The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1)(68)

Grayson gritted his teeth, then realized something. “You were both in the Black Wood last night.” He stared at his brother. “Whoever shot at her could have hit you.”

“And what a travesty it would be,” Jameson replied, circling his brother, “if anything happened to me.”

The tension between them was palpable. Explosive. I could see how this would play out—Grayson calling Jameson reckless, Jameson risking himself further to prove the point. How long would it be before Jameson mentioned me? The kiss.

“Hope I’m not interrupting.” Nash joined the party. He flashed a lazy, dangerous smile at his brothers. “Jamie, you’re not skipping school today. You have five minutes to put on your uniform and get in my truck, or there will be a hog-tying in your future.” He waited for Jameson to get a move on, then turned. “Gray, our mother has requested an audience.”

Having dealt with his siblings, the oldest Hawthorne brother shifted his attention to me. “I don’t suppose you need a ride to Country Day?”

“She does not,” Oren replied, arms crossed over his chest. Nash noted both his posture and his tone, but before he could reply, I interjected.

“I’m not going to school.” That was news to Oren, but he didn’t object.

Nash, on the other hand, shot me the exact same look he’d given Jameson when he’d made the threat about hog-tying. “Your sister know you’re playing hooky on this fine Friday afternoon?”

“My sister is none of your concern,” I told him, but thinking about Libby brought my mind back to Drake’s texts. There were worse things than the idea that Libby might get involved with a Hawthorne. Assuming Nash doesn’t want me dead.

“Everyone who lives or works in this house is my concern,” Nash told me. “No matter how many times I leave or how long I’m gone for—people still need looking after. So…” He gave me that same lazy grin. “Your sister know you’re playing hooky?”

“I’ll talk to her,” I said, trying to see past the cowboy in him to what lay underneath.

Nash returned my assessing look. “You do that, sweetheart.”





CHAPTER 61


I told Libby I was staying home. I tried to form the words to ask her about Drake’s texts and came up dry. What if Drake’s not just texting? That thought snaked its way through my consciousness. What if she’s seen him? What if he talked her into sneaking him onto the estate?

I shut down that line of thinking. There was no “sneaking” onto the estate. Security was airtight, and Oren would have told me if Drake had been on the premises during the shooting. He would have been the top suspect—or close to it.

If I die, there’s at least a chance that everything passes to my closest blood relatives. That’s Libby—and our father.

“Are you sick?” Libby asked, placing the back of her hand on my forehead. She was wearing her new purple boots and a black dress with long, lacy sleeves. She looked like she was going somewhere.

To see Drake? Dread settled in the pit of my stomach. Or with Nash?

“Mental health day,” I managed. Libby accepted that and declared it Sister Time. If she’d had plans, she didn’t think twice before ditching them for me.

“Want to hit the spa?” Libby asked earnestly. “I got a massage yesterday, and it was to die for.”

I almost died yesterday. I didn’t say that, and I didn’t tell her that the massage therapist wouldn’t be coming back today—or anytime soon. Instead, I offered up the only distraction I could think of that might also distract me from all of the secrets I was keeping from her.

“How would you like to help me find a Davenport?”





According to the internet search results Libby and I pulled up, the term Davenport was used separately to refer to two kinds of furniture: a sofa and a desk. The sofa usage was a generic term, like Kleenex for a tissue or dumpster for a garbage bin, but a Davenport desk referred to a specific kind of desk, one that was notable for compartments and hidey-holes, with a slanted desktop that could be lifted to reveal a storage compartment underneath.

Everything I knew about Tobias Hawthorne told me that we probably weren’t looking for a sofa.

“This could take a while,” Libby told me. “Do you have any idea how big this place is?”

I’d seen the music rooms, the gymnasium, the bowling alley, the showroom for Tobias Hawthorne’s cars, the solarium… and that wasn’t even a quarter of what there was to see. “Enormous.”

“Palatial,” Libby chirped. “And since I’m such bad publicity, I haven’t had anything to do for the past week except explore.” That publicity comment had to have come from Alisa, and I wondered how many chats she’d had with Libby without me there. “There’s a literal ballroom,” Libby continued. “Two theaters—one for movies and one with box seats and a stage.”

“I’ve seen that one,” I offered. “And the bowling alley.”

Libby’s kohl-rimmed eyes grew round. “Did you bowl?”

Her awe was contagious. “I bowled.”

Libby shook her head. “It is never going to stop being bizarre that this house has a bowling alley.”

“There’s also a driving range,” Oren added behind me. “And racquetball.”