The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1)(66)

My fault. I tried to tell myself this wasn’t good-bye—not forever. “Love you, Max.”

“Love you, too, beach.”

After we hung up, I sat there in my towel, feeling like something inside of me had been carved out. Eventually, I made my way back into my bedroom and threw on some pajamas. I was in bed, thinking about everything Max had said, wondering if I was a fundamentally selfish or needy person, when I heard a sound like scratching in the walls.

I stopped breathing and listened. There it was again. The passageway.

“Jameson?” I called. He was the only one who’d used this passage into my room—or at least the only one I knew of. “Jameson, this isn’t funny.”

There was no response, but when I got up and walked toward the passageway, then stood very still, I could have sworn I heard someone breathing, right on the other side of the wall. I gripped the candlestick, prepared to pull it and face down whoever or whatever stood beyond, but then my common sense—and my promise to Max—caught up to me, and I opened the door to the hallway instead.

“Oren?” I said. “There’s something you should know.”





Oren searched the passageway, then disabled its entrance into my room. He also “suggested” I spend the night in Libby’s room, which didn’t have passageway access.

It wasn’t really a suggestion.

My sister was asleep when I knocked. She roused, but barely. I crawled into bed with her, and she didn’t ask why. After my conversation with Max, I was fairly certain I didn’t want to tell her. Libby’s entire life had already been turned upside down because of me. Twice. First when my mom had died, then all of this. She’d already given me everything. She had her own issues to deal with. She didn’t need mine.

Under the covers, I hugged a pillow tight to my body and rolled toward Libby. I needed to be close to her, even if I couldn’t tell her why. Libby’s eyes fluttered, and she snuggled up next to me. I willed myself not to think about anything else—not the Black Wood, not the Hawthornes, nothing. I let darkness overcome me, and I slept.

I dreamed that I was back at the diner. I was young—five or six—and happy.

I place two sugar packets vertically on the table and bring their ends together, forming a triangle capable of standing on its own. “There,” I say. I do the same with the next pair of packets, then set a fifth across them horizontal, connecting the two triangles I built.

“Avery Kylie Grambs!” My mom appears at the end of the table, smiling. “What have I told you about building castles out of sugar?”

I beam back at her. “It’s only worth it if you can go five stories tall!”

I woke with a start. I turned over, expecting to see Libby, but her side of the bed was empty. Morning light was streaming in through the windows. I made my way to Libby’s bathroom, but she wasn’t there, either. I was getting ready to go back to my room—and my bathroom—when I saw something on the counter: Libby’s phone. She’d missed texts, dozens of them, all from Drake. There were only three—the most recent—that I could read without a password.

I love you.

You know I love you, Libby-mine.

I know that you love me.





CHAPTER 59


Oren met me in the hall the second I left Libby’s suite. If he’d been up all night, he didn’t look it.

“A police report has been filed,” he reported. “Discreetly. The detectives assigned to the case are coordinating with my team. We’re all in agreement that it would be to our advantage, at least for the moment, if the Hawthorne family does not realize there is an investigation. Jameson and Rebecca have been made to understand the importance of discretion. As much as you can, I’d like you to proceed as though nothing has happened.”

Pretend I hadn’t had a brush with death the night before. Pretend everything was fine. “Have you seen Libby?” I asked. Libby isn’t fine.

“She went down for breakfast about half an hour ago.” Oren’s tone gave away nothing.

I thought back to those texts, and my stomach tightened. “Did she seem okay?”

“No injuries. All limbs and appendages fully intact.”

That wasn’t what I’d been asking, but given the circumstances, maybe it should have been. “If she’s downstairs in full view of Hawthornes, is she safe?”

“Her security detail is aware of the situation. They do not currently believe she is at risk.”

Libby wasn’t the heiress. She wasn’t the target. I was.





I got dressed and went downstairs. I’d gone with a high-necked top to hide my stitches, and I’d covered the scratch on my cheek with makeup, as much as I could.

In the dining room, a selection of pastries had been set out on the sideboard. Libby was curled up in a large accent chair in the corner of the room. Nash was sitting in the chair beside her, his legs sticking straight out, his cowboy boots crossed at the ankles. Keeping watch.

Between them and me were four members of the Hawthorne family. All with reason to want me dead, I thought as I walked past them. Zara and Constantine sat at one end of the dining room table. She was reading a newspaper. He was reading a tablet. Neither paid the least bit of attention to me. Nan and Xander were at the far end of the table.