Money, Power, Glory [Grayson Hawthorne]

IX

Avery:

I had a target on my forehead.
"What would it take to evoke the protection clause in the will?"

Oren changed tactics. "There are circumstances under which Avery could remove the Hawthornes as tenants, correct?"

"We'd need evidence," Alisa replied. "Something that ties a specific individual or individuals to acts of harassment, intimidation, or violence, and even then, Avery can only kick out the perpetrator—not the whole family."

"And she can't live somewhere else for the time being?"
"No."
Oren didn't like that, but he didn't waste time on unnecessary commentary. "You'll go nowhere without me," Oren told me, steel in his voice.

"Not on the estate, not in the House. Nowhere, you understand? I was always close by. Now I get to play visible deterrent."

Beside me, Alisa narrowed her eyes at Oren. "What do you know that I don't?"

There was a single moment's pause, then my bodyguard answered the question. "I had my people check the armory. Nothing is missing. In all likelihood, the weapon fired at Avery wasn't a Hawthorne gun, but I had my men pull the security footage from the past few days anyway."

I was too busy trying to wrap my mind around the fact that Hawthorne House had an armory to process the rest.
"The armory had a visitor?" Alisa asked, her voice almost too calm. "Three of them." Oren seemed like he might stop there, for my benefit,
but he pressed on. "Jameson, Grayson and Kylie. All three have alibis—but all three were looking at rifles."

"Hawthorne House has an armory?" That was all I could manage to say.
"This is Texas," Oren replied. "The whole family grew up shooting, and Mr. Hawthorne was a collector."

"A gun collector," I clarified. I hadn't been a fan of firearms before I'd almost been shot.
"If you'd read the binder I left you detailing your assets," Alisa interjected, "you'd know that Mr. Hawthorne had the world's largest collection of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Winchester rifles, several of which are valued at upward of four hundred thousand dollars."

The idea that anyone would pay that much for a rifle was mind- boggling, but I barely batted an eye at the price tag, because I was too busy thinking that there was a reason the three of them had made visits to the armory to look at rifles—one that had nothing to do with shooting me.

Jameson's middle name was Winchester.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nash led me up two sets of stairs, down three hallways, and past a doorway that had been bricked shut.

"What's that?" I asked.
He slowed momentarily. "That was my uncle's wing. The old man had it walled off when Toby died."

Because that's normal, I thought. About as normal as disinheriting your whole family for twenty years and never saying a word.

Nash picked up the pace again, and finally, we came to a steel door that looked like it belonged on a safe. There was a combination dial, and below it, a five-pronged lever. Nash casually twirled the dial—left, right, left—too quick for me to catch the numbers. There was a loud clicking sound, and then he turned the lever. The steel door opened out into the hall.

What kind of library needs that kind of securit—
My brain was in the process of finishing that thought when Nash stepped through the doorway, and I realized that what lay beyond wasn't a single room. It was a whole other wing.
"The old man started construction on this part of the house when I was born,"

Nash informed me. The hallway around us was papered with dials, keypads, locks, and keys, all affixed to the walls like art. "Hawthornes learn how to wield a lockpick young," Nash told me as we walked down the hall. I looked in a room to my left, and there was a small airplane—not a toy. An actual single-person airplane.