The Brothers Hawthorne

The players in this year’s Game are Avery, Jameson, Zella (a duchess), Branford (the middle Johnstone-Jameson son), and Katherine, a woman who works for the eldest Johnstone-Jameson son. Given that each of the players has a connection to the Johnstone-Jameson family and to Vantage, Jameson wonders about Zella and her history. While the other players argue, Jameson notices a book Rohan left in the room, The Smugglers’ Cave and Other Stories (250). He and Avery look through the book without drawing attention to themselves and find a pressed poppy and a note from Rohan on the back page: “Ladies first.” Vantage is built into a cliffside, so Jameson assumes that there will be a key hidden somewhere in a cave down by the water.

Grayson, the twins, and Acacia look through the photos. There are pictures of Grayson from the time he was a newborn up until he was 16, all taken secretly and stored in the safe-deposit box. Gigi finally understands that Grayson is her half-brother and that both Savannah and her mom have been lying about it for a long time. Angry and upset, Gigi leaves the bank. Deeper in the box is an envelope of withdrawal slips for uneven amounts, taken out over several years. Savannah assumes that it must be money for women Sheffield had affairs with, but Acacia and Grayson both consider that the slips may be related to the embezzlement charges. The initials “KM” are written on the back of each slip. Acacia tells Grayson that he can have everything in the box.

Grayson drives his Ferrari back to the hotel, but the frustration with his grandfather and father overwhelms him and he pulls over to the side of the road. The phone rings; it’s Nan, whom Xander asked to investigate The List on Grayson’s behalf. Nan reveals that Tobias Hawthorne had bought a controlling share in the mystery girl’s father’s patent and sent flowers to the funeral. The mystery girl’s father’s name was Thomas Thomas, which Grayson assumes is a code.

When Grayson arrives back at the hotel, the concierge directs him to the pool, where Mattias and Eve are waiting. Grayson tries to leave, willing himself to be unaffected by Eve’s presence, but Mattias blocks his way. Eve tries to talk to Grayson about his relationship with his sisters, but Grayson shuts her down, telling her, “Stay away from Gigi and Savannah” (268). Eve knows that Sheffield Grayson is dead, and she tells Grayson that he ought to treat her better because once Vincent Blake dies, she’ll be free to tell his secrets.

Eve leaves and Grayson returns to his hotel room, pulling the emergency stop button on the elevator to compose himself after his confrontation with Gigi. Grayson uses photos of his brothers, and Avery, to ground himself. When the elevator doors open, Savannah is waiting outside Grayson’s hotel room door with an offer to work together to uncover the mysterious “KM” on the back of the deposit slips. Based on Sheffield’s way of tracking names and dates on his calendar, Savannah guesses that “KM” is short for Kim or Kam. Grayson reveals that it’s likely short for Kimberly Wright, Savannah’s estranged aunt and mother of Colin, the nephew whose death Sheffield attempted to avenge by killing Avery. Savannah wants to keep the investigation secret from Gigi, but at that moment, Nash and Xander appear, carrying Gigi in their arms.

Gigi is drunk but refuses to go home with Savannah until they all examine the safe-deposit box photos together. Xander and Nash enjoy making fun of Grayson as an exasperated older brother dealing with two new siblings.

Gigi confesses that part of the reason she’s been searching for Sheffield is to help her sister because Savannah was “everything he wanted in a daughter” (278). Gigi forgives Savannah and Grayson for lying and prompts Grayson to explain the receipts’ connection to their aunt, Kimberly Wright.

Church bells sound, and the Game competitors exit the room and find their way out of the house and onto the grounds. Jameson and Avery, running toward the ocean and the cliffs, pass an overgrown garden and a walled, stone garden. Avery notices a field of poppies off to the side of the cliffs, poppies that match the flower from Rohan’s book.

Jameson and Avery find a small path in the poppy field that leads them down to the beach and the caves. At the beach, Jameson sees a statue half buried by the entrances to the caves; it is the statue of a woman. Jameson connects the statue to Rohan’s note in the book, “Ladies first.”

The statue of the woman pointed away from the five caves lining the edge of the cliff. At first, Jameson thought she may be pointing out into the waves, but then he and Avery noticed that the statue could turn. At each turn, the statue chimes, like a bell. Jameson deduces that “Ladies first” is a clue instructing them to turn the statue until it chimes once. They do, and the statue points to the smallest of the caves. Jameson and Avery start exploring the cave, with Katherine on their trail, but Jameson sees Branford at the dead end of the cave. He’s holding a lantern and the first key.

As Jameson and Avery climb back up toward Vantage, Jameson considers all the clues Rohan may have left in what he said, just as he’d used the word “smuggle” to hint to them about the cave. Jameson and Avery identify key phrases that may be part of the game, but when they return to the stone garden, they settle on the phrase “leave no stone unturned” (293). At first, Jameson feels despair; the house is made of stone, and the garden is stone. However, as he looks over the padlock to the garden gate, someone has written, “HINT: GO BACK TO THE START” (294).

Grayson, the twins, Xander, and Nash arrive at Kim Wright’s house. When Grayson knocks on the door, Kim immediately recognizes his and the twins’ similarities to Sheffield and Colin. Kim explains that Sheffield, whose given name was Shep, came to live with her once their mom died. Shep took care of Colin, and he brought him to live with Acacia once she and Sheffield were married. Kim had a substance use disorder, so Sheffield blamed her for Colin’s substance misuse, which led him to Toby Hawthorne and the fire that killed him. Sheffield brought petty cash to Kim semiregularly, but not in amounts that match the withdrawal slips exactly. Grayson and Savannah press for more information; Kim only reveals that Sheffield kept a secret box in Colin’s room once Gigi asks her, calling her “Aunt Kim” for the first time. Kim agrees to let them see the box.

Grayson and the twins find the box behind a wooden panel in Colin’s room. Grayson immediately realizes it’s a puzzle box and starts tinkering to find a way inside. Savannah and Gigi both want to destroy the box, but Grayson assumes the box may be booby-trapped against tampering in some way. They solve the first two puzzles on the box, but the third requires some kind of key. Grayson remembers the fake USB that Gigi found in Sheffield’s office, and he realizes it must be a key to this box.

Jameson is 12, and it is the Fourth of July. He hides up in the tree house, miffed that his grandfather has rigged the carnival games when he sees Grayson sneaking their friend Emily Laughlin up to the tree house. Emily and her sister, Rebecca, had been the only friends allowed to spend a lot of time with the brothers. Emily asks Grayson to kiss her, but he says no. Jameson gets down from his hiding place and offers to kiss Emily instead. She agrees, and they have their first kiss together. Emily then kisses Grayson and Jameson can tell she kisses him longer and deeper. At that moment, their grandfather appears, telling Emily that her family has been looking for her. Emily leaves, and Tobias Hawthorne advises Jameson and Grayson, “There is nothing frivolous about the way a Hawthorne man loves [...] men like us love only once [...] fully [...] wholeheartedly” (311). Jameson wonders what Alice Hawthorne, Tobias’s deceased wife, would’ve thought of him and his brothers. Tobias Hawthorne uses a game to remind Jameson and Grayson that as brothers they should not allow anything to break their bond.

Avery and Jameson return to the main room in the house, and based on Rohan’s verbal clue “Leave no stone unturned” (313), they start checking all the stones in the walls to see if any are loose. In the alcove next to the fireplace, where the logs are kept, Jameson finds etchings of letters embedded in the logs themselves. Avery and Jameson rearrange the letters to spell, “WATCH YOURSELF” (316). Jameson considers it may be a reference to a mirror or a camera, but he also wonders if the log clue is connected to the stone clue, or if they are separate clues to separate keys altogether.

The ceiling of the main room has a decorative detail that looks like an elaborate X. Avery connects the X to Rohan’s verbal clue, “That’s what Rohan said we were playing for. The mark” (317). Directly under the X is a wooden table, and underneath it, in each of the four corners, is hidden a small wheel. They turn the wheels until they hear the click of a hidden drawer. Inside is a key.

With one key in hand, Jameson and Avery turn their attention to the fireplace and the logs. Jameson and Avery connect Rohan’s phrase, “no rest for the wicked” to the Devil’s Mercy and fire. Jameson suggests to Avery that they try and light the fireplace, to see if the fire reveals a clue.

After getting matches from the kitchen, Jameson and Avery return to the main room, finding Zella sitting at the table with its open secret drawer. Zella understands the connection between Rohan’s verbal clue and the matches, and she waits for Jameson to set fire to the logs. Avery stops Jameson, remembering, “Didn’t our instructions say to leave everything in the condition in which we found it?” (323). Instead of burning the logs, Jameson burns his shirt, and the heat reveals a clue written in invisible ink on the inside of the fireplace: “DIAL 216” (324). Zella leaves the room, presumably to find a phone, but Jameson and Avery go back to the stone garden where there is a sundial.

Back at the stone garden, Avery tells Jameson that 216 is a perfect cube, leading Jameson to try the combination of steps, 666, a nod to the Devil’s Mercy. Jameson notices one stone along the path has some dirt and grass that indicate it was recently moved. Jameson starts digging and finds a burlap sack with a key inside it. Katherine appears and tells him to hand the key over. A moment later, Ian shows up next to Katherine and tells Jameson to hand over the key “[b]ecause [...] I want you to” (328).

Gigi notices from Grayson’s body language that he’s made some kind of connection about the puzzle box, but he doesn’t reveal that he knows where the key is. At that moment, Aunt Kim returns to the room, furious that Grayson is a Hawthorne (Xander had introduced himself outside). Aunt Kim wants them to leave, and leave the box, but Grayson bribes her with money to let them take the box with them. She agrees.

As Savannah drives herself, Gigi, and the Hawthorne brothers back to her house, Xander comments that he’s been unable to reach Jameson and Oren, Avery’s bodyguard, doesn’t know where Avery is. Once they are in the Grayson mansion neighborhood, they notice unmarked FBI squad cars. Grayson tells Gigi and Savannah to get in the backseat and let Nash and Xander pretend they are just dropping him and the twins off. Grayson instructs Savannah and Gigi to deflect any questions about the car, and he tells Nash to keep the box hidden.

The FBI agents approach Grayson, Savannah, and Gigi as soon as Xander drops them off and drives away in Savannah’s car. Grayson rebuffs the agent’s attempt to gather information and asks about the warrant. The twins find Acacia, who assures them that the agents are almost finished with their search. Kent Trowbridge offers to come as Acacia’s lawyer, but Acacia declines because she doesn’t have the money. Grayson offers a pro bono lawyer, which at first Acacia declines, but after Grayson points out the strange timing of the search, she agrees. Grayson calls Alisa, Avery’s lawyer, to be Acacia’s lawyer and calls the hotel concierge to get his car driven out to him.

When Grayson returns to the hotel, Nash and Xander wait for him with the puzzle box. Grayson reveals that he has the key and tells his brothers about Eve’s visit and his suspicion that Eve called the FBI on Acacia. His brothers comfort him about Eve, her betrayal, and his growing connection with Acacia, Gigi, and Savannah. Grayson plans to open the puzzle box, remove anything that could point to Sheffield’s death, and then give his sisters a modified version of the box. Xander expresses hesitancy at Grayson’s continued lie, but Grayson moves forward.

Using the fake USB key, Grayson opens the puzzle box to reveal a pen and a leatherbound notebook filled with text written in code. He and his brothers try several different combinations with no luck until Grayson finds a cipher wheel hidden in a separate compartment. Grayson realizes that the receipt amounts indicate what number on the cipher wheel ought to be set to “A”. He translates the first few pages and finds records of embezzlement hidden between chunks of gibberish. Grayson notices notches on each page and connects those notches to the notecard Sheffield’s safe-deposit box key had been taped to. The notches on the card line up with the notches on the page, indicating where on the page the coded information is hidden.

Secretly, Jameson gives the key he’d just discovered to Avery and then faces his father. Ian reveals that he and Katherine have been working together against Branford to win and that Jameson is no longer useful to him. It seems to Jameson that Ian forgot about his spur-of-the-moment promise to give Vantage to Jameson. Furious that his father forgot his promise and manipulated him to win, Jameson refuses to hand over the key. Rohan appears, and Jameson leaves his father and Katherine, thinking, “What happens to Ian now—what Rohan does to him for interfering—is none of my concern” (357).

Following the final clue—WATCH YOURSELF—Jameson and Avery start searching the mirrors at Vantage for any sign of a hidden doorway, lock, or cabinet. They find a secret door leading to a dark passageway that opens into a room filled with portraits. Jameson looks at a portrait of Ian’s mother—Jameson’s grandmother—and wonders what she might have been like. Avery finds a newer portrait of Jameson that Rohan must have commissioned for the Game. Behind his portrait, Jameson and Avery find the box with his secret. Behind Branford’s portrait, they find the box with his. Zella and Branford enter the room, and Branford reveals that he took Jameson’s secret out of the box. He offers the secret back to Jameson in exchange for the final key. Jameson, while considering what to do, notices the final box affixed to the chandelier above him and draws an arrow on Avery’s hand to point it out to her. When it appears Jameson and Branford are at an impasse, neither willing to give up the Game, Jameson climbs the chandelier to get to the final box.

Though the chandelier wire cuts his hands, Jameson makes it to the top, grabs the box, and climbs back down. He tosses it to Avery, then lands on the ground. Before Avery can open it, Zella steps forward, revealing that she switched Jameson’s secret for a blank piece of parchment in Branford’s pocket. Zella threatens to read it aloud unless Jameson gives over the key and the box. Jameson tells Avery to do it, to lose the game, but instead, Avery tackles Zella, snatches the parchment, and sets it on fire without reading it. Rohan appears, and Zella reminds him that since Avery resorted to violence, she ought to be ejected from the game and surrender the box. Rohan agrees.

Grayson spends the night transcribing his father’s journal. Over time, the entries shift from basic bookkeeping to more confessional diary entries. Grayson reads about the day Kent told Acacia about him, the day Toby Hawthorne supposedly died, and the day it was announced that Avery inherited the family fortune. In the entries, Grayson tracks how Sheffield came to suspect Toby Hawthorne’s role in the fire that killed Colin and Sheffield’s theories about Avery being Toby Hawthorne’s daughter. Grayson gets to the entry Sheffield wrote on the day that Avery had been interviewed about Toby, the same day that Grayson kissed her on television. Sheffield is furious that Avery, Toby’s supposed daughter, kissed Grayson (though it was Grayson who initiated the kiss). The records end with an incriminating diary entry about Sheffield’s plan to kidnap Avery. Grayson, reeling from “the role that kiss had played in setting off everything that followed: the bomb, Avery’s kidnapping, Sheffield Grayson’s death” (375), denies his feelings and plans to recreate Sheffield’s coded journal without the incriminating evidence so that he can give it back to the twins.

Grayson forges his father’s handwriting, omitting the parts of the coded journal that could lead back to Avery, then sends Nash and Xander back to Hawthorne House with the original journal and notecard. Several hours after they leave, Grayson texts Gigi to arrange to drop off the box and lead her to the code, cipher wheel, and falsified journal. Right after Gigi texts that she’s arrived at the hotel, she texts Grayson again, “PPS: I like your friend” (378). Grayson, who does not have friends, worries that someone has threatened Gigi.

In the lobby, Grayson finds Gigi talking to Mattias Slater. Grayson calls security, and Mattias tells him that Vincent Blake had a serious heart attack and Eve may be in danger, given that she’s the only heir. Grayson claims not to care and passes a message to Eve through Mattias: He knows she tipped off the FBI, and she has his attention. Mattias escapes, and Gigi hints that she finds Mattias attractive. Grayson and Gigi go back upstairs.

Back in Grayson’s room, Gigi asks for an explanation about Eve and her relationship to Grayson. Grayson explains how Toby Hawthorne had been adopted, then changed his name to Toby Blake, and Eve is his biological daughter. Gigi turns her attention back to the box and finds the copy key that Grayson re-hid inside. Gigi uses Grayson’s phone to text Savannah a photo of them working on the box and starts scrolling through his camera roll. A few moments later, Gigi realizes that Grayson has photos of her dad’s passwords, but they’re different from the ones he sent her; she puts together that Grayson has been sabotaging their search from the beginning. She demands the real journal, but Grayson sent it away with Nash and Xander and can’t give it to her to prove his loyalty. Gigi storms out, meeting Savannah in the hall. Savannah sees Gigi’s face and Grayson can tell, “he’d lost them both” (388).

Grayson is in the tree house reeling from Emily’s death, certain that it was his fault since he was the one who took her to the cliffs. He hears the sound below of Jameson hacking at the tree house with a machete. Nash comes out to try and talk Jameson down, but Jameson keeps chopping up parts of the tree house, including one of the sky bridges. Grayson comes down to the ground, dangerously close to Jameson who still holds a longsword. Nash disarms Jameson, and then Grayson picks up the sword and starts hacking at the tree house, thinking, “My fault [...] I killed Emily” (392).