The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1)(76)

Beside me, Thea recovered her voice—and then some. “What the hell is going on here?”

Oren exited the highway and slowed to a stop at a red light. “Yes,” he told me apologetically, “we used you—and ourselves—as bait.” He glanced toward Thea and answered her question. “There was an attack on Avery two days ago. Our friends at the police station agreed to play this my way.”

“Your way could have killed us!” I couldn’t make my heart stop pounding. I could barely breathe.

“We had backup,” Oren assured me. “My people, as well as the police. I won’t tell you that you weren’t in danger, but the situation being what it was, danger was not a possibility that could be eliminated. There were no good options. You had to continue living in that house. Instead of waiting for another attack, Alisa and I engineered what looked like a prime opportunity. Now, maybe we can get some answers.”

First, they’d told me that the Hawthornes weren’t a threat. Then they’d used me to flush out the threat. “You could have told me,” I said roughly.

“It was better,” Alisa told me, “that you didn’t know. That no one knew.”

Better for whom? Before I could say that, Oren got a call.

“Did Rebecca know about the attack?” Thea asked beside me. “Is that why she’s been so upset?”

“Oren.” Alisa ignored Thea and me. “Did they apprehend the driver?”

“They did.” Oren paused, and I caught him looking at me in the rearview mirror, his eyes softening in a way that made my stomach twist. “Avery, it was your sister’s boyfriend.”

Drake. “Ex-boyfriend,” I corrected, my voice getting caught in my throat.

Oren didn’t respond to my assertion. “They found a rifle in his trunk that, at least preliminarily, matches the bullets. The police will be wanting to talk to your sister.”

“What?” I said, my heart still banging mercilessly at my rib cage. “Why?” On some level, I knew—I knew the answer to that question, but I couldn’t accept it.

I wouldn’t.

“If Drake was the shooter, someone would have had to sneak him onto the estate,” Alisa said, her voice uncharacteristically gentle.

Not Libby, I thought. “Libby wouldn’t—”

“Avery.” Alisa put a hand on my shoulder. “If something happens to you—even without a will—your sister and your father are your heirs.”





CHAPTER 69


These were the facts: Drake had tried to run my car off the road. He had a weapon that was a likely match for the bullets Oren had recovered. He had a felony record.

The police took my statement. They asked questions about the shooting. About Drake. About Libby. Eventually, I was escorted back to Hawthorne House.

The front door flew open before Alisa and I had even made it to the porch.

Nash stormed out of the house, then slowed when he saw us. “You want to tell me why I’m just now getting word that the police hauled Libby out of here?” he asked Alisa.

I’d never heard a Southern drawl sound quite like that.

Alisa lifted her chin. “If she’s not under arrest, she had no obligation to go with them.”

“She doesn’t know that!” Nash boomed. Then he lowered his voice and looked her in the eye. “If you’d wanted to protect her, you could have.”

There were so many layers to that sentence, I couldn’t begin to untangle them, not with my brain focused on other things. Libby. The police have Libby.

“I’m not in the business of protecting every sad story that comes along,” Alisa told Nash.

I knew she wasn’t just talking about Libby, but that didn’t matter. “She’s not a sad story,” I gritted out. “She’s my sister!”

“And, more likely than not, an accessory to attempted murder.” Alisa reached out to touch my shoulder. I stepped back.

Libby wouldn’t hurt me. She wouldn’t let anyone hurt me. I believed that, but I couldn’t say it. Why couldn’t I say it?

“That bastard’s been texting her,” Nash said beside me. “I’ve been trying to get her to block him, but she feels so damn guilty—”

“For what?” Alisa pushed. “What does she feel guilty for? If she’s got nothing to hide from the police, then why are you so concerned about her talking to them?”

Nash’s eyes flashed. “You’re really going to stand there and act like we weren’t both raised to treat ‘never talk to the authorities without a lawyer present’ like a Commandment?”

I thought about Libby, alone in a cell. She probably wasn’t even in a cell, but I couldn’t shake the image. “Send someone,” I told Alisa shakily. “From the firm.” She opened her mouth to object, and I cut her off. “Do it.”

I might not hold the purse strings now, but I would someday. She worked for me.

“Consider it done,” Alisa said.

“And leave me alone,” I told her fiercely. She and Oren had kept me in the dark. They’d moved me around like a chess piece on a board. “All of you,” I said, turning back toward Oren.

I needed to be alone. I needed to do everything in my power to keep them from planting even a seed of doubt, because if I couldn’t trust Libby…