"I'm sorry." Libby has apologized at least a dozen times.
She's told Drake everything about the will, the conditions on our inheritance, where we are staying. Everything. And the worst thing is, I know her well enough to know why. He'd probably be angry that she'd taken off. She'd try to pacify him. And the moment she told him about the money, he would demand to tag along. He would start making plans to spend the Hawthorne money. And Libby, God bless her, would tell him that it wasn't theirs to spend, that it wasn't his.
He hit her. She left him. He went to the press. And now they are here. Paparazzi. A horde descends on us as Oren leads me and Avery out a side door.
"There they are!" a voice yells.
"Camille!"
"Avery, Camille, over here!"
"Camille, how does it feel to be the richest teenager in America?"
"How does it feel to be the world's youngest billionaire?"
"How did you know Tobias Hawthorne?"
"Is it true that you're Tobias Hawthorne's illegitimate daughters?"
I'm shuffled into an SUV. The door close, dulling the roar of the reporters' questions. Exactly halfway through our drive, I get a text— not from Aisha. From an unknown number. I open it and see a screenshot of a news headline. "Camille Diante and Avery Grambs: Who Are the Hawthorne Heiresses?"
A short message accompanies the picture.
Hey, Trouble. You're officially famous.
There are more paparazzi outside the gates of Hawthorne House, but once we pull past them, the rest of the world fades away.
There is no welcome party. No Nash. No Grayson. No Hawthornes of any kind. I reach for the massive front door— locked. Alisa disappears around the back of the house. When she finally reappears, there is a pained expression on her face. She hands me a large envelope.
"Legally," she says, "The Hawthorne family is required to provide you with keys. Practically speaking..." She narrows her eyes. "The Hawthorne family is a pain in the ass."
"That a legal term?" Oren asks dryly.
I rip open the envelope and find that the Hawthorne family has indeed provided us with keys— somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred of them.
"Any idea which one of these goes to the front door?" I ask.
They aren't normal keys. They are oversized and ornately made. They all look like antiques, and each key has distinct different designs, different metals, different lengths and sizes.
"You'll figure it out," someone says.
My gaze jerks upward, and I find myself staring at an intercom.
"Cut the games, Jameson," Alisa orders. "This isn't nearly as cute as you all think it is."
No reply.
"Jameson?" Alisa tried again.
Silence, and then: "I have faith in you, M.G."
The intercom cut off, and Alisa blows out a long, frustrated breath. "God save me from Hawthornes."
"M.G.?" Libby asks, bewildered.
"Mystery Girl," Avery clarifies. I look at her, and I realise there must be something I've missed. When did they ever meet? "From what I've gathered, that's Jameson Hawthorne's idea of a nickname."
"Well?" Alisa said abruptly. "Do you want me to make a phone call?"
"No." I turn my attention from the keys to the door. The design is simple, geometric—not a match for anything on any of the keys I'd looked at so far. That would be too easy, I think. Too simple. A second later, a parallel thought follows. Not simple enough.
I've learned this much playing chess: The more complicated a person's strategy seemed, the less likely an opponent is going to look for simple answers. If you can keep someone looking at your knight, you can take them with a pawn. Look past the details. Past the complications. I shift my focus from the handles of the keys to the part that actually goes into the lock. Though the keys differ in size overall, the lock end is sized similarly from key to key.
Not just sized similarly, I realise, looking at two of the keys side by side. The pattern—the mechanism that actually turned the lock—is identical between the two. I moved on to a third key. And then I understand.
A riddle. A game. My favourites. I smile and hand it to Avery, who's been unusually quiet. "I got it. Have a look," I say. She takes a few of them and inspects them, then hands me one back. "This one."
We exchange a look. She reminds me of myself in more ways than she could ever understand.
I put the key through the lock and smile when it turns.
"How did you guys know which key to use?" Libby asks us. This is something she can't be a part of, no matter how hard she tries.
The answer comes from the intercom. "Sometimes," Jameson Hawthorne says, sounding strangely contemplative, "things that appear very different on the surface are actually exactly the same at their core."
C. R. D. - M. L. T
"Welcome home, Avery." Alisa steps into the foyer and turns to Avery.
I stop breathing, just for an instant, as I cross the threshold with her. All this, it belongs to Avery. And then, another thought, It belongs to me, too.
"Down that corridor," Alisa says, "we have the theater, the music room, conservatory, solarium...You've all seen the Great Room, of course," she continues. "The formal dining is farther down, then the kitchen, the chef's kitchen...."
"There's a chef?" Avery blurted out.
"There are sushi, Italian, Taiwanese, vegetarian, and pastry chefs on retainer." The voice that says those words is male. I turn to see the older couple from the will's reading standing by the entry to the Great Room. The Laughlins, I remember.
"But my wife handles the cooking day-to-day," Mr. Laughlin continues gruffly.
"Mr. Hawthorne was a very private man." Mrs. Laughlin eyes us. "He made do with my cooking most days because he didn't like having any more outsiders poking around in the House than necessary."
There is no doubt in my mind that she's saying House with a capital H—and even less that she considers us outsiders.
"There are dozens of staff on retainer," Alisa explains. "They all receive a full-time wage but work on call."
"If something needs doing, there's someone to do it," Mr. Laughlin says plainly, "and I see that it's done in the most discreet fashion possible. More often than not, you won't even know they're here."
"But I will," Oren states. "Movement on and off the estate is strictly tracked, and no one makes it past the gates without a deep background check. Construction crews, the housekeeping and gardening staff, every masseuse, chef, stylist, or sommelier—they are all cleared through my team."
Sommelier. Stylist. Chef. Masseuse. My brain works backward through that list. It's dizzying.
I'm still trying to formulate an appropriate response when the front door opens behind me. The day before, Nash Hawthorne gave me the impression of someone who wants to be out of here—yet there he is.
"Motorcycle cowboy," I catch Libby whisper to Avery.
Alisa next to me stiffens. She hands me a phone and informs me that the contacts saved are her number, as well as Oren's and the Laughlins'. Then she leaves, without saying a single word to Nash.
That cements something for me. Alisa and Nash. My lawyer advised me against losing my heart to a Hawthorne, and when she asked me if I ever had my life ruined by one of them, and I said no, her response had been lucky you.
"Don't go convincing yourself Lee-Lee is consortin' with the enemy," Nash tells Mrs. Laughlin. "These kids aren't anyone's enemy. There are no enemies here. This is what he wanted."
He. Tobias Hawthorne. Even dead, he's larger than life.
"None of this is Avery's fault," Libby says beside me. "She's just a kid."
I note that she doesn't say that about me. Matter of fact, she doesn't even look at me. It feels like a hit in the face. What did I do?
"Camille," Nash says merely, not even answering Libby, "you care to join me?"
"Depends," I say, then look at Oren.
Oren shrugs. "I can personally guarantee that Nash will not ax-murder you or allow you to be ax-murdered by anyone else while I'm gone. Avery, Libby, I'd like to introduce you to Hector, who will be running point on your detail."
That gets a snort from Nash, and I glare at Oren. As Avery and Libby follow Oren into the bowels of the house, I become keenly aware of the way that the oldest Hawthorne brother watches Libby go.
"Stay away from her," I tell Nash.
"You're protective," Nash comments, "and you seem like you'd fight dirty, and if there's one thing I respect, it's those particular traits in combination. But don't worry, I'm not interested in your sister. I was just wondering why someone you care about that much would say something like that."
He's referring to what Libby said, how she defended Avery and not me. I ignore the question.
There's a crash, then a thud in the distance.
"That," Nash says meditatively, "would be the reason I came back and am not living a pleasantly nomadic existence as we speak."
Another thud.
Nash rolls his eyes. "This should be fun. Let's go."