CHAPTER 92: JAMESON

Jameson rides with Avery and the Hawthorne brothers in a bulletproof SUV as Oren drives them toward Avery’s jet. Grayson is returning to Phoenix because the FBI raid on the Grayson family home now appears to have been caused by someone other than Eve, and Jameson is eager for the hunt.

Grayson explains that the timing of the FBI warrant is suspicious: Sheffield Grayson has been missing for more than eighteen months, so someone must have pushed the authorities toward the house. Grayson identifies that person as Kent Trowbridge, a lawyer connected to Acacia Grayson’s family and possibly motivated by old feelings for Acacia.

Grayson lays out Sheffield’s financial history. Sheffield married into money, used his wife’s family to fund his businesses, and secretly siphoned funds into foreign accounts. However, Sheffield’s journal recorded many crimes but not the alleged emptying of Acacia’s trust, making Grayson doubt that Sheffield stole that money.

Jameson and Grayson reason that Trowbridge, whose family likely helped establish the trusts, may have had access to Acacia’s accounts and could have used Sheffield’s known crimes as cover. Grayson estimates that Acacia’s trust and each twin’s trust may hold ten to twelve million dollars, but he believes Trowbridge’s motive is not primarily financial.

Grayson argues that Trowbridge is trying to isolate and pressure Acacia by making her believe she has no one else, withholding legal help except as a “friend,” and controlling access to the twins’ trusts. The chapter ends with Grayson concluding that the trust documents are crucial, and that his private investigator had better have obtained them.