Page 86 of The Brothers Hawthorne

“What if Dad’s trying to tell us something?” she said.

“What if he left,” Savannah countered, “because he doesn’t care?”

“Don’t say that,” Gigi implored. “Do you really think that I’ve been looking for answers, looking for Dad, forme?”

Savannah’s expression was very hard to read. “Geeg.”

“You,” Gigi replied, “were everything he wanted in a daughter.”

Savannah looked down. “And it still wasn’t enough.”

Grayson looked away from the two of them.

“On the way here, I told myself that if there was even a small chance Dad was innocent, I was going to prove it,” Savannah said. She swallowed. “But maybe I just want to understand. Why he left us. Why nothing was ever enough for him.”

Gigi enveloped Savannah in a hug, then her blue eyes narrowed. “Prove Dad innocent of what?”

Grayson waited for Savannah to lie to her. She was the one who’d insisted that Gigi, like their mother, needed to be protected.

“Embezzling from Grammy. Emptying Mom’s trust.”

Gigi took in that info. “I am starting to feel distressingly sober. I think I need another mimosa.”

“You got drunk on mimosas?” Nash asked mildly.

Gigi held up a single finger.

Xander interpreted. “Ononemimosa?”

“And four cups of coffee,” Gigi admitted.

Savannah’s eyes narrowed. “Oh dear lord.”

Gigi looked at her twin. “I forgive you,” she said, and the fact that the words came out of nowhere seemed to make them hit Savannah harder. “You were just trying to protect me.” Gigi turned toward Grayson. “And I forgive you, Lord of Lies, because you need me in your life.” She glanced at Xander and Nash. “He takes himself way too seriously.”

“I do not,” Grayson grumbled.

Gigi moved like lightning and tickled his side. “Now, about those photographs…”

Grayson swatted her hand away and jumped back when she went in to tickle him again.

“We don’t need the photographs.” Savannah took pity on Grayson and distracted her twin. “We already know where we’re going next.”

CHAPTER 59

JAMESON

The sound of church bells broke through the air. Branford made it to the door first.

It was unlocked.

Jameson let the others clear out, then turned to Avery and softly murmured directly into her ear. “We’re looking for smugglers’ caves. They’ll be ocean-side, obviously. We’ll make sense of the rest of it once we find the caves.”

But first, they had to find their way out of the massive not-quite-a-castle that Ian had said was more of a home to him and his brothers growing up than any of his father’s properties ever were.

His brothers, Simon and Bowen.Jameson shoved the thought out of his brain as he snaked through a corridor, Avery on his heels.

At the end of the corridor, they found a banquet hall. Wallpaper adorned the top half of all four walls; the bottom half was covered with wood paneling, the carvings on the panels geometric. The ceiling was stark white, with dozens of moldings that hung down like icicles, each ending in a sharp, triangular point.