Inheritance Of Secrets

Do you know how to count?

"We'll come back to your letter." Jameson ignored her last words. He was very good at ignoring grief,  "And turn our attention to mine. I'm curious, Mystery Girl, what do you make of it?"

"Your letter is written in proverbs, All that glitters is not gold. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. He's saying that money and power are dangerous. And the first line—better the devil you know than the one you don't—or is it?—that's obvious, right?" The way Avery is talking is like everyone would understand it. Like every solution was the obvious. It meant she was either extremely cocky (unlikely, Very unlikely), or she underestimated herself (definitely that one).

I felt weird that I was here. I didn't want to be involved in this and being here makes Jameson think that he can reel me in to help him. Also Avery definitely didn't trust me. I mean personally I wouldn't trust myself either. 

"Keep going," Jameson prompted Avery.

"Nothing is certain but death and taxes. It sounds to me like he knew he was going to die." She really shouldn't have said that. I knew he was going to die. But I don't count. Nearly everyone in the Hawthorne family was shocked with his death and all of the brothers were devastated. I think.

"We didn't even know he was sick," Jameson murmured. He turned to stare at me.

"I guess everyone's trauma dumping today," I joke, "but in all seriousness he obviously knew he was dying." Jameson turned his head around back to Avery. Someone's in a mood today.

They both continued their work on the letter going through the lines. Trying to figure out Tobias Hawthorne's very strange wording.

Yeah I wish I stayed home.

Avery's POV

"Almost there." Oren spoke from the front seat. If he'd been following our conversation, he gave no sign of it. "The Country Day administration has been briefed on the situation. I signed off on the school's security years ago, when the boys enrolled. You should be fine here, Avery, but do not, under any circumstances, leave the campus." Our car pulled past a guarded gate. "I won't be far."

I turned my mind from the letters—Jameson's and mine—to what awaited me outside this car. This is a high school? I thought, taking in the sight outside my window. It looked more like a college or a museum, like something out of a catalogue where all the students were beautiful and smiling. Suddenly, the uniform I'd been given felt like it didn't belong on my body. I was a kid playing dress-up, pretending that wearing a kitchen pot on her head could turn her into an astronaut, that smudging lipstick all over her face made her a star.

To the rest of the world, I was a sudden celebrity. I was fascinated—and a target. But here? How could people who'd grown up with this kind of money see a girl like me as anything but a fraud?

"I hate to puzzle and run, Mystery Girl...." Jameson's hand was already on the door handle as the SUV pulled to a stop. "But the last thing you need on your first day at this school is for anyone to see you getting cosy with me." He then turned to Annabelle "ad bibliothecam occursum prandium,"

"Bene" she replied but Jameson had already vanished.

I made a mental reminder to search up what that meant when I had the time.

Right now I had to face the tons of prep kids in this enormous school .

"This school sucks. If I were you I'd leave right now," she started, "But then again I'm not you."

I have no idea how to read Annabelle. I have so many questions for her but I don't think she will answer any. Even the questions I asked Xander about her went nowhere. She hides every emotion she showed and changed it. If I hadn't known better I would have just pinned her for a cocky prep school kid herself. But there was something in the way she said things. They were said to get a reaction. To force an emotion.

"Do you need help to get out of the car?" she smirked before jumping out and waiting for me on the other side.

"It's just a school," Oren told me. "They're just kids."

Rich kids. Kids whose baseline for normal was probably "just" being the child of a brain surgeon or hotshot lawyer. When they thought college, they were probably talking about Harvard or Yale. And there I was, wearing a pleated plaid skirt and a burgundy blazer, complete with a navy crest embossed with Latin words I didn't know how to read.

I grabbed my new phone and sent a message to Max. This is Avery. New number. Call me.

Glancing at the front seat again, I forced my hand to the door. It wasn't Oren's job to coddle me. It was his job to protect me—and not from the stares I fully expected the moment I stepped out of this car.

"Do I meet you back here at the end of the day?" I asked.

"I'll be here."

I waited a beat, in case Oren had any other instructions, and then I opened the door. "Thanks for the ride."

Annabelle smiled at me. I couldn't tell if it was genuine or condescending.

Annabelle seemed incredibly smart but she obviously didn't want to be involved in the mystery Jameson though there was. I'm also pretty sure she was listening to my conversation with Alisa about me thinking one of the Hawthorne's would axe murder me.

"Took you a while," she said while still smiling. 

"Why did you wait then?"

She stared at me for a second, I could see how blue her eyes were looking, They looked like waves. "You still haven't figured me out yet, thought I'd give you a chance," she spun around and I followed her.

"You get two questions," She continued, "I will answer both truthfully."

"What makes you think I have questions?"

"Girls like you always have questions." This girl was extremely straight forward.

"Who are you to the Hawthorne's?"

"A close family friend," I wanted to ask her more on that but she turned around.

"Where are you going? I still get one more question,"

"You should work on your counting skills, Avery. They are not very good."