The Hawthorne Legacy

Avery wakes up in a secret room in Hawthorne House, tied to a chair. The room smells like it’s been soaked in gasoline. Sheffield and Mellie are there. Sheffield reveals that he was behind the plane bomb, not Skye and Ricky. Sheffield has kidnapped Avery, hoping this will lure Toby/Harry out of hiding: “You are his daughter. He will come for you” (321). Sheffield used Mellie to get a piece of Avery’s DNA; Sheffield already had a piece of Toby/Harry’s DNA from the Hawthorne Island fire investigation. He ran a test, and it was a match. Sheffield believes that Toby/Harry is Avery’s father. Sheffield sends Mellie away, so it’s just Avery and Sheffield. Avery assumes Mellie betrayed her for money.

Sheffield reveals that he left clues for Toby/Harry, indicating where Toby/Harry might find Avery. Indeed, Toby/Harry shows up in the room where Sheffield is holding Avery captive. Sheffield tells Toby/Harry: “You’re here, and my nephew is not” (325), indicating that this entire plot is a revenge plan. Toby/Harry urges Sheffield to take him but let Avery go. Sheffield replies, “I can’t leave any witnesses behind” (326). A gun goes off, and Sheffield falls to the ground; Mellie came back and shot him.

Mellie reveals the true motivation for why she initially helped Sheffield: She and her brother, Eli (Avery’s ex-security guard), wanted to flush Toby/Harry out of hiding. Toby/Harry had a fling with Mellie’s and Eli’s mom the summer before he disappeared. The DNA sample that Mellie gave Sheffield for his DNA test was not Avery’s; it was from Evelyn, or Eve, the sister of Eli and Mellie. Avery realizes: “Toby Hawthorne did have a daughter. It just wasn’t me” (331). Eve is a Laughlin-Hawthorne, not Avery. Mellie and Eli want Toby/Harry to take care of Eve financially. Toby/Harry says: “My daughter isn’t coming to Hawthorne House […]. I will see that she’s taken care of. Discretely” (332).

Toby/Harry and Avery have a conversation in private. Avery questions Toby/Harry about his link to Hannah and her birth certificate. Ricky is Avery’s father, but Toby/Harry signed Avery’s birth certificate. Toby/Harry reveals he was there on the night Avery was born. Toby/Harry helped bring her into the world and signed Ricky’s name on the birth certificate using Toby/Harry’s telltale mix of cursive and print. This is the “secret” Avery’s mother referred to regarding the night of Avery’s birth.

Avery suggests that Toby/Harry emerge from hiding. She tries to convince him, telling him, “You have a daughter,” referring to Eve (337), to which he responds, “I have two” (337). Avery reacts this way: “Fury gave way to devastation. Tobias Hawthorne the Second wasn’t my father. He hadn’t raised me. I didn’t carry a single drop of his blood. But he’d just called me his daughter” (337). Still, Avery can’t convince Toby/Harry to come out of hiding.

Avery asks Toby/Harry about the small metal disk that Jackson gave her. He takes it from her without any explanation. Before their conversation can continue, Oren and his security men rush in and interrupt them.

Oren escorts Avery back to her room in Hawthorne House. Regarding Rebecca and Thea, Oren says, “It’s been handled. They’re fine. And so are you. The rest of the family is none the wiser” (341). It seems that Oren and his men will cover up what happened, including disposing of Sheffield’s body and allowing Toby/Harry to flee undiscovered. Returning to her bedroom, Avery stares at a portrait of Tobias Hawthorne, thinking, “He knew I wasn’t Toby’s daughter—not by blood. But he’d still used me to lure Toby out—the same way Sheffield Grayson had, the same Mellie and Eli had” (341. Avery thinks back to what Nash once told her (in The Inheritance Games): “You’re not a player. You’re the glass ballerina—or the knife” (341). Avery feels used and thinks, “I was done being used” (342).

Avery finds Xander, planning to tell him what’s happened: “I needed to tell someone what had happened. I’d chosen him because I felt like I owed it to him—like the universe, or maybe his grandfather, owed it to him” (344).

Avery says farewell to Max. Even though she doesn’t want Max to leave, she thinks Max will be safer elsewhere, “Away from me, from the Hawthorne family, from everything I’d inherited along with Tobias Hawthorne’s billions. Poison tree and all” (346). Thea apologizes to Avery, explaining that she had no choice but to betray Avery when Rebecca’s life was in danger: “For me, it’s always going to be Rebecca” (347).

Avery tells Grayson about Sheffield’s death. She doesn’t tell him about Eve. Avery tells Grayson, “I’m starting to realize that the person I need to be, the person I’m becoming—she’s not that girl anymore” (349).

Avery attends the court hearing that legally emancipates her and makes her a formal adult, not a minor. Afterward, she tells Jameson about meeting Toby/Harry, and Eve. She also tells him that Toby/Harry took the disk that Jackson had given her. Jameson tells her, “This is Hawthorne House, Heiress. There will always be another mystery. Just when you think you’ve found the last hidden passage, the last tunnel, the last secret built into the walls—there will always be one more” (351). Avery and Jameson kiss.