading between those lines shook me. “But he might have hired someone?” Any of them might have, I realized. I could hear Grayson telling me that there would always be people tripping over themselves to do favors for his family.

“I know a forensic investigator,” Oren said evenly. “He works alongside an equally skilled hacker. They’ll take a deep dive into everyone’s finances and cell phone records. In the meantime, my team is going to focus on the staff.”

I swallowed. I hadn’t even met most of the staff. I didn’t know exactly how many of them there were, or who might have had opportunity—or motive. “The entire staff?” I asked Oren. “Including the Laughlins?” They’d been kind to me after I’d emerged from washing up, but right now I couldn’t afford to trust my gut—or Oren’s.

“They’re clear,” Oren told me. “Mr. Laughlin was at the House during the shooting, and security footage confirms Mrs. Laughlin was at the cottage.”

“What about Rebecca?” I asked. She’d left the estate right after talking to me.

I could see Oren wanting to say that Rebecca wasn’t a threat, but he didn’t. “No stone will be left unturned,” he promised. “But I do know that the Laughlin girls never learned to shoot. Mr. Laughlin wasn’t even allowed to keep a gun at the cottage when they were present.”

“Who else was on the premises today?” I asked.

“Pool maintenance, a sound technician working on upgrades in the theater, a massage therapist, and one of the cleaning staff.”

I committed that list to memory, then my mouth went dry. “Which cleaning staff?”

“Melissa Vincent.”

The name meant nothing to me—until it did. “Mellie?”

Oren’s eyes narrowed. “You know her?”

I thought of the moment she’d seen Nash outside Libby’s room.

“Something I should know?” Oren asked—and it wasn’t really a question. I told him what Alisa had said about Mellie and Nash, what I’d seen in Libby’s room, what Mellie had seen. And then we pulled up to Hawthorne House, and I saw Alisa.

“She’s the only person I’ve let past the gates,” Oren assured me. “Frankly, she’s the only one I intend to let past those gates for the foreseeable future.”

I probably should have found that more comforting than I did.

“How is she?” Alisa asked Oren as soon as we exited the SUV.

“Pissed,” I answered, before Oren could reply on my behalf. “Sore. A little terrified.” Seeing her—and seeing Oren standing next to her—broke the dam, and an accusation burst out of me. “You both told me I would be fine! You swore that I was not in danger. You acted like I was being ridiculous when I mentioned murder.”

“Technically,” my lawyer replied, “you specified ax-murder. And technically,” she continued through gritted teeth, “it is possible that there was an oversight, legally speaking.”

“What kind of oversight? You told me that if I died, the Hawthornes wouldn’t get a penny!”

“And I stand by that conclusion,” Alisa said emphatically. “However…” She clearly found any admission of fault distasteful. “I also told you that if you died while the will was in probate, your inheritance would pass through to your estate. And typically, it would.”

“Typically,” I repeated. If there was one thing I’d learned in the past week, it was that there was nothing typical about Tobias Hawthorne—or his heirs.

“However,” Alisa continued, her voice tight, “in the state of Texas, it is possible for the deceased to add a stipulation to the will that requires heirs to survive him by a certain amount of time in order to inherit.”

I’d read the will multiple times. “Pretty sure I’d remember if there was something in there about how long I had to avoid dying to inherit. The only stipulation—”

“Was that you must live in Hawthorne House for one year,” Alisa finished. “Which, I will admit, would be quite the difficult stipulation to fulfill if you were dead.”

That was her oversight? The fact that I couldn’t live in Hawthorne House if I wasn’t alive?

“So if I die…” I swallowed, wetting my tongue. “The money goes to charity?”

“Possibly. But it’s also possible that your heirs could challenge that interpretation on the basis of Mr. Hawthorne’s intent.”