Page 91 of The Brothers Hawthorne

The stone and the turning—that could have referred to the statue. But what if it didn’t?

Two hundred feet up.

Likewise, you may do no damage to your fellow players. They, like the house and the grounds, will be left in the condition in which you found them. Violence of any kind will be met with immediate expulsion from the Game.

That seemed straightforward. The only words that even remotely jumped out to Jameson wereconditionanddamage.

Were they looking for something damaged?

Something for which the condition mattered a great deal?Art. Antiques.

Two hundred thirty feet up.

You have twenty-four hours, beginning at the top of the hour. After that, the prize will be considered forfeit.

“The top of the hour.” Jameson wondered how many clocks there were in the manor.

Two hundred seventy feet up.

If that’s your way of asking if I’ve made it easy for you all, I have not.Jameson was retreading old ground now, and he and Avery had almost finished the climb.No rest for the wicked, my dear. But it would hardly be sporting if I hadn’t given you everything you needed to win.

Jameson reached the top of the cliff and stepped onto solid ground.The Game starts when you hear the bells. Until then, I suggest you all let the wheels turn a bit and acquaint yourself with the competition.

“You’re thinking,” Avery commented, stepping back into her dress. “You’re in deep.”

Deep in his own mind, deep in the weeds of the Game.

Jameson zipped her dress for her, but this time, he didn’t linger on the task. “I’m going back through everything that Rohan said. There are certain phrases that stick out.”

“Smuggle nothing out?” Avery suggested wryly.

“That would be one,” Jameson agreed, a low buzz building beneath his skin. “But not the only one.”

“No rest for the wicked.”That was the one Avery went for first.“No stone unturned.”She paused. “It reminds me of the first clue in my very first Hawthorne game. The idioms in your letters, remember?”

Jameson gave her a look. Of course he remembered. He remembered everything about those early days. “Technically,” he said, “that wasn’t your first Hawthorne game. The keys,” he reminded her. They were a Hawthorne tradition.“No rest for the wicked. No stone unturned. Let the wheels turn a bit. Dig up the yard. Fill the holes. Anything broken must be mended. The mark.”

The possibilities and combinations twisted and turned in Jameson’s mind.

The gate to the stone garden was still open. The moment Jameson stepped through, the moment he looked out upon the thousands and thousands of stones that paved the ground, he saw it.

“Leave no…” he started to say.

“… stone unturned,” Avery finished. For a moment, they just stood there, staring out at this massive haystack, contemplating the possibility of one very small needle.

“There are probably a ton of stones in the manor, too,” Avery commented. “The walls of the room we started in were stone.”

Jameson’s hand came to rest on the cast-iron lock. It had been unlocked when they’d gotten here. He turned it around, and there, on the back, he found a message.

HINT: GO BACK TO THE START.

CHAPTER 63

GRAYSON

Asingle call to Zabrowski was all it took to obtain Kimberly Wright’s address, two towns away.

“Xan and I will wait outside,” Nash told Grayson once they arrived. “I wager we can find a way of entertaining ourselves.”