Lies Twist The Way We Think

Chapter 3 - Leaving home and reaching for worlds

The tickets Grayson Hawthorne got us are first class.

Everyone is quiet and I wonder what the hell I am doing. This isn't what I do. I don't spontaneously make decisions that put the only financial source of income I have in danger. I don't put Avery in danger.

But here I am, with my sister and her sister. I've never flown before, and neither has Avery. I don't know if Libby has. I don't know a lot of things. We all have been sitting in an uncomfortable, stretched silence for what feels like hours.

I look outside of the window and tighten my grip around the armrest. Travelling has always been Avery's dream, and I can imagine how she feels right now, but it doesn't lessen my fear of flying.

"Milly, is everything okay?" Avery asks, putting her hand on top of mine. A worried look crosses her face and I feel horrible for ruining this experience for her.

"Yes." Breathe in. "I'm alright." Breathe out.

Libby leans over and declares: "Picture time." And as the three of us squeeze together, the argument is forgotten.

She turns the phone to show us the picture. "I'll send it to you when we land." The smile on her face wavers, just for a second. "Don't put it online, okay?"

Drake doesn't know where you are, does he? I look at Avery for a split second and I know we are thinking the same thing. I bite back a response and simply nod instead. I do have social media accounts, but it isn't any big sacrifice on my part. I mostly use it to follow my friends, and keep in contact with Dean. For some reason that is unknown to me, he refuses to use any other messaging app.

Dean is my ex boyfriend. We dated for a year, then broke off as friends, but I guess there has always been... something. It's a long story that involves fights, crying, debts and bets. Things I'm not particularly fond of.

First class offers free Wi-Fi, which I use to quickly text Aisha. She deserves to know what's up and I note she's texted me three times already.

Camille?
I hope you're okay.
Text me when you can!

We're on the plane, everything's okay. Kind of. We're going to the reading of the will of some rich guy.

I send the message and I internally cringe at myself. It already sounds stupid. I don't have to wait long for an answer.

What??
Tell me everything.

So I do. In response, she sends me a wikipedia article about Tobias Hawthorne. I quickly read over it.

He made his money in oil, then diversified. I expected based on the way Grayson said his grandfather was a "wealthy" man and the newspaper's use of the word philanthropist, that he was some kind of millionaire.

I am wrong.

Tobias Hawthorne wasn't just "wealthy" or "well-off." There aren't any polite terms for what Tobias Hawthorne was, other than really insert-expletive-of-your-choice-here filthy rich. Billions, with a b and plural. He was the ninth-richest person in the United States and the richest man in the state of Texas.
Forty-six point two billion dollars. That was his net worth.

This doesn't even sound real. Eventually, I stop wondering why a man I've never met would have left us something - and start wondering how much.

Camille.

To which I respond, Aisha.

What is going on?

I wish I knew.

C. R. D. - M. L. T.

A dark-haired woman in an all-white power suit meets the three of us the second we step past security. "Ms. Diante." She nods to Libby and Avery. I feel weird. I've never been addressed directly like this, as the only one, before. I shoot a glance towards Avery who doesn't seem bothered by it.

She turns and expects us to follow. "I am Alisa Ortega," she says, "from McNamara, Ortega, and Jones."

Another pause, then she cast a sideways glance at me. "You two are a very hard young women to get ahold of. You were supposed to live with your older sister."

She means Libby. I clench, unclench my fist. "I moved out."

Avery adds, "Her boyfriend threw us out a couple of times. Now Camille lives on her own and I stay there mostly."

"He doesn't do that anymore," Libby said quickly. "Tell her he doesn't."

"Were so glad you could make it." Alisa Ortega, from McNamara, Ortega, and Jones, doesn't wait for me to tell her anything. I have the sense that my half of this conversation was perfunctory.

I really don't like her so far. She has this arrogant tone to her, meaning that she is someone - and meaning that we aren't.

"During your time in Texas, you are to consider yourselves guests of the Hawthorne family. I'll be your liaison to the firm. Anything you need while you're here, come to me."

Don't lawyers bill by the hour? I think uneasily. How much is this personal pickup costing the Hawthorne family?

I don't even consider the option that this woman might not be a lawyer. She looks to be in her late twenties. Talking to her gives me the same feeling as talking to Grayson Hawthorne. She is someone.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Alisa Ortega asks, striding toward an automatic door, her pace not slowing at all.

I wait for a moment before I reply. "How about some information?"

"You'll have to be a bit more specific."

"Do you know what's in the will?" I ask.

"I do not." She gestures to a black sedan idling near the curb and opens the back door for us. "You'll find out what's in the will soon enough. We all will. The reading is scheduled for shortly after your arrival at Hawthorne house."

Not the Hawthorne house. Just Hawthorne house, like it's some English manor, complete with a name.

"Is that where we'll be staying?" Libby asks. Our return tickets are booked for tomorrow. We've all packed for an overnight.

"You'll have your pick of' bedrooms," Alisa assures us. "There are over thirty bedrooms in Hawthorne house. It is... quite something."

Avery shoots back an answer. "I'm guessing Mr. Hawthorne was quite something too?"

"Good guess," Alisa says. "He was very fond of good guessers."

Avery's face changes. It is the subtle change that perhaps only I know. It is the change when she achieves something, when she solved a riddle quicker than anyone, when she achieves the highest score.

It doesn't scare me, but I look away anyway.

"Do you have any idea why we're here?" I ask instead.

"Are you the world saving type?" Alisa asks back, like that's a perfectly ordinary question.

"No?" I guess.

"Ever had your life ruined by someone with the last name Hawthorne?" Alisa continues.

I stare at her back, then manage to answer more confidently this time. "No."

Alisa smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Lucky you."