They don’t have a legal leg to stand on.”
I didn’t have to call Alisa in the morning. She showed up and found me.
“Rest assured, we will shut this down. My father will be meeting with Zara and Constantine later today.”
“Constantine?” I asked.
“Zara’s husband.”
Thea’s uncle, I thought.
“They know, of course, that they stand to lose a great deal by challenging the will. Zara’s debts are substantial, and they won’t be cleared if she files a suit. What Zara and Constantine don’t know, and what my father will make very clear to them, is that even if a judge were to rule Mr. Hawthorne’s latest will to be null and void, the distribution of his estate would then be governed by his prior will, and that will left the Hawthorne family even less than this one.”
Traps upon traps. I thought about what Jameson said after the will had been read, and then I thought about the conversation I’d had with Xander over scones. Even if you thought that you’d manipulated our grandfather into this, I guarantee that he’d be the one manipulating you.
“How long ago did Tobias write his prior will?” I asked, wondering if its only purpose had been to reinforce this one.
“Twenty years ago in August.” Alisa ruled out that possibility. “The entire estate was to go to charity.”
“Twenty years?” I repeated. That was longer than any of the Hawthorne grandsons except Nash had been alive. “He disinherited his daughters twenty years ago and never told them?”
“Apparently so. And in answer to your query yesterday”—Alisa was nothing if not efficient—“the firm’s records show that Mr. Hawthorne legally changed his name twenty years ago last August. Prior to that, he had no middle name.”
Tobias Hawthorne had given himself a middle name at the same time he’d disinherited his family. Tattersall. Tatters, all. Given everything that Jameson and Xander had told me about their grandfather, that seemed like a message. Leaving the money to me—and before me, to charity—wasn’t the point.
Disinheriting his family was.
“What the hell happened twenty years ago in August?” I asked.
Alisa seemed to be weighing her response. My eyes narrowed, and I wondered if any part of her was still loyal to Nash. To his family.
“Mr. Hawthorne and his wife lost their son that summer. Toby. He was nineteen, the youngest of their children.” Alisa paused, then forged on. “Toby had taken several friends to one of his parents’ vacation homes. There was a fire. Toby and three other young people perished.”
I tried to wrap my mind around what she was saying: Tobias Hawthorne had written his daughters out of his will after the death of his son. He was never the same after Toby died. Zara had said that when she’d thought she’d been passed over for her sister’s sons. I searched my mind for Skye’s reply.
Disappeared, Skye had insisted, and Zara had lost it.
“Why would Skye say that Toby disappeared?”
Alisa was caught off guard by my question—clearly, she didn’t remember the exchange at the reading of the will.
“Between the fire and a storm that night,” Alisa said, once she’d recovered, “Toby’s remains were never definitively found.”
My brain worked overtime trying to integrate this information. “Couldn’t Zara and Skye have their lawyer argue that the old will was invalid, too?” I asked. “Written under duress, or he was mad with grief, or something like that?”
“Mr. Hawthorne signed a document reaffirming his will yearly,” Alisa told me. “He never changed it, until you.”
Until me. My entire body tingled, just thinking about it. “How long ago was that?” I asked.
“Last year.”
What could have happened to make Tobias Hawthorne decide that instead of leaving his entire fortune to charity, he was going to leave it to me?
Maybe he knew my mother. Maybe he knew she died. Maybe he was sorry.
“Now, if your curiosity has been sated,” Alisa said, “I would like to return to more pressing issues. I believe my father can get a handle on Zara and Constantine. Our biggest remaining PR issue is…” Alisa steeled herself. “Your sister.”
“Libby?” That hadn’t been what I was expecting.
“It’s to everyone’s benefit if she lies low.”
“How could she possibly lie low?” I asked. This was the biggest story on the planet.
“For the immediate future, I’ve advised her to stay on the estate,” Alisa said, and I thought about Libby’s comment that she had nothing but time. “Eventually, she can think about charity work, if she would like, but for the time being, we need to be able to control the narrative, and your sister has a way of… drawing attention.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a reference to Libby’s fashion choices or her black eye. Anger bubbled up inside me. “My sister can wear whatever she wants,” I said flatly. “She can do whatever she wants. If Texas high society and the tabloids don’t like it, that’s too damn bad.”
“This is a delicate situation,” Alisa replied calmly. “Especially with the press. And Libby…”
“She hasn’t talked to the press,” I said, as sure of that as I was of my own name.
“Her ex-boyfriend has. Her mother has. Both are looking for ways to cash in.” Alisa gave me a look. “I don’t need to tell you that most lottery winners find their existence made miserable as they drown in requests and demands from family and friends. You are blessedly short on both. Libby, however, is another matter.”
If Libby had been the one to inherit, instead of me, she would have been incapable of saying no. She would have given and given, to everyone who managed to get their hooks in her.
“We might consider a one-time payment to the mother,” Alisa said, all business. “Along with a nondisclosure agreement preventing her from talking about you or Libby to the press.”
My stomach rebelled at the idea of giving money to Libby’s mom. The woman didn’t deserve a penny. But Libby didn’t deserve to have to see her mother regularly trying to sell her out on the nightly news.
“Fine,” I said, clenching my teeth, “but I’m not giving anything to Drake.”
Alisa smiled, a flash of teeth. “Him, I’ll muzzle for fun.” She held out a thick binder. “In the meantime, I’ve assembled some key information for you, and I have someone coming in this afternoon to work on your wardrobe and appearance.”
“My what?”
“Libby, as you said, can wear whatever she wants, but you don’t have that luxury.” Alisa shrugged. “You’re the real story here. Looking the part is always step one.”
I had no idea how this conversation had started with legal and PR issues, detoured through Hawthorne family tragedy, and ended with me being told by my lawyer that I needed a makeover.
I took the binder from Alisa’s outstretched hand, tossed it on the desk, then headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Alisa called after me.
I almost said the library, but Grayson’s warning from the day before was still fresh in my mind. “Doesn’t this place have a bowling alley?”