hello friends!

sorry it's been a little bit!

but this chapter is gonna be super fun I hope!

lmk if I'm building up the romance too fast! this was probably my favorite scene ever to write tho so I hope it's ok :)

thanks guys! please please please review!

peace out!

—AVERY—

Avery had never been inside Tobias Hawthorne's room, but it was everything she would have expected from the old man. The bed was huge, featuring velvet drapes and a ten-foot-high canopy. The dresser was made of what appeared to be mahogany, and a massive, ornate mirror hung over it. Sitting on the dresser were a set of silver combs, a beautiful, old-fashioned lantern, and a single silk handkerchief.

She looked over at the windows—high and arched, adorned with the same plush curtains as the bed. Dusty shafts of light streamed through the glass, casting the room in a soft golden haze. All of the windows were ajar, sending a cool breeze through the space.

It didn't feel as though anyone had died here. The room was filled with light, giving an aura of nobility and warmth. But Avery reminded herself that the old man had passed in that bed, had looked into that mirror and refused to see the man who abused four innocent children.

A chill ran down her spine as she remembered that one of them wasn't innocent anymore.

"We found something in here," Jameson told the others as he locked the door behind them. "I don't think the police found it, but if they did, we took pictures."

Xander grinned. "There's a secret compartment under the windowsill! Nash found that one when he was maybe twelve, but the old man never knew he did. I knew it was gonna come in handy one day."

He hurried over to the windowsill, grasped the edge, and pulled upwards. Avery watched as the whole sill tilted up, and Xander reached in, carefully lifting out a chessboard. He set it down on the desk in the corner of the room, which Avery noted was also made of mahogany.

"That looks…expensive," Libby breathed, staring at the chessboard. The black chessmen were carved out of opalescent stone, the white out of what appeared to be diamond. The board itself was made of similar black stone, though the white squares looked like marble. The letters and numbers of the squares were inscribed in silver on the edges of the board, and the whole apparatus shone as the sunlight hit it.

"Look at how the pieces are positioned," Grayson said quietly, edging closer to the board. "The king's been checked, and there's no way out. On the black player's next turn, they'll checkmate."

Avery scanned the board—the white king stood on E1, all paths blocked, and the black rook was on B1. Several white pieces had been pushed to the side, having been taken, but the only black pieces missing were three pawns. One of the pawns stood upright, but the other two had been knocked over.

"Was it like this when you found it?" Nash asked Xander.

Xander nodded. "I was really careful with it—nothing moved, I swear."

"It has to be a clue," Jameson said. "All those white pieces are gone, but only the rook is over by the king. This isn't a possible chess game—that means no one was playing it."

"That's probably what was supposed to tip us off," Libby realized. "The fact that it wouldn't actually work to play chess that way."

"That means someone went ahead and set up all the clues," Max pointed out. "And that means this is a game."

"I thought we were done with games," Xander whispered. "I mean, I love games, but…I kinda thought the morbid mysteries were over."

"My thoughts exactly," Grayson agreed. "This will undoubtedly be taxing."

"But who's leavin' the clues?" Nash asked, his voice hoarse.

"It has to be someone in the House, or they couldn't get in to leave them," Avery told him. "I think the killer wants us to find out their identity, but they want to take their time."

"Why would they do that?" Jameson wondered. "Guilt, maybe?"

Avery looked around at the Hawthornes, taking in their faces. None of them looked like killers—they just looked scared, even Grayson. Nash pressed closer to Libby, and Xander squeezed Max's hand tightly.

It was there in that sunlit room that Avery vowed to solve this case, whatever it took.

She couldn't allow these people to be afraid. She wanted them to be safe, to not have to live in fear of a killer in their midst. They had to be protected.

But that meant she was safeguarding a killer, too.

How much protection did the Hawthornes really deserve?

Two nights later, the results of the police search of the house came back, and the results were…contradictory, to say the least.

Grayson and Xander had both been spotted on security footage on the night of the crime, but nowhere near the old man's room. Apparently, Grayson vanished from sight after leaving his hallway, and no one knew where he had gone. He maintained that he could have been sleepwalking, but Avery thought that was a flimsy excuse.

Xander had exited his room, then gone down the hall toward the wine cellar. Whether he actually made it there, the police didn't know, since the security cameras didn't show anything, but they fingerprinted nearly every bottle of wine—and both Jameson's and Xander's prints were found on a mysteriously open bottle, dated exactly one hundred years before the night the old man died.

On top of that, a hair follicle matching Jameson's DNA was found in the old man's room, which Jameson swore must be some kind of attempt to frame him or, more likely, an accident, since he'd gone into his grandfather's room during a game not long before the death. Avery didn't think that DNA was very good evidence in a house that the killer and the victim shared.

Nash was apparently a registered EMT, so he kept a box of examination gloves in his room at all times. The police didn't confiscate it, but they concluded that the gloves could have been used to conceal fingerprints, so Nash wasn't ruled out as a suspect. This infuriated Libby, who didn't think that her fiancé should be considered a suspect because of a box of gloves.

There was no physical evidence against Avery, either, but she was still a suspect, since her motive was more plausible than the Hawthornes'. This infuriated not only Libby, but everyone else, since Avery had never known the Hawthornes existed until after Tobias Hawthorne died. But Avery could see the police's reasoning—she could have been lying about having no idea that the old man was planning to give her his entire fortune. They weren't going to exonerate her until there was conclusive evidence that she was innocent, and a lack of conclusive evidence that she was guilty didn't count.

Presently, Avery lay on her bed, scrolling through the news about the case. Article titles jumped out at her, screaming their stories to the world.

Teenage Billionaire Suspected of Foul Play

Who Killed Tobias Hawthorne?

The Hawthorne Scandal: Everything We Know

Avery sighed and turned off the phone. She already knew everything in those articles, and they were just going to make her feel worse about the situation.

A soft knock came on her door, and she quickly finger-combed her hair, calling for whoever it was to come in.

The door opened a crack, and Avery caught a glimpse of pale, silky hair and a stormy iris, peering at her with trepidation.

She sighed, but a smile tugged at her lips. "You can come in, Gray. It's fine."

Grayson edged inside, carrying the chessboard. "Hello, Avery. I wondered if you'd like to see where I hid the clues."

"I'll come," Avery replied, standing up and pulling her shoes on. "Am I about to find out why you took so long hiding those things?"

He cracked a nearly imperceptible smile. "Of course."

"Why are we bringing the chessboard?" Avery asked, shutting the door behind her as she and Grayson exited the room.

"I thought we should move all the clues we had to the hiding spot," Grayson told her. "They'll be safer there. I don't think the police have a warrant to search the grounds."

"Good idea," she agreed, glancing at the chessboard. "But, Gray—did you attach the chess pieces with masking tape?"

He shrugged, fingering the black rook, which had been hastily affixed to the chessboard. "I couldn't think of a better way to do it."

"Have you heard of superglue?"

"Yes, but I still want to be able to play chess."

As they reached the back door, Avery pushed it open, and she and Grayson stepped out into the rain, which fell lightly onto the lush grass of the grounds. The sky was overcast, the clouds hanging so low they nearly brushed the tops of the largest trees.

Grayson led Avery toward those trees now, gaze fixed on the dilapidated treehouse. It looked almost otherworldly, suspended in the misty foliage, rain cascading onto the weather-beaten wood.

"You hid the clues in the treehouse?" Avery asked.

"It seemed like somewhere no one would look," Grayson replied, his shoes squishing in the wet grass. "I mean, it's practically abandoned, and the moss makes it quite slippery. Besides, the tree the clues are in is only accessible by bridge—there's a severe lack of branches on the way up. The bridge also happens to be falling apart, so that's a bonus."

"Clever," Avery admitted. "But also extremely dangerous, Gray."

He shrugged. "It means the police can't get to the clues. Besides, the bridge can hold me, so you'll be fine."

They reached the base of a tree, and Avery glanced at Grayson doubtfully. "How are you going to climb with a chessboard?"

Grayson glanced down at the board in his hands, and Avery stifled a laugh at his expression of bewilderment. She had to admit that it was rather adorable.

"Clearly, I did not think this through," he mumbled. "Perhaps if I…"

He pulled his suit jacket off, draped it over a branch, then sighed and clamped the chessboard between his teeth. Avery smiled, still trying not to giggle—Grayson looked quite unlike the traditional image of a Hawthorne.

Clearly, he sensed this, because he grumbled, "Please don't laugh," as he hoisted himself up onto the first branch.

"Oh, I'm not laughing," Avery replied. "But I could very easily use this as blackmail later."

Grayson looked at her with what was probably supposed to be a pouting expression, but the chessboard rather ruined the effect. Avery couldn't keep back a smile as Grayson continued climbing, moving remarkably fast.

She pulled herself up after Grayson, finding that the bark was indeed slippery. Rain cascaded down Avery's face as she climbed, eventually passing Grayson, who kept slipping in his haste.

Avery was sitting on the bridge when Grayson finally climbed up, setting the chessboard down and rubbing his jaw. "I apologize for taking so long."

She looked over at him, at his perfectly gelled hair now mussed from the rain, at the wet, jade-colored stain on his shirt where he'd slipped against the moss, and said, "It's alright. You said we need to cross the bridge?"

"Yes. But we shouldn't go at the same time—I don't know how much weight it can hold up."

"I'll go first, then," Avery replied. "Don't drop that chessboard."

"I wasn't planning on it."

Avery crossed the bridge, holding lightly onto the mossy ropes, and reached the other side without incident. She glanced back to see Grayson crossing more slowly, holding the rope in one hand and the chessboard in the other.

"So where exactly did you hide the clues?" Avery asked, peering into the small wooden alcove.

"On the roof," Grayson told her. "Could you hold this?"

He handed her the chessboard, and Avery watched as he hoisted himself onto the shingles, bracing himself against a branch. Grayson grasped one shingle, pulled it upward, and it popped off. He reached inside and pulled out the black pyramid, then the envelope, and passed them both down to Avery.

"You're right," she said as Grayson slid off the roof, landing on the branch with a muffled thud. "The police would never have found those, even if they had a warrant to search the grounds. How big is that compartment?"

"It's quite large, actually," Grayson told her. "I don't know the exact dimensions, but it should be able to fit several more pieces of evidence. Do you want to go over the clues we have?"

"We should," Avery replied, then gave him a faint smile. "But first, I want to see your treehouse."

Avery could tell that the treehouse had once been spectacular, state-of-the-art, even, but now it was falling apart. Bridges, branches, and ziplines connected the different rooms of the treehouse, nearly all of which had moss-covered roofs and cobwebs spun in the corners.

Grayson had sheepishly asked if she would kill the spiders living in said cobwebs, since he absolutely did not want to do it. Avery hadn't been able to keep back a smile at the thought of Grayson Hawthorne afraid of spiders, and it had only grown wider as he stood adamantly outside while she disposed of the arachnids.

What on earth was wrong with her?

Avery was not, in general, very prone to smiling. It was difficult to make her do it at all, and close to impossible to make her laugh. And yet here she was, elated at even the smallest thing Grayson did.

She mentally slapped herself. There was a mystery to solve. She could not become attached to a boy, especially when there was no conclusive proof that he wasn't a murderer.

And yet here he was, somehow sarcastic and soft and kind all at once, and all Avery could think about was how Grayson had no right at all to be this cute.

Another mental slap was in order.

"Avery?"

She pulled herself out of her head, turning to face Grayson. "Sorry. I was…thinking."

"That's okay," he replied. "Do you—would you like to see one more thing?"

"Of course."

Grayson led Avery through a small wooden room, at one end of which was a window. He climbed through it, then lowered himself from there into a hole in the tree's trunk.

"It's a bit tight," Grayson wheezed as he slid through the hole. "I haven't come in here since I was fifteen."

He managed to squeeze through, and Avery followed, her eyes widening as she crawled into a tiny nook in the tree, with a small shelf of books, a lantern hanging from the ceiling, and several cushions on the floor.

"Gray," she whispered. "This is…"

"Only the first part," he finished. "Come on, we're almost there."

Grayson placed a hand on the wall of the room, and a circle of bark slid away. He crawled through, Avery close behind, and they emerged onto a huge, moss-covered branch. At first, it looked like any other tree limb, but then Avery looked up.

Dangling from the smaller branches above were strings of small, shimmering trinkets—fragments of stained glass, beads, crystals, feathers, wind chimes. The chimes were tinkling in the gentle wind, and the strings glimmered in the rain.

Avery reached up to touch a soft, iridescent gray feather, entranced by the way it caught the faint, cloudy light. Strung above the feather were smoky glass beads, as well as a few wooden ones, painted the same color as the storm clouds above.

She looked around and realized that all the strings were gray.

"Do you…do you like it?" Grayson asked, his voice softer than the feather.

"Gray," Avery whispered. "I love it. It's gorgeous."

She sat down on the branch, pleasantly surprised to find that the moss was dry—the leaves of the tree kept the rain out.

"Did you make all of these?" Avery asked, reaching out to touch a low-hanging crystal.

Grayson sat down next to her, and she wanted him to move closer as he replied. "Yes, I did. Every time the old man was angry at me, I came up here, and I made another string."

There were a lot of strings, Avery realized. At least a hundred. One for each time Grayson had been hurt.

"Did you ever think about other colors?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I guess not. I was feeling too sorry for myself to ever consider something other than gray."

They were both silent for a moment, and then Grayson said tentatively, "Do you want to make one?"

"Do you still have the supplies?"

"Of course. I have every color imaginable."

Avery watched as Grayson stood up and crossed to the spot where the branch met the trunk, brushing a small, curtain-like patch of moss aside to reveal a hollow in the tree.

And then he was indeed pulling out every color imaginable—everything from cobalt to sunflower to lilac to umber, and the only color she didn't see was gray.

Grayson carried an armful of crafting materials over to Avery, placing them gingerly on the branch. "Take your pick."

She ran her fingers over the small, bright objects, amazed at the abundance of shades and textures. There was so much to choose from—how could she possibly decide?

Eventually, Avery settled on a black piece of twine, adding to it beautiful reddish-orange feathers and various scarlet beads and crystals. Grayson helped her tie a crystal onto the end of the twine, and then Avery threaded the beads and feathers on after it. By the time she was done, it felt as though she held a string of fire, which stood out vibrantly against the muted tones of its fellows.

Avery reached up, tying the end of the twine to an overhanging twig, and the string seemed to catch light that wasn't even there, hold a flame that had never before existed in this quiet sanctuary.

"You're good at this," Grayson murmured, gazing up at the string as a soft wind blew through the tree, causing the chimes to clink against each other. "It's incredible. I've never made anything that beautiful."

He wasn't looking at the string.

They sat in silence for a few moments, looking at the glittering crystals, listening to the pattering of the rain, and even though their lives were in turmoil, Avery felt, somehow, at peace.

"Gray?" she whispered.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

He smiled, a real, radiant smile, and Avery looked at him—damp, disheveled, beaming like the light through clouds after a storm.

She looked at him, and she looked at the rain, and the clouds, and the strings of small beautiful things, and she decided that the color of all good things in the too-bright world was gray.

—GRAYSON—

The next morning, Grayson woke up to someone pounding on his door, which he did not find very dignified. Not to mention annoying.

"Go 'way," he mumbled, his face buried in his pillow.

"No!" said Xander's overly exuberant voice. "C'mon, Gray, get up!"

"I refuse." Grayson's retort was more of an exhausted groan as he entrenched himself further into his cocoon of blankets. "Is it even dawn yet?"

"It's nine a.m.!"

"That's too early."

The lock on the door clicked open, and Grayson barely had enough time to sigh in exasperation before Xander scrambled onto the bed, immediately planting both of his knees on Grayson's back as he shook his brother's shoulders.

"Get off, Xan!" Grayson wheezed, trying to swat Xander with a pillow.

"Not until you get up!"

Grayson flipped over under Xander, grabbing his little brother's wrists and continuing the roll until they both tumbled off the bed in a flurry of blankets and flailing limbs. Xander let out a loud "oof!" as Grayson landed on top of him, pinning him to the floor.

"I'm up," Grayson growled.

"And I'm down," Xander gasped, grinning despite being flat on his back on the carpet. "Avery wanted to have a brainstorming session in the treehouse. I'm gonna bring donuts if you ever get off me."

Grayson stood up, still holding a blanket around his shoulders, and held out his hand to Xander, who took it and pulled himself up.

"I'll be out in a few minutes," Grayson told Xander, heading for the bathroom. "I need to get dressed."

"Don't get dressed!" Xander said warningly. "It's gonna be a pajama meeting! And we'll have donuts and chocolate milk!"

"Xan, I can't wear my pajamas to a meeting."

"It's not a meeting, Gray, it's a brainstorming session. Come on!"

And with that, Xander grabbed Grayson's hand and pulled him out of the room, dragging him to the kitchen, where Xander retrieved a box of donuts, and then out into the entrance hall.

"Everyone's waiting for you," Xander told Grayson as they emerged onto the sunlit, dewy lawn. "How come you sleep so long, Gray?"

"Sleep is essential for rejuvenation," Grayson replied, his blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders in an attempt to ward off the chill.

When they reached the base of the tree, Grayson draped his blanket over his shoulders like a scarf, then started to climb. It was more difficult earlier in the day, when the tree was slick with morning dew. The fact that he was climbing barefoot didn't help, but he managed to get up to the alcove where the clues were hidden without incident. Avery, Nash, Libby, Jameson, and Max were already in the room, and Xander climbed up behind Grayson as he stepped into the alcove.

"Mornin', Gray," Nash greeted him. "Sorry for wakin' you up so early."

"It's not your fault," Grayson yawned, slumping against the wall of the alcove and pulling his blanket up around his ears. "That's on Avery."

Next to him, Avery sighed. "Sorry, Gray, but I needed something to do. It's not my fault you sleep until ten."

Xander began handing out donuts and cups of chocolate milk, shoving a chocolate-frosted pastry into Grayson's hands. "And you get a donut! And you get a donut! Oh, and you get a donut!"

Grayson stared at the donut, unsure if he wanted to eat it or not. All he really wanted to do was sleep.

"I've called you all here so we can go over our clues," Avery started. "I've got two here, but I don't have access to anything the police have, so I'm pulling up the article that explains everything they found. Also, by attending this meeting, you're sworn to secrecy. You can't tell anyone where Grayson hid the clues, and you can't tell the police what we have."

Everyone nodded in agreement, and Avery looked satisfied. She turned to the floor behind her and picked up the black pyramid, then the chessboard, setting them both on the wooden planks in the middle of the floor.

"Here are our physical clues," she announced, and Grayson realized that the white envelope was nowhere to be seen. Why was she hiding it? Yes, it could provide an idea of what had transpired the night of the crime, but nothing more. Everyone already suspected that the old man's killer was one of his relatives—what harm could that riddle do?

He decided to keep quiet. If Avery didn't want that riddle out in the open, who was he to question that?

Grayson was jerked out of his thoughts by Avery's voice. "Gray?"

"Yes?"

"Have you made any progress on the cipher?"

He'd nearly forgotten about it in all the chaos of the police investigation. "Yes, I cracked it. I apologize—it slipped my mind when the police arrived."

Grayson pulled out his phone, scrolling through his notes to where he'd typed the decrypted text. He took a screenshot of the words, then sent it to everyone in the group chat.

"Wow," Xander breathed. "That's terrifying."

"What do you think CO means?" Libby asked.

"It looks like initials of some kind," Jameson mused. "My guess is that it's the signature of the killer, since it's at the end."

"But who would want to kill the old man and have those initials?" Avery asked. "I'm not sure we know anyone with the initials CO who was close to him. Unless the police are wrong about it being one of the family."

"Maybe they're related to Oren," Max suggested. "A cousin or something."

"Could be a place," Nash offered. "No clue, though."

Grayson, of course, knew exactly what CO stood for, but he must claim ignorance. He must not let anyone know that he knew, or they would be in danger, and that must not happen.

"We'll come back to the cipher," Avery decided. "The other clues we have are the chessboard and the black pyramid. The chessboard obviously has some kind of hidden message, but I'm not sure about the pyramid. I haven't been able to find anything interesting besides the fact that it's a chunk of marble."

Here was something Grayson could help with the investigation of—he had no idea what the pyramid was for.

"It could be a sort of puzzle piece," he theorized. "It might fit into something else or open a secret compartment. Or it could have something inside."

"I've checked for secret compartments in the pyramid," Avery told him. "I haven't found any, but you guys are welcome to look if you want."

Xander picked up the pyramid and held it up to his ear, shaking it. "If there's something inside, it's either a lot of cotton balls or surrounded by a lot of cotton balls, because I don't hear anything."

Grayson's phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out just in time to see a notification pop up, reading Latest From the Houston Chronicle: New Information Comes to Light in Hawthorne Case.

Heart pounding, Grayson tapped on the notification and scrolled through the article, a deep sense of dread settling in his stomach as he read.

After two weeks, the police have finally made a breakthrough on the long-buried Hawthorne scandal.

He couldn't help but feel rather smug. He'd cracked that cipher in twenty minutes.

The mysterious letter sent to the Houston Chronicle has been decoded by Detective Luka Winters, younger brother to Chief of Police Lila Winters. When asked to speak about what he found, Winters said, "Whoever's behind this is a criminal mastermind. They created a difficult cipher, tampered with security footage, and somehow managed to figure out a way to incriminate all four of Tobias Hawthorne's grandsons—with conflicting alibis, no less. We're dealing with someone who clearly knows what they're doing."

The decrypted text of the letter can be found below:

you thought Hawthorne's death was natural?

you thought wrong.

so help me God.

CO

Police have begun an investigation into the letter, finding a note on the underside of the envelope, which read: Return to Tobias Hawthorne's grave by November fifteenth.

The grave in question was vandalized the day after the Houston Chronicle received the killer's letter. The vandals removed the tip of the gravesite's obelisk, escaping in an unidentified white car.

Are the two crimes connected? Why does the killer want the letter returned?

And will they strike again?

More information can be found on page B1.

"Bad news," Grayson announced, looking up from his phone. "The police cracked the cipher. We have to figure out what our clues mean, or they're going to solve the case before we do."

"Where'd you find that out?" Nash asked.

"The newspaper just published it. Front page."

Everyone pulled out their phones, scanning the article, and Grayson could tell that they were all terrified. If the police found out the identity of the old man's killer before they did, whoever it may be was as good as dead. The law wouldn't understand the motive—the court would only be concerned with convicting the killer, and in Texas, first-degree murder was worthy of the death penalty.

A text popped up on Grayson's phone, and he clicked on the notification.

It was from Avery. You know what this means?

That we might all be doomed? he typed.

Not even close, she replied, then added, Although that's also implied.

Grayson waited as a longer text came in. No, this means the killer is going to be back at the grave on November fifteenth. That's four days from now. And you'd better know what that means.

That we should stay far away from said grave?

Wrong again.

He didn't dare look up, but he could almost see the determined glint in Avery's eyes as one more text came through.

Grave stakeout.