“I don’t see anything,” Jameson admitted.
“Look harder,” Toby said. “I didn’t write this. And who else but Hannah could come up with a story that soundsso muchlike the two of us but never happened?”
Each time Toby said Avery’s mother’s name, Jameson felt it in his own soul.
“I learned to walk again in a shack,” Toby continued, “not on the beach. But the part of the story where I make her curse at me, and she spits the wordswhat now? The way the image of her backlit on the beach would have stayed with me, year in and year out, forever?Thatis as true as any lie could ever be.” Toby’s head bowed. “Did you know I used to call Hannahliar? In every language I could think of. She hated it.” Toby was whispering now. “She hated me until she loved me, and she loved me until the end.”
“The end,” Jameson repeated.
Toby’s eyes locked on to Jameson’s, and this time, his pupils didn’t so much as flicker. “When Avery was fifteen, and I found out that Hannah was dead, I knew it wasn’t some trick, I knew it was real—even though I’d beendeadfor more than a decade at that point, even though my mother wasdead—because I knew,I knewthat Hannah would never willingly leave Avery.” Toby’s voice buzzed with an unholy energy that Jameson recognized all too well. “But this postcard—Hannah wrote it for a reason. She wrote it forme.”
“As someone who specializes in the art of Rube Goldberg machines,” Xander said delicately, “I feel obligated to point out that if Hannah wanted to sendyoua message, hiding it among the postcards you sent her, which might or might not ever have ever ended up falling back into your possession, is a very roundabout way of doing it.”
“Hannah was brilliant,” Toby said. “And cautious in certain ways. Maybe she only wanted me to get this message if things went horribly awry. Some people are smart. Some people are good. Hannah was both, and she knew me in ways that no one else ever has or ever will.If anyone could foresee how I would react to any given chain of events, it’s her.”
Some people are smart. Some people are good.Avery was both, too.
Jameson stared at the words on the card, still illuminated by the black light. “What does itreallysay?” he asked, a familiar, electric feeling settling over him. “What’s the code?”
“The writingisthe code,” Toby said. “I write some letters in cursive and some in print, but I’m consistent about what which letters are which. Hannah does my writing very well, an error rate of just four percent.”
“Which four percent?” Jameson asked immediately.
“Exactly,” Toby replied. “The errors aren’t consistent. If they always appeared on the same letters, that would be one thing, but they don’t.”
“Four percent.” Xander scanned the message again and did the math. “That would be eleven letters total, possibly twelve depending on your rounding.”
“Which letters?” Jameson didn’t beat around the bush. “What do they spell?”
Toby began to run his index finger underneath the words on the postcard and came to a stop on the wordthe. “All three letters here—one error I might have overlooked, but all three in one word? That was my cue to look for the others.”
His cue, Jameson thought,from your mother, Heiress.
As Toby’s finger began to move again, Jameson lost the ability to blink. He registered each pause of Toby’s hand, reading the letters aloud:“C. R. U.”
“C.”Xander took over.“I. B.”
C-r-u-c-i-b-
Toby’s finger skipped down four lines, then hit the final two letters in quick succession, just as Jameson filled them in for himself: “LandE.”
“Crucible,” Xander said out loud.
Toby flipped to the front of the card. “London,” he said, then flipped it back over. “The crucible.That’s what I’m looking for. That’s why I’m here.”
“You’re looking for a crucible,” Jameson said. “Because Hannah told you to.”
“And once upon a time,” Toby said, “Hannah received an offer from my mother. In my heart, I suspect writing this postcard for me might have been one of the last things that Hannah ever did. We need to know what she knew. And as much as I hate to admit it, that means sleep isn’t optional for either of us, Jameson—not if we’re going to find what Hannah sent me to London to find.”
Chapter 31
ROHAN
Rohan was not a person whoworried. He schemed. He strategized. He took calculated risks and paid the price for power every time the piper came to call. Thus, after they’d failed to catch Nora and found out that Gigi had taken off, Rohan hadn’t been overly concerned on either count. And when Savannah had tracked little sister’s phone to the Thorp mansion—well,needs must. Savannah had been the obvious choice to go in after her twin, and flashing Calla’s necklace at the gate had earned her entrance easily enough.
Nothing toworryabout, even if one had been prone to such things.
It had, however, been hours since. Day had given way to dusk to darkness, but Rohan steadfastly refused to be bothered by that. He had other things with which to occupy himself—a new mystery to ponder, for one, and two obvious liabilities to manage.