The Inheritances Game (Jameson Hawthorne)

Tobias Hawthorne's Wedding Ring

"Don't do this." If Thea were anyone else, she would have sounded like she was begging.

"If I were better at mattering..." Rebecca spoke louder. "If, for once in my life, I'd been enough for anyone—for the girl I loved—my sister might still be alive." Thea had no response. Silence descended again. Painful, awkward, excruciating silence.

Jameson was the one who put Thea out of her misery. "So, Heiress," he said, throwing out a subject change like he was throwing a tarp over a fire. "How are we going to go about getting that ring?"

Catalina's Pov

"You're going to need someone to run interference if you want to search Zara's wing." Grayson said, because he was apparently helping us now.

"Gray excels at distraction," Jameson said loftily. "I attribute it to his uncanny ability to be boring and long-winded on cue."

"We'll need to make sure Constantine stays clear, too." I said not looking at Jameson remembering all too well what happened in the hot tub. We had heard the noise from Avery's dilemma and quickly went back to our separate rooms.

"I, too, excel at the art of distraction," Max volunteered. "I attribute it to my ability to channel any or all of my favorite fictional spies on cue."

"Grayson and Max can set up a perimeter." Xander's voice was uncharacteristically muted. "Jameson, Cat, Avery, and I will do a sweep of the wing." Rebecca had split the moment the plane landed. Thea hadn't lingered long once Rebecca was gone. Xander's team had abandoned him, but he wasn't backing down. He wasn't about to let us search for the ring on our own.

"This is a very bad idea." Eli didn't even pretend that he hadn't been eavesdropping.

The door to Zara's wing was at least ten feet tall—and locked. "Do you want to pick it?" Jameson asked Xander. "Or should I?" Two minutes later, the four of us were in. Grayson and Max stayed behind and took up posts at the far ends on the hall. Eli grumbled as he followed us into the belly of the beast. I'd never been in Zara's wing and a quick inspection told me there were seven doors lining the main hall. Behind three of them we found bedrooms, each one the equivalent of an entire suite. Two of the three suites were clearly in use.

"Do Zara and her husband sleep in different rooms?" Avery asked.

"Don't know," I replied.

"Don't want to know," Xander added cheerily. I saw men's shoes in one room. The other was immaculate. Zara's. There was a marble fireplace near the back of the room. Built-in shelves lined the wall to the left. There were books on the shelves, large, leather-bound volumes. The kind of books a person displayed, not the kind they read.

"If I were a person whose bookshelves looked like that," Avery murmured, "where would I keep my jewelry?"

"A safe," Xander answered, probing a molding on the wall. Jameson stepped past me, letting his body brush mine. "And that safe," Jameson said, "is assuredly hidden."

It took ten minutes for our search to hit pay dirt: a remote control taped to the bookshelf, behind one of the leather-bound books. I peeled off the tape and got a better look at the remote, which had only one button.

I pushed the button. As the massive built-in shelves began to move, slowly disappearing into the wall, I stared at what had been hidden behind them. "More shelves," Avery said, "And... more books?" Rows of paperbacks were stacked two deep. Romance. Science fiction. Cozy mysteries and paranormal.

"If we take the books off these shelves, will we find another remote?" Xander postulated. "And more shelves? And another remote? And—" Xander cut off.