Chapter

20

Damn Brodie Gett. He’d led me astray, hoping to divert my attention away from the real criminals—the Gett family.

For reasons that were beyond me, Rue Gett hated Jack. She hated Lucky Whiskey too, which I understood since we beat her brand any day. But her distaste for Granddad was particularly petty.

Jack and Rue played the game of one-upmanship for years, always one doing their best to beat the other. This need to be better than the other trickled down, resulting in a long-standing rivalry between Brodie and myself. As a kid, it made for some awkward moments, like when I got paired with Brodie for a school play. I, of course, was the lead. My poignant Juliet knocked the socks off Brodie’s woeful rendition of Romeo. Thank God my high school had deemed the kissing “too explicit” for Gett and cut it from the script.

Jack and Rue sat next to each other in the gymnasium turned theater, watching for the other’s kin to mess up in any small way. I never did, not once, which drove Brodie—and by extension, Rue—crazy.

That was, I never messed up until the night of the water tower. That really evened the score over botched Shakespeare lines.

So I guess it made an odd sort of sense for Roger to spy on Lucky Whiskey for Rue Gett. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jack didn’t have one or two moles at her place of business. But why had Roger done it? And why add in possible criminal theft charges? He’d been loyal, as far as I knew, to Jack for years. Then suddenly he embezzled a bunch of money, causing Lucky’s near collapse? Was that Rue’s plan? Had she blackmailed Roger into destroying us?

I wouldn’t put it past the old bat. She wielded secrets like one did a weapon. The town’s politicians, if you could call them that, were deep in her pocket.

Heck, one of her grandson’s was the sheriff of the entire county.

And the other … Brodie … where did he fit into the puzzle?

Had Roger balked at Rue’s plan, causing Brodie to eliminate him as a problem? Or had Rue done the dirty work herself? The picture of an eighty-year-old woman wielding a gun might make some people laugh. But not any of us who knew Rue Gett.

She was a force to be reckoned with.

I doubted she could hoist Roger into the cask on her own. That took the strength of someone much younger. Had Brodie come upon her crime, and now was helping her clean up her mess? Doing anything in his power to keep granny out of jail? Rue held an odd power over her grandsons. They would do anything for her.

And I did mean anything.

Before I could recklessly storm off to confront Rue, my cell phone rang. I checked the caller ID. Evan. I winced, debating if I should answer. I opted for no, knowing he’d only whine about Boone’s threats to his hands yet again. I swiped to ignore his call, focusing instead on keeping the flies away from my greasy meal.

Minutes later, I thanked Lester for lunch and this eye-opening tidbit about Roger’s calls to the Gett distillery. After giving Cindy Mae a casual wave, I headed to the parking lot, and my poor damaged car. Eventually I’d have to give in and get it fixed, but for the moment, I wouldn’t give the vandal the satisfaction.

My call phone rang again. I reached for it, sighing as I answered. “What do you want, Evan?”

“The distillery …” His voice shook so much so it was hard to understand him. “A fire …”

“What?” I yelled at the word fire. Given the explosive contents of a cask, a small fire could soon turn into a blazing inferno, killing all thirty employees within seconds. “I can’t understand you. What happened?”

“The distillery … it’s on fire!”

My heart leapt into my throat as the blood left my head. My gaze narrowed to tunnel-vision, and I fought to draw enough air in my lungs. How could this be? I launched myself into my car, tearing out of the parking lot like I was the one on fire, instead of the place my family had lived and died for across the generations.