CHAPTER 21

In Hawthorne House, fondue involved twelve fondue pots accompanied by three full-sized chocolate fountains. Mrs. Laughlin had it all set up in the chef’s kitchen within the hour.

Distractions aren’t just distractions, I reminded myself. Sometimes, you need them to break the loop.

“In terms of cheese fondue,” Xander orated, “we’ve got your gruyère-based, your gouda-based, your beer cheddar, your fontina, your chällerhocker—”

“Okay,” Max cut in. “Now you’re just making up words.”

“Am I?” Xander said in his most dashing voice. “For dipping, we’ve got your baguettes, your sourdough, breadsticks, croutons, bacon, prosciutto, salami, sopressata, apples, pears, and various vegetables, grilled or raw. Then there’s the dessert fondues! For the purists among us, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate fountains. More inventive dessert combinations are in the pots. I highly recommend the salted caramel double chocolate.”

Surveying the vast array of options for dessert dippers, Max picked up a strawberry in one hand and a graham cracker in the other.

“Hit me,” Xander yelled, jogging backward. “I’m going wide!”

Max tossed the graham cracker. Xander caught it in his mouth. Grinning, Max dipped the strawberry in one of the dessert pots, took a bite, then moaned. “Fax me, this is good.”

Break the loop, I thought, so I began to make my way through the spread myself, dying with every bite. Beside me, Eve slowly started to do the same.

With a mouth full of bacon, Xander picked up a spare fondue fork and brandished it like a sword. “En garde!”

Max armed herself. The result was chaos. The kind of chaos that ended with Max and Xander both drenched from the fountains and Eve taking a dark chocolate banana to the chest.

“I beg your chocolatey pardon,” Xander said. Max whapped him with a breadstick.

Eve looked down at the mess that was her shirt. “This was my only top.”

I glanced at Max. You and I will be talking very soon. Then I turned to Eve. “Come on,” I said. “I’ll get you a new shirt.”

“This is your closet?” Eve was stunned. Racks, cabinets, and shelves stretched twelve feet overhead, all of them full.

“I know,” I told her, remembering how I’d felt when they’d brought the clothes in. “You should see the closet in the bedroom that used to be Skye’s. It’s nineteen hundred square feet, two stories tall, and has its own champagne bar.”

Eve stared at the clothes.

“Help yourself,” I told her, but she didn’t move.

“Really,” I said. “Take whatever you want.”

She reached for a pale green shirt but froze when she felt the fabric. I wasn’t a fashion person, but the incredible softness of expensive clothes, the feel of them—that was what still got me, too.

“Toby didn’t want me to be a part of this.” Eve just kept looking at that shirt. “The mansion. The food. The clothes.” She took a breath, the sharp intake of air audible. “He hated this place. Hated it. And when I asked why, all he would say was that the Hawthorne family wasn’t what they appeared to be, that this family had secrets.” She finally pulled the green shirt off the hanger. “Dark secrets. Maybe even dangerous ones.”

I thought about all the Hawthorne secrets I’d learned since coming here—not just the truth about Toby’s adoption or his role in the fire on Hawthorne Island, but everything else, too.

Nan killed her husband. Zara cheated on both of hers. Skye named her sons after their fathers, and at least one of them was a dangerous man. Tobias Hawthorne bribed Nash’s dad to stay away. Jameson watched Emily Laughlin die.

And that wasn’t even taking into account the secrets I’d had a hand in creating since I got here. I’d allowed Grayson to cover up his mother’s involvement in an attempt on my life and pin all the blame on Libby’s abusive ex. I’d looked the other way when Toby and Oren had decided that Sheffield Grayson’s body needed to disappear.

Across from me, Eve was still waiting for me to say something.

“I’ll let you get dressed,” I told her.

Back in my bedroom, I found myself wondering what other Hawthorne secrets I still didn’t know. I went back to the photo of Toby, and this time, I let myself look directly at his eyes. Is this about you or me or this family? How many enemies do we have?

A knock broke into my thoughts. I opened my door to find Mr. Laughlin standing there—and Oren, along with Eve’s guard, positioned down the hall.

“Pardon the interruption, Avery. I’ve got something for you.” The old groundskeeper had a cart with him, filled with long rolls of paper.

Another special delivery? My heart rate ticked up. “Did these come by courier service?”

“I dug these out for you myself.” As gruff as Mr. Laughlin’s manner was, there was something almost gentle in his moss-colored eyes. “You just had a birthday. Each year following his birthday, Mr. Hawthorne had plans drawn up for the next expansion on the House.”

Tobias Hawthorne had never finished Hawthorne House. He’d added on every year.

“These are the blueprints.” Mr. Laughlin nodded to the cart as he wheeled it into the room. “One set for each year since we broke ground on the House. Thought you might want to see them if you’re planning an addition of your own.”

“Me?” I said. “Add on to Hawthorne House?”

Eve stepped into the room, wearing the green silk shirt, and for a moment she stared at the blueprints the way she’d stared at the clothes in my closet. Then a figure appeared in the doorway.

Jameson. His face and body were drenched in mud. His shirt was torn, his shoulder bleeding.

Mr. Laughlin put an arm around Eve’s shoulder. “Come on, missy. We should go.”