The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1)(92)

“Knew what, Jamie?”

Jameson turned back to face his brother. “What happened on ten-eighteen.”

“It was my fault.” Grayson strode forward, taking Jameson’s shoulders in his hands. “I’m the one who took Emily there. I knew it was a bad idea, and I didn’t care. I just wanted to win. I wanted her to love me.”

“I followed you that night.” Jameson’s statement hung in the air for several seconds. “I watched the two of you jump, Gray.”

All of a sudden, I was back with Jameson, headed for the West Brook. He’d told me two lies and one truth. I watched Emily Laughlin die.

“You followed us?” Grayson couldn’t make sense of that. “Why?”

“Masochism?” Jameson shrugged. “I was pissed.” He paused. “Eventually, you ran off to get the towels, and I…”

“Jamie.” Grayson dropped his hands to his sides. “What did you do?”

Grayson had told me that he’d left to get the towels, and when he’d gotten back, Emily was lying on the shore. Dead.

“What did you do?”

“She saw me.” Jameson turned from his brother to look at me. “She saw me, and she smiled. She thought she’d won. She thought she still had me, but I turned and walked away. She called my name. I didn’t stop. I heard her gasp. She was making this little strangling sound.”

I brought my hand to my mouth in horror.

“I thought she was playing with me. I heard a splash, but I didn’t turn around. I made it probably a hundred yards. She wasn’t calling after me anymore. I glanced back.” Jameson’s voice broke. “Emily was hunched over, crawling out of the water. I thought she was pretending.”

He’d thought she was manipulating him.

“I just stood there,” Jameson said dully. “I didn’t do a damn thing to help her.”

I watched Emily Laughlin die. I thought I was going to be sick. I could see him, standing there, trying to show her that he wasn’t hers anymore, trying to resist.

“She collapsed. She went still, and she stayed still. And then you came back, Gray, and I left.” Jameson shuddered. “I hated you for taking her there, but I hate myself more because I let her die. I stood there, and I watched.”

“It was her heart,” I said. “What could you have—”

“I could have tried CPR. I could have done something.” Jameson swallowed. “But I didn’t. I don’t know how the old man knew, but he cornered me a few days later. He told me that he knew I’d been there and asked whether I felt culpable. He wanted me to tell you, Gray, and I wouldn’t. I said that if he was so damn set on you knowing that I’d been there, he could tell you himself. But he didn’t. Instead… he did this.”

The letter. The library. The will. Their middle names. The date of my birth—and Emily’s death. The numbers, scattered all over the estate. The stained glass, the riddle. The passage down into the tunnel. The grate marked M. E. The hidden room. The moving wall. The door.

“He wanted to make damn sure,” Jameson said, “that I never forgot.”

“No,” Xander blurted out. The others turned to look at him. “That’s not what this is,” he swore. “He wasn’t making a point. He wanted us—all four of us—together. Here.”

Nash put a hand on Xander’s shoulder. “The old man could be a real bastard, Xan.”

“That’s not what this is,” Xander said again, his voice more intense than I’d ever heard it—like he wasn’t speculating. Like he knew.

Grayson, who hadn’t said a word since Jameson’s confession, spoke up now. “What precisely are you saying, Alexander?”

“The two of you were walking around like ghosts. You were a robot, Gray.” Xander was speaking quickly now—almost too quickly for the rest of us to follow. “Jamie was a ticking time bomb. You hated each other.”

“We hated ourselves more,” Grayson said, his voice like sandpaper.

“The old man knew he was sick,” Xander admitted. “He told me, right before he died. He asked me to do something for him.”

Nash’s eyes narrowed. “And what was that?”

Xander didn’t answer. Grayson’s eyes narrowed. “You had to make sure we played.”

“It was my job to make sure you saw this to the end.” Xander looked from Grayson to Jameson. “Both of you. If either of you stopped playing, it was my job to draw you back.”

“You knew?” I said. “All this time, you knew where the clues led?”

Xander was the one who’d helped me find the tunnel. He was the one who’d solved the Black Wood. Even back at the very beginning…

He told me that his grandfather didn’t have a middle name.

“You helped me,” I said. He’d manipulated me. Moved me around, like a lure.

“I told you that I am a living, breathing Rube Goldberg machine.” Xander looked down. “I warned you. Kind of.” I thought of the moment he’d taken me to see the machine he’d built. I’d asked him what it had to do with Thea, and his response had been Who said this had anything to do with Thea?

I stared at Xander—the youngest, tallest, and arguably most brilliant Hawthorne. Where you go, he’d told me back at the gala, they’ll follow. All this time, I’d thought that Jameson was the one who was using me. I’d thought that he’d kept me close for a reason.