“He was a good boy,” Nan said gruffly.
I barely heard her. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the picture. I couldn’t speak, because I knew that man. He was younger in the picture—much younger—but that face was unmistakable.
“Heiress?” A voice spoke up from the doorway. I looked to see Jameson standing there. He looked different than he had the past few days. Lighter, somehow. Marginally less angry. Capable of offering a lopsided little half smile to me. “What’s got your pants in a twist?”
I looked back down at the locket and sucked in a breath that scalded my lungs. “Toby,” I managed. “I know him.”
“You what?” Jameson walked toward me. Beside me, Nan went very still.
“I used to play chess with him in the park,” I said. “Every morning.”Harry.
“That’s impossible,” Nan said, her voice shaking. “Toby’s been dead for twenty years.”
Twenty years ago, Tobias Hawthorne had disinherited his family.What is this? What the hell is going on here?
“Are you sure, Heiress?” Jameson was right beside me now.I’ve seen the way Jameson looks at you, Grayson had said. “Are you absolutely certain?”
I looked at Jameson. This didn’t feel real.I have a secret, I could hear my mother telling me,about the day you were born.…
I reached for Jameson’s hand and squeezed hard. “I’m sure.”
EPILOGUE
Xander Hawthorne stared down at the letter, the way he had every day for a week. On the surface, it said very little.
Alexander,
Well done.
Tobias Hawthorne
Well done.He’d gotten his brothers to the end of the game. He’d gotten Avery there, too. He’d done exactly as he’d promised—but the old man had made him a promise, too.
When their game is done, yours will begin.
Xander had never competed the way his brothers did—but oh, how he’d wanted to. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Avery that, just once, he wanted to win. When they’d made it to the final room, when she’d opened the box, when he’d torn open his envelope, he’d been expecting…something.
A riddle.
A puzzle.
A clue.
And all he’d received was this.Well done.
“Xander?” Rebecca said softly beside him. “What are we doing here?”
“Sighing melodramatically,” Thea sniped. “Obviously.”
That he’d gotten both of them here, in the same room, was a feat. He wasn’t even sure why he’d done it, other than the fact that he needed a witness.Witnesses.If Xander was being honest with himself, he’d brought Rebecca because he wanted her there, and he’d brought Thea because if he hadn’t…
He would have been alone with Rebecca.
“There are many types of invisible ink,” Xander told them. In the past few days, he had held a match to the back of the page, heating its surface. He’d bought a UV light and gone to town. He’d tried every way he knew of unmasking a hidden message on a page, except for one. “But there’s only one kind,” he continued evenly, “that destroys the message after it’s revealed.”
If he was wrong about this, it was over. There would be no game, no winning. Xander didn’t want to do this alone.
“What exactly do you think you’re going to find?” Thea asked him.
