Cover of The Grandest Game (The Grandest Game, #1)

The Grandest Game, #1

The Grandest Game

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes


Genre
Young Adult, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller
Year
2024
Pages
351
Contents

CHAPTER 50: ROHAN

Overview

Rohan and Savannah enter a hidden triangular room filled with board games, torches, and a locked-looking table, realizing that they must identify the room’s first clue to move forward. The chapter deepens the tension between them by contrasting Rohan’s devotion to his father with Savannah’s unexplained loyalty to her vanished father, Sheffield Grayson.

Their partnership remains sharp and competitive, but their exchange about injuries and scars hints at personal wounds beneath their controlled exteriors. The next stage of the game becomes both a physical puzzle and a test of how much they can read, challenge, and trust each other.

Summary

Rohan enters the next chamber with Savannah while reminding himself that his reason for playing Avery’s game is his father. Savannah’s earlier admission that she is playing for her own father unsettles him because Rohan knows Sheffield Grayson disappeared nearly three years ago after becoming the target of FBI and IRS investigations, apparently abandoning his family.

The rotating metal chamber closes behind Rohan and Savannah, leaving them in a dark triangular room. Torches ignite, revealing real fire, floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with hundreds of board games, and a sunken area in the center containing a round mahogany table.

Rohan and Savannah quickly assess that there are no obvious instructions, phones, screens, or input devices. Based on the house’s layout, Rohan concludes they are on the lowest level, where the map suggested there were only walls, and he suspects that one of the shelves must conceal a hidden door.

Rohan silently drops into the recessed area, but Savannah is unimpressed and follows him. When Rohan notices tension in her landing and guesses an ACL injury, Savannah deflects by asking whether he would rather discuss his own childhood neglect and trauma, making clear that she will not soften herself for him.

Savannah finds a seam in the table, while Rohan determines there are no visible buttons or triggers beneath it. They infer that the table and at least one shelf will open only after they solve the room’s puzzle, so they begin searching the board game titles for a first clue, with Savannah challenging Rohan to keep up.

Who Appears

  • Rohan
    Plays for his father; analyzes the hidden room and probes Savannah’s motives and injury.
  • Savannah
    Plays for her missing father; fearlessly inspects the room and challenges Rohan’s assumptions.
  • Sheffield Grayson
    Savannah’s vanished father, remembered by Rohan as disgraced and under investigation.
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