Page 30 of The Brothers Hawthorne

CHAPTER 21

GRAYSON

This is Dad’s office,” Gigi told Grayson. She gestured to a sleek desktop computer. “I found the key to the safe-deposit box in there last week, affixed to an index card that was affixed to the inside of the computer, near the cooling fan.”

Grayson assumed that Gigi would, at some point, explain what they were doing in the study. For the time being, she’d given him an entry. He took it. “May I see the key?” he asked, nodding to the chain around her neck.

Steal the key. Subvert her search for the name.

Gigi reached back to unclasp her necklace, then handed it over to Grayson. He examined the key. Making it disappear was one option, but the better option might be making and swapping in a duplicate—and not a perfect one.Just flawed enough that it won’t open the safe-deposit box.

“May I take a picture of the key?” Grayson asked. “I want a closer look at the etchings here.” He rubbed his thumb over the head of the key, which bore the name of the bank. “There’s some chance that the key identifies the number of the box that it opens.”

“And if we hadthat,” Gigi said, thrilled to her bones, “we wouldn’t have to figure out the name dad used to figure out which box this key goes to!”

Steeling himself against her beaming smile, Grayson took a series of photographs of the key with his phone. Not just of the head of the key—and not just from one angle. If he could create a 3D rendering, he could easily have a decoy made.

For show, he pulled up one of the photos and zoomed in on the etchings.

“You’re really doing this,” Savannah stated sharply beside him. “With her.” Savannah knew how to weaponize silence, even if it was brief. “Because you don’t believe that my father would leave. You don’t believe there could possibly be another woman, because Sheffield Grayson would never cheat on his wife.”

The utter ice in those words was clear. Grayson didn’t let it bother him. Savannah had a right to be angry, and her instincts were good: Hecouldn’tbe trusted.

“I believe,” Grayson told her calmly, “that Gigi is going to do this with or without my help.”

“Affirmative.” The girl in question grinned. “Chaotic good, thy name is Gigi. Let’s talk about step negative one.”

Savannah gave Grayson one last, piercing warning look, then turned to her sister. “Enlighten us.”

Gigi held out a hand to Grayson. “My key, if you please.”

“It’s clean,” Grayson told her, as he handed the necklace back to her. “No number.”

“But we will not be deterred!” Gigi declared. “And before we ransack Duncan’s dad’s office and look throughhisfiles—you can yell at me about that later, Sav—I figured we should make sure we’ve covered our bases here.”

“You haven’t already searched this place?” Grayson said mildly.

“I have.” Gigi smiled. “You two haven’t.”

If there was anything to be found here, the easiest way of keeping it out of her hands was finding it himself. “You said that the key was affixed to an index card.” Grayson rolled that over in his mind. “Do you still have the card?”

Gigi’s eyes grew saucer round, then she practically dove for the trash can. Victorious, she popped back to her feet. “Here.”

She handed him the card. Grayson noted that it had been cut down from the original size, possibly to fit inside the computer.But why use a card at all?He shrugged for Gigi’s benefit. “It’s just a white card.”

But as soon as she wasn’t looking, he pocketed it.

“Put your searching hats on, people.” Gigi grinned.

“I am not helping you with this,” Savannah told her sister emphatically.

Gigi patted her arm. “I believe that you believe that, but at a certain point, you have to ask yourself: Why are you here?”

“Because,” the taller—and older—twin said, “I don’t trusthim.”

“Don’t take offense,” Gigi told Grayson. “She only means it in the literal sense. And who among us doesn’t have a few little deeply entrenched trust issues?”

Grayson felt the ends of his lips twitch, wanting to curl upward.