SWNOVELS The Brothers Hawthorne: Chapter 72
Savannah and Juliet Grayson?” An FBI agent intercepted the three of them at the end of the driveway.
“She goes by Gigi,” Savannah replied. “Not Juliet.”
Cool tone, nonanswer, Grayson thought. Well done, Savannah.
“We’ll need you two to stay out here while we finish our search.” Mr. FBI didn’t so much as try to soften that statement with a smile. “May I ask who just dropped you off?”
“You may not,” Grayson said, looking past the agent. That was another of Tobias Hawthorne’s many tricks for seizing control. Sometimes, staring a person down did nothing but give them power. And why would a Hawthorne ever do that? “I assume,” Grayson continued, “that the lady of the house has a copy of the warrant?”
That wasn’t really a question. It was a signal to the agent: Grayson was the type of person capable of reading the fine print—and enforcing it.
“And who are you?” the FBI agent asked, his eyes narrowing.
Grayson looked past him again, as if this entire encounter were quite boring. “A person under no legal obligation to answer your questions at this time.” Grayson’s visual search finally hit on the person he’d been looking for: Acacia. She was standing in between the fountain and the portico, flanked by agents herself.
“Mom!” Gigi practically leapt forward. The agent who had been questioning Grayson stepped in front of her. When Gigi attempted to dodge around him, he grabbed her arm.
“Remove your hand from my sister’s body,” Savannah said. “Now.” That now was impressive. It should have been effective. Coming from Grayson, it would have been.
But in response to his sister’s demand, the agent just held up his free hand. “Let’s all just calm down here,” he said, like Savannah was hysterical
Grayson let his gaze travel to the man’s face. “She sounded perfectly calm to me.”
“Look, kid—”
Grayson arched a brow. “Do I look like a kid to you?” There was a reason he’d started wearing suits as a teenager.
If you’re not wondering who the hell you’re talking to by now—you really should be.
Out loud, Grayson opted for a different statement. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go acquaint myself with the limitations of your warrant.”
Hawthornes didn’t wait to be excused. Grayson started walking. Savannah followed suit. Gigi, on the other hand, stayed at the end of the drive, staring owlishly at the FBI agent.
“Are you all right, Miss Grayson?”
Grayson glanced back. Gigi continued staring at the agent, unblinking, intense. Then she shrugged. “Still not telekinetic,” she announced, before flitting past the agent. She hooked her arms through Savannah’s. “You never know until you try.”
“You shouldn’t agitate the agents,” Acacia told the three of them quietly. She stood with her hands by her sides, her posture straight, looking paler than Grayson had seen her. “There’s no need for it. They’ll be done shortly.”
You almost but didn’t quite sell your confidence in that statement, Grayson thought. Acacia was shaken—badly—and only showing it a little.
“They’re tearing our home apart,” Savannah said, her voice low, as two agents walked by carrying parts of a computer. Acacia drew in a jagged breath.
“Everything is going to be fine,” Grayson said. He laid a steadying hand on Acacia’s shoulder. To his surprise, Acacia brought her hand up to his and squeezed it. Grayson had the oddest sense that she was trying to comfort him.
Grayson knew suddenly and with stunning clarity that if his father had acknowledged him, if he had spent any time at all here growing up, she would have been the one to bandage his knees.
Grayson and his brothers had bandaged one another’s.
I’m supposed to be steadying you, he thought in Acacia’s direction, and then he looked to the girls. All of you.
“You have a copy of the warrant?” Grayson asked, his tone brisk, his volume low.
Acacia reached into her purse. Two minutes later, Grayson had skimmed the whole thing. The warrant was for the Grayson residence, the grounds, and three vehicles registered in Sheffield Grayson’s name.
The girls’ cars weren’t among them.
“Where is your lawyer?” Grayson asked Acacia. The details of this search made no sense. The number of agents. The breadth of the warrant. The timing. Given how long ago Sheffield Grayson had disappeared, the case should have been cold by now.
Unless someone is deliberately heating it up. In his mind’s eye, Grayson saw Eve treading water in the pool. He thought of her asking him what Tobias Hawthorne would have done in her position.
“Kent offered to come,” Acacia replied. “As a friend. But I can’t afford a lawyer right now.”
Grayson’s instincts said that Trowbridge had very little desire to be Acacia’s friend.
“Savannah and I will pay for a lawyer,” Gigi volunteered. “From our trusts.”
Savannah looked down. “We can’t. Unless…”
Acacia took a step forward and searched her daughter’s face—for what, Grayson wasn’t sure. “I wouldn’t let you,” Acacia told Savannah, her voice quiet but fierce. “Either of you. I’m fine. Everything is fine.”
“Of course,” Grayson agreed. “But as it happens, I know a lawyer who would relish taking care of this situation, and it won’t cost you a thing.”
“I can handle this,” Acacia insisted.
“There’s nothing to handle.” A woman wearing a navy suit approached the four of them. Another person might have misread the situation, thought that the other agents had sent someone with a softer, more feminine touch to question them, but the part of Grayson’s brain that instantly calculated dominance and hierarchies ruled out that possibility immediately.
This was the woman in charge.
“We’re looking for evidence of your husband’s crimes and whereabouts,” the FBI agent continued. “If, as you maintain, you truly have not heard from him and truly are not withholding material evidence of his crimes, then you have very little to worry about.”
If, on the other hand, you’re holding something back…
Grayson, as a rule, did not respond to silent threats. He held the warrant back out to Acacia. “I’d have your new lawyer look into the judge who signed it and the agent who filed the request,” he advised her. “I’m hardly an expert, but it seems odd to execute a search when the suspect hasn’t been seen at the location in question for a year and a half, particularly when the individuals still living in the domicile are, in fact, the victims of the alleged crime.”
Grayson let his gaze slide to the agent in charge. “After all,” he continued, “if there was any embezzlement, the suspect was essentially embezzling from them.” Grayson wasn’t angling for a response, and he didn’t wait for one. “Why now?” There was an art to pausing in a way that didn’t let the other party interject. “A tip from an anonymous source? A powerful person pulling just the right strings?”
The FBI agent had no visible reaction to that possibility, but that didn’t stop Grayson from responding as if she’d tipped her hand. “I see.”
“Grayson.” Acacia’s tone was firmer now, like she’d remembered that she was an adult, and he was, in her words, a kid.
Grayson reached into his suit pocket, withdrew his wallet, and offered her a card. After a long moment, Acacia took it, and then she looked at the FBI agent. “If you have any more questions for me,” she said, her voice steely, “you’ll have to address them to my lawyer.”
Grayson excused himself make a call. “Alisa? I’m going to need a favor.”
Two minutes later, he made another phone call from the end of the driveway. As much as part of him wanted to stay here, to protect this family, the longer he stayed, the greater the chances became that someone would realize that there was nothing to be found here because what they were looking for had already been found.
“The Haywood-Astyria.” The private concierge answered on the second ring.
“Yes,” Grayson said, not bothering to identify himself. “I’m going to need someone to drive my car out to me again.”