The Inheritances Game (Jameson Hawthorne)

A Lead

Monday meant school. Private school. A private school with seemingly endless resources and "modular scheduling," which left me with random pockets of free time scattered throughout the day. 

I used that time to dig up everything I could about Toby Hawthorne. I already knew the basics: He was the youngest of Tobias Hawthorne's three children and, by most accounts, the favorite. At the age of nineteen, he and some friends had taken a trip to a private island the Hawthorne family owned off the coast of Oregon. There was a deadly fire and a horrible storm, and his body was never recovered. 

The tragedy had made the news, and sifting through articles gave me a few more details about what had happened. Four people had gone out to Hawthorne Island. None had made it back alive. Three bodies had been recovered. Toby's was presumed lost to the ocean storm. 

I found out what I could about the other victims. Two of them were basically Toby clones: prep schoolboys. Heirs. The third was a girl, Kaylie Rooney. From what I gathered, she was a local, a troubled teen from a small fishing village on the mainland. Several articles mentioned that she had a criminal record—a sealed juvenile record. It took me longer to find a source —though not necessarily a reputable one—that claimed that Kaylie Rooney's criminal record included drugs, assault, and arson. She started the fire. 

That was the story the press ran with, without coming right out and saying the words. Three promising young men, one troubled young woman. A party that spun out of control. Everything, engulfed in flames. Kaylie was the one the press blamed—sometimes between the lines, sometimes explicitly. 

The boys were lionized and eulogized and held up as shining beacons in their communities. Colin Anders Wright. David Golding. Tobias Hawthorne II. So much brilliance, so much potential, gone too soon. But Kaylie Rooney? She was trouble. 

My phone buzzed, and I glanced down at the screen. A text—from Jameson: I have a lead. Jameson was a senior at Heights Country Day. He was somewhere on this magnificent campus. What kind of lead? I thought, but I resisted giving him the satisfaction of texting back. Eventually, my phone informed me that he was typing. Tell me what you know, I thought. Then the text finally came through. Wanna raise the stakes?

The Heights Country Day refectory didn't look like a high school cafeteria. Long wooden tables stretched the length of the room. Portraits hung on the walls. The ceilings were high and arching, and the windows were made of stained glass. As I grabbed my food, I scanned the room reflexively for Jameson—and found another Hawthorne brother instead. 

Xander and Catalina were sitting at a dining table, staring intently at a contraption set on its surface. The gizmo looked a bit like a Rubik's Cube, but elongated, with tiles that could swivel and fold out in any direction. I suspected it was a Xander Hawthorne original. 

He'd told me once that he was the brother most apt to be distracted by complex machinery—and scones. That got me thinking as I watched him fidget three tiles back and forth in his fingers. When his brothers had been off playing their grandfather's games, Xander had often ended up sharing his scones with the old man. Did they ever talk about Toby? There was only one way to find out.

I crossed the room to sit next to Xander, Catalina looked up at me a little surprised, while Xander was too focused on the contraption. Back and forth, back and forth, he twisted the tiles. 

"Hi Avery!" Catalina said snapping a notebook closed.

"Avery! What a pleasant and not objectively unexpected surprise!" Xander said snapping his head up.

"Can I ask you something?" 

"That depends," Xander replied. "Are you planning to share those baked goods?"