Chapter

2

“Char, did you test the cask strength?” Granddad Jack asked a few hours later. “It’s gotta be under 125 proof. Any more and we’re going to have a batch of furniture polish.” He sat in his favorite worn recliner, a glass of water rather than whiskey, much to his dismay, on the armrest.

“I know,” I said, placing a tray filled with food in front of him. He looked far too thin, not nearly the big bold presence I remembered. He wasn’t eating, and I was getting worried.

Jack had raised me since my parents died in an unfortunate rollover car accident along Gator Row when I was five. Granddad had taken me in without a second thought. I couldn’t imagine life without him. Since my return, every time I looked at him, I saw a seventy-four-year-old man, his hair thinning, skin growing pale. Tired. His gaze not as steady.

He was fading before my eyes, and I had no way of stopping it.

Time, even more than the Getts, was our enemy now.

“I’ll check the strength in a moment.” I motioned to the food on the plate. Food that looked far too gray in color to taste like anything. “Now will you eat? It’s your favorite. Chicken pot pie.”

He thumped the tray, sending the plate dancing toward the edge. Thankfully it stayed on the tray, along with seventy-five percent of the pot pie. “What’s the point of pot pie if there’s no butter in it? I might as well eat chicken soup.”

I tried to smile, but it fell flat. He did have a point, but seeing as I’d worked for over an hour trying to make “healthy” chicken pot pie, I wasn’t in the mood to argue. Rather than listen to the same complaint I’d heard every night since he’d come home from the hospital, I used a tried-and-true motto. “Doctor’s orders.”

“Doctor, my ass,” he yelled. “Those quacks know nothing—”

Before he went full-court press on the medical profession, Sweet Jayme entered the room, her hair tied back with a bandana and a wide smile on her face. Granddad instantly dropped his rant.

“I’ll take it from here,” she said, handing him a fork, worn with age and use. “Go check your cask strength, Charlotte. We’ll be here when you’re done.”

I smiled my appreciation and then focused on Granddad. “I’ll be back in ten minutes. I expect a cleaned plate and a smile on your grumpy face upon my return.” Leaning down, I kissed his forehead to soften my words. As I did, I inhaled his scent. A combination of oak and whiskey.

Taking one last whiff, I left the house, circling the distillery, where grains went from malting to milling to mash, and then on to fermentation in large steel tanks called washbacks, and finally distilling. Separating the alcohol from the water during the distilling process was done in copper stills heated to just under 212 degrees. From there, it would be distilled again before it was ready to sleep for the next four years in a cask created to instill the finest color and flavor.

On my right sat the cooperage cottage, where my cousin Evan crafted the finest whiskey casks in the business, like my father once had. But my mission wasn’t in the cottage or the distillery, but the building directly behind the distillery, tucked between it and the swamp.

The structure known as the rackhouse—where two thousand gallons of whiskey sat waiting for the exact right time to be bottled—was like a beacon in the sky. I was, as always, impressed by the sheer height of it. Three stories all packed with aging whiskey and intricate pulley systems to raise and lower casks, to ensure no whiskey was served before its time.

Luckys knew two things. First, good wort wrought grand flavor; and second, whiskey took time to mature. Open a cask too soon and the best of wort couldn’t save it.

Each barrel inside our rackhouse spent over four long years inside, sometimes longer. Waiting for that one magical moment where the blurred lines between booze and whiskey sharpened into something wonderful.

What wasn’t wonderful was the humidity stalking my every step on the journey to whiskey nirvana. How could it be this sweltering at seven at night? One of the things I missed most about L.A. When the sun set over the ocean waters, the air chilled like whiskey poured over ice.

Not so in sweaty armpit Florida.

Though I had to admit, it felt nice to be outside to hear the buzz of mosquitoes and the cry of wildlife hidden in the shadows beyond the property line.

These days I spent most of my time indoors trying to figure out Jack’s filing system so I could pay the stack of bills piling up on his old oak desk. Running Lucky Whiskey wasn’t as easy as I’d first thought when I rolled back into town six weeks ago. And I rarely did more than the routine administrative work. The actual distilling and chemistry I left to our head distiller, Roger Kerrick.

Roger and I went back a way. Back to high school and the backseat of his mother’s Jeep, to be specific. The memory of the heavy scent of Drakkar Noir and leather seats, of teenage hormones and wet kisses, of Roger’s fumbling hands and fogged windows, rose inside me.

Thankfully, I moved on to better after I caught Roger humping the prom queen. At the time, my tears had Jack threatening to stuff the cheating Roger in a cask and toss him in the Glades.

For the distillery’s sake, I’m glad he’d refrained.

We needed Roger.

Desperately.

Especially since I was now in charge. I made a mental note to swing by and see Roger in the morning, to find out where we were at with the latest batch. I hadn’t seen him in a day or two, and was starting to get concerned. Even an hour too long in the wort room and the grain could shoot, thereby ruining the flavor of the batch.

Or so Jack said.

Sadly, everyone in the county knew I was in over my head, even if I would never admit to such a sin. Whiskey was supposed to be in my blood. Without Roger at my side, I felt like I was swimming in a glass of Old Crow instead of Old Weller Antique.

Using all the strength in my arms, I pulled open the door to the rackhouse, inhaling the scent of wood and whiskey, as I did every time I entered. There was something almost reverent about the rackhouse, with the rows upon rows of casks stacked as high as the eye could see.

With a loud sigh that filled the empty building, I pulled a small copper tube-like instrument from my pocket called a thief. The weight and feel of it brought back a flood of memories. Both good and bad. Memories of Jack. Of his stern features breaking into a wide grin at the first taste of a new batch. My first kiss had been just beyond the first row of casks. The heady scent of warming whiskey as welcoming as Joey Duggan’s moist lips.

The Lucky Distillery was family.

In my years away I’d forgotten the intoxicating smell of fermenting grains. Or how my tongue tingled, much more than other places had during Joey’s overly wet smooch, as I anticipated the finest whiskey in the country.

But while Jack had always dreamed of that perfect sip, I’d spent my childhood days daydreaming of life outside Gett, Florida … of walking the red carpet.

I spied the cask the rackhouse manager had left out for me to test. The Lucky emblem embossed on the top. Wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead, I held the thief aloft, the cask—my intended victim.

I stabbed the instrument into the oak like I had done with an icepick in my brief appearance on NCIS. I used my thumb, holding it over the top to gain enough pressure to suck up a taste of the rich whiskey inside.

I lifted the thief, frowning.

Something wasn’t right.

I jabbed it in again. Harder. Still nothing. Was something wrong with the cask? Had the angels taken more than their fair share? More likely the devil was at play. But he wouldn’t win. Not this time.

I grabbed a bung puller, which looked a lot like a large, complicated corkscrew, and went to work on prying the barrel open. Whiskey splashed over the edge, falling on my boots with a wet splat. I paused, frowning as the air filled with a pungent odor, like fermenting overly ripe bananas and whiskey.

Was the cask bad? Had air somehow gotten inside, destroying the carefully crafted ingredients? I hoped not. We had orders to fill, and each cask was worth nearly ten thousand dollars.

Using all the strength in what some might call my scrawny arms, I cranked at the bung puller along the edge of the barrel. Ultimately the lid gave way and I fell back a step.

An even fouler odor spewed from the cask, like meat left far too long in the Florida sun. Tears rose in my eyes. Cupping a hand over my mouth, I held my breath. The stench threatened to overwhelm my efforts to keep it at bay. Trying not to gag, I took a step closer to the cask.

Don’t look. Don’t look, my mind warned, but I had no choice.

Once my brain recognized the horror before me, I let out a sharp cry. “Oh my God.” The urge to lose my own chicken pot pie dinner rose up. I had a feeling it wouldn’t taste any better coming back up than it had going down. I swallowed gulping breaths until the feeling subsided.

Stumbling back, I accidently bumped the cask with the bung puller. It rocked back and then tipped forward, spilling the very pickled corpse of Roger Kerrick onto the rackhouse floor with a wet plop.