Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
STERLING
“ W hat the fuck, Sterling!” he barked before I could get a word out. “Are you okay?”
“We’re both fine,” I said, giving him a quick rundown of the hours since we’d left Heartstone Manor.
“You fucking left to follow a clue without letting anyone know where you were going?” Hawk roared into my ear.
When he put it like that, it sounded a lot worse than when I came up with the idea. And I couldn’t deny that was exactly what had happened. “Yes, we did. And we’re fine. We’re headed back to Heartstone now. You and Griffen can both yell at me in person when we get there.” Before he could say anything else, I hung up the phone and put it facedown on my lap.
“Hawk or Griffen?” Forrest asked with the hint of a laugh in his voice.
“Hawk,” I said, shaking my head. Sometimes, it felt like I had a million older brothers. I wasn’t complaining. A text popped up on my screen.
Come straight back. Griffen’s office in 30m.
I checked the map on my phone. We’d be pulling into the driveway in twenty-eight minutes. I replied with a thumbs-up emoji and put my phone down, sliding my fingers into Forrest’s again.
“I’m sorry you didn’t like how things went with Callum Leary,” I said. “But I’m not sorry for protecting you. And I am one hundred percent sure that you were going to get us out of there if the Learys hadn’t shown up. Everything’s okay, so don’t be mad.”
He let out a half chuckle and raised our twined hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss to my fingers. “I’m not mad, Sterling.”
“Okay,” I said and let it go, falling into silence.
I spent the rest of the ride back to Heartstone, running through the possible suspects in my mind. Who had access to the peppermint tin? Who knew about the Jefferson cipher? Who could have done this to us?
The answer, depressingly, was almost anyone in Heartstone Manor. I’d talked about the cipher wheel with Ford in the billiards room, a room that had two open doorways in two separate hallways. Anyone could have been lurking, out of sight but close enough to eavesdrop. I already knew Brax had been nearby, but there was no reason to think he was the only one.
Except that out of everyone, he hated me the most.
And I’d left the tin in my room, the door unlocked. Not for days on end, but for good chunks of time. Nothing in my room had been damaged or disturbed, which was almost an argument against Brax. He’d never been able to resist screwing with me.
My gut was shouting it was him, but I didn’t have any proof, and my gut wasn’t exactly reliable where Brax was concerned.
“Hey,” I said as a thought occurred to me, “when we get back…”
“We need to talk to Griffen and Hawk,” Forrest said.
“Yeah, Hawk said he wants us in Griffen’s office straight away. But I’m going to text him and tell him I need to change. They’ll give me a few minutes for that. Before anyone knows we’re home, we need to search Brax’s room. If his car isn’t in the garage, we should be clear.”
“Why do we need to do that first?” Forrest asked. “Hawk didn’t sound patient.”
I winced at the memory of Hawk’s bellow. Not patient didn’t really cover it. But… “Griffen and Hawk are going to yell,” I said with the practicality of a younger sister who’d been on the receiving end of more than a few lectures. “Everyone in the Manor will know we’re in trouble. And whoever sent us to the root cellar will know they have to cover their tracks sooner than they expected.”
“And you’re sure it’s Brax?” Forrest asked, shooting me a sideways glance. “Not Ford? Or someone outside the house who bribed someone on the inside?”
I let out a long sigh. It could be any of the above. “Yes. I think it’s Brax.” I waited for Forrest to argue, to tell me I wasn’t rational about Brax or that we didn’t have any proof.
Instead, he said, “Okay. We’ll have to be fast.”
Love bloomed in my chest, and I squeezed his fingers. This was why, even after things went so wrong, I’d always loved Forrest Powell. Even when I didn’t want to, and even when I also hated him.
“We can do it,” I said. “He only has a single room, like me. It’s big, but it’s not a suite.”
We drove down the lane to Heartstone Manor exactly on time. I texted Hawk.
We’re back. I need to change. I smell like a root cellar. Be in Griffen’s office in ten.
Three rolling dots showed on the screen for far longer than they should have. I imagined Hawk grumbling at me, tapping at the screen, and then erasing his message. Finally, words appeared.
Be there in 5 .
I’d have to make it work. Forrest guided my car around to the family garage beneath the guest wing, hitting the opener on my visor. We parked in my spot and got out, my eyes immediately going to the empty place where Brax’s car would be.
“Come on, let’s go,” I said, grabbing Forrest’s hand and pushing him through the mudroom door and up the back stairs.
The second floor appeared deserted, the sconces on the walls turned low. Most of the doors were shut, including Brax’s. Hesitant, I turned the handle, wondering if I was going to have to ask Savannah for the key or borrow Scarlett’s lock picks and come back later. But the handle turned, and a second later, we were in Brax’s room. I flicked on the light.
“What are we looking for?” Forrest asked, scanning the room.
“I don’t know. Evidence? Something that has the address of that house on it or… I don’t know, maybe check his browser history.”
“I don’t see a computer here,” Forrest said, looking through stacked papers and magazines on the sofa.
I didn’t see a computer or tablet either. Brax’s room was about the same size as mine, a large rectangle. The sleeping area was set up on one side, and a sitting area on the other. There was no desk or workspace, unlike in my room. Plus, Brax was sloppy. No moldy plates or cups were sitting around, but things were tossed everywhere, another strike against him in my book.
It was hypocritical coming from me, I knew. When Griffen came home a year ago, my room was the biggest trash pit in the house. Now that I wasn’t drinking my way through life and had actually cleaned the place up, I loved the order of a neat room. Everything where it was supposed to go. Everything organized.
I glanced at the piles of clothes draped over the back of the sofa, the sliding stacks of unopened mail on the dresser. This level of sloppiness was just careless.
Or maybe I wanted to see Brax’s every fault as a character flaw.
I went for the dresser, opening and closing the drawers. Forrest headed for the closet. I didn’t find anything among the jumble of barely folded sweaters, socks, and underwear. A drawer stuffed with loose papers and mail, none of which looked remotely interesting, and the most recent of which was dated a few years before, a junk mail drawer he’d forgotten about.
I could hear Forrest off to my right, rummaging in the closet. I left the dresser and went to my knees to look under the bed. More nothing. Not even a dust bunny.
“Sterling.” Forrest’s voice was heavy.
I stood and crossed to the closet. “What did you find? Evidence? Something weird?”
“Both, maybe. I’m not sure.” Forrest held a box, I guessed from the gap above, taken from the top shelf.
“What is that?” I asked.
“You tell me,” he said, holding the box low enough for me to see inside and peel back a flap.
A Barbie separated from her head, another with her arms pulled off. A doll’s dress written on with permanent marker and cut into pieces. Rage shot through me, impotent fury tinged with grief and hollow loneliness that brought me back to childhood.
I reached for the box, pulling it from Forrest’s hands, stirring through the shreds of my past. So many little things that had disappeared. That little shit always played innocent, but here it was—everything I’d suspected Brax of stealing, broken to bits and shoved in a box in his closet. Memory came to life, and I heard echoes of Miss Martha, Darcy, and later Prentice. Calling me dramatic, asking me why I always had to blame everything on Brax, why it was always me causing trouble. Darcy, the only mother I had, her eyes chilly with disappointment because I was picking on her baby boy yet again. But here was the proof, and all these years later, it would do me no good.
“I knew it,” I said, my voice catching as I sifted through the detached doll limbs and torn clothes.
“What are you doing in my room?” Brax demanded, his voice low and oddly flat. His eyes were a mix of fury and glee. He’d hidden these things, but I saw that a part of him was thrilled I’d found them. All these years later, his eyes flared with greed as he wrung out one more drop of my pain.
I wanted to throw the box in his face, but I couldn’t abandon the wreckage of my toys now that I had them back. They were little more than trash, but they were mine.
“We’re leaving,” I said and tried to elbow my way past him.
Brax’s hand shot out and closed over my upper arm, his fingers painfully tight. He shook me, almost knocking me off my feet. “I said,” he spat in my face, “what the fuck are you doing in my room?”
Forrest stepped out from behind me, looming over Brax. Beside Forrest, my brother looked like a teenager, not a man.
“Don’t ever touch her,” Forrest said, his voice low.
Brax looked up at Forrest, his eyes wide, his cheeks gone pale. Abruptly, he let go of me. “She’s in my room, going through my stuff,” he said in protest.
“I don’t care. You never touch her.” Forrest shoved Brax to the side, guiding me out of the closet.
“What the fuck is going on in here?” Hawk growled from the door.
A quick glance told me Griffen was right behind Hawk, looking just as furious as our security chief.
“Sterling, you were supposed to be in my office ten minutes ago,” Griffen said, his voice strung tight like a steel wire.
“We were on our way,” I said. I swept out of Brax’s room, the box clutched to my chest, Forrest at my side, Hawk, Griffen, and Brax trailing behind me.The short trip down the main stairs and through the front hall felt like it lasted an eternity.
“All right, Sterling,” Griffen said once we were all in his office. “Why were you going through Brax’s closet? I thought Hawk was clear that you should come directly to my office when you got back.”
“I don’t have anything to do with whatever trouble she’s in,” Brax said to Griffen.
“Somebody left a decoy clue in my room,” I told Brax, “sending us to a root cellar out in Henderson County. They locked us in. We could have died.” I watched Brax’s face closely for some hint of guilt. Nothing showed but aggravation.He opened his mouth to say something.
“You wait,” Griffen said to Brax, holding up a finger before turning back to me. With a level tone I could tell he was struggling to maintain, he said, “Please explain to me why you and Powell thought it was a good idea to chase this new clue without letting us know where you were going.”
Forrest answered before I could. “In retrospect, it was dumb, but it hadn’t occurred to us that someone was trying to kill us. At least not before we find the money.”
“You’re sure the intent was to kill you?” Griffen asked.
“Hard to say,” I had to admit. “They left some water and granola bars. Maybe they didn’t realize how cold it would get underground. Maybe they were going to come back.”
“Can I go?” Brax cut in. “I don’t know what I have to do with any of this.”
“What do you have there?” Griffen asked, nodding at the box in my arms and ignoring Brax.
I shoved it in his direction. “Look.”
Griffen peeled back the flaps, shuffled through the contents, and looked at Brax.
“Why do you have Sterling’s old toys in your closet?” he asked, his steely tone much more pleasant when it was directed at Brax instead of me.
Brax rolled his shoulders back and shook his head. “Because I was a shithead of a kid, okay? I took her stuff all the time. I’d break it. She’d accuse me. I’d lie. Everyone would tell her to stop being such a drama queen, and she’d start crying. It was fun,” he said. He crossed his arms over his chest. “It was fun when I was twelve. I guess I never got rid of the stuff, but it doesn’t mean anything now.” He hooked his thumbs in his pockets and turned to me with the perpetual sneer I was so familiar with. “I’m not twelve anymore, not that you’ve noticed. Did you and your boyfriend find anything in my closet other than that?” he asked. His tone made it seem like I was the crazy one.
I shook my head, forced to admit that we had not.
Hawk looked up from his phone. “Logs show Brax was in Asheville all day, at his office in the morning and north of town in the afternoon. Showing property or playing golf is my guess, based on the coordinates.”
I deflated as Brax looked away and admitted, “Golf.” He looked up, flicking his golden bangs off his forehead and shooting a glare my way before adding, “With a client. So again, can I go?”
Griffen looked between us. “Sure,” he said, sharing a loaded glance with Hawk, who watched Brax leave the room as he tapped something on his phone screen.
Before I could say anything, Griffen held up a hand, palm out. I bit my lip, forcing myself to keep my mouth shut. Maybe sensing how close I was to losing my shit, Forrest stepped beside me, sliding his arm around my shoulders. I leaned against him, suddenly tired, the adrenaline of the day draining out of me, leaving me limp and desperately in need of a hot shower.
“Walk me through this,” Griffen began. “Someone snuck in your room and tampered with the clue?”
I explained to Hawk and Griffen about the wax paper liner, the cipher solved by the Jefferson wheel, the root cellar, and the slide bolt. I skipped over the hours of fear and cold and jumped ahead to Callum Leary, freeing us.
“I don’t like that he’s hanging around,” Griffen said, “but I’m glad he was in the right place at the right time.”
“I’ll sweep everything for trackers,” Hawk added. “And then I think you two should get out of here for a while.”
Griffen looked up at him, eyebrows raised. “Leave Heartstone?”
“Sterling has twelve days left this quarter,” Hawk said, referring to the number of days I was allowed to be away from the Manor before the provisions in my father’s will kicked in and I’d be disinherited. “I think she should take that cipher she can’t solve to Emmett and Lucas. If they don’t recognize it, somebody at Sinclair should be able to point them in the right direction.”
“You sure it couldn’t be anyone on the staff?” Griffen asked Hawk. “Even the best people are susceptible to bribery.”
Hawk shook his head. “Unlikely. I keep an eye on…” He paused, then said, “Finances. Nobody’s taken a bribe that I can trace. Everything around here is normal except Ford being back and Brax being around more.”
“See,” I said. “I told you him being home so much was weird.”
Griffen looked at the box on his desk. “I know he’s always been a bully,” Griffen said, “but toys from when you were a little girl aren’t proof that he tried to lock you in that root cellar. That’s a big accusation, Sterling. I can’t just throw him out with no evidence.” He glanced to Forrest. “What do you think?” he asked.
Forrest tightened his arm around my waist. “I think I’m good to go to Atlanta,” he said.
So was I.
It looked like we were going on another road trip.
For over a year, Heartstone Manor had seemed like the safest place on earth. And now? Now, it seemed we were safer anywhere else.