Whiskey Chaser (Bootleg Springs Book 1)

by Lucy Score

Marge, as her name tag read, cheerfully scanned and bagged while carrying on a gossip session with every customer. Myself included.

  My gaze drifted to the Missing poster that hung under her register lane light. I nodded, half listening to the latest news about a falling out between the dueling banjo trio made up of the mayor, the police chief, and Mrs. Morganson the third-grade teacher.

  Marge followed my gaze. “Such a shame, isn’t it?” she said. That’s how all conversations about Callie’s disappearance started. “The anniversary of her kidnappin’ slash murder is comin’ up in a couple of weeks. Her daddy’s back in town for a little bit at least. He’s a judge, but he usually takes a month or so here in the summers. What do you think happened to her?” Marge asked cheerfully.

  I opened my mouth to answer when the text caught my eye.

  Last seen wearing denim shorts and a red cardigan sweater.

  43

  Devlin

  I drove home in a daze while my mind turned it all over.

  Last seen wearing denim shorts and a red cardigan sweater.

  Scarlett had found a red cardigan sweater tucked away in her father’s things. A sweater she identified as Callie’s. Shortly after the discovery, Scarlett had pleaded exhaustion, and I’d driven her home. And then I hadn’t seen her again for two days. When she finally did come back around, it was with the idea that we were too incompatible to make this relationship work beyond a summer in Bootleg.

  I slapped the steering wheel in frustration.

  She’d cut me out. She’d kept something huge from me when I was the one person who could help her. If that sweater was indeed the one that Callie Tucker had last been seen wearing, the Bodines could use an attorney. There’d be an investigation. The press would swarm all over a new development in a cold case like this. That kind of attention would bleed over into everything, turning their private lives into a public circus…

  And that’s why she was ending things with me.

  I pulled into the driveway and dropped my head against the seat.

  There’d been no sign of the sheriff or any other law enforcement next door, and if Scarlett had reported the sweater, I was certain word would have spread like fire. I could only assume that she’d decided to keep the discovery to herself… perhaps her brothers as well.

  I was having a lot of feelings about this. Conflicting ones. Scarlett didn’t trust me to let me in on this. And I wasn’t going to let that stop me from helping.

  I carted the groceries inside and stashed them away. I grabbed a water, my laptop, and a legal pad and set up shop in Estelle’s tiny office. Research was one of my nerd-like obsessions. I excelled at finding answers.

  Starting with the original articles of the disappearance, I dug in. The articles were mostly local at first and then spreading nationwide as hours turned to days and days turned to weeks. They shared the same information over and over again. The last people who saw her were teenage friends who had gathered at the lake on a rocky beach often frequented by locals on the warm July night.

  Witnesses—some of whom I’ve met including Nash, Misty Lynn, and Cassidy Tucker—recalled seeing her walk back toward town on Hooch Road. According to her parents, Judge and Mrs. Kendall, Callie never made it back to their house on the lakefront Speakeasy Drive.

  I printed out a map and highlighted her potential path. The beach that she’d left was less than an eighth of a mile from the Bodine house, but she’d have walked in the opposite direction toward town, keeping the lake on her left as she traveled west.

  She’d been wearing a long sleeve cardigan on a hot summer night. Which I found odd. Wasn’t it usually warm enough to forgo a sweater? Curiosity had me calling up an image search. The pictures all showed a pretty young girl with a shy smile who always wore long sleeves. I scratched another note and moved on to the next thread to tug on.

  I gave myself two hours to binge on everything related to Callie’s disappearance. I stumbled on a forum of conspiracy theories about the disappearance. The rabbit hole danger was real, but I did make a list of every suspect forum members named. It was a short list, and it didn’t include Jonah Bodine Sr. or any of the Bodine boys. I needed to know who had been investigated, interviewed. I needed access to those notes.

  I tapped out a beat with my pen on the tablet now scrawled with notes.

  There was one person that Scarlett trusted implicitly. And she was the same person who could get me information. I debated for a solid ten minutes, weighing just how pissed off Scarlett would be at me for making the call against what I could learn from it.

  She didn’t want my help, but she was damn well going to get it.

  Thirty minutes later I pulled up a chair next to Cassidy Tucker at The Lookout. She wasn’t wearing her deputy uniform, and it made me feel like I was just having a casual conversation.

  “If this is about Scarlett’s favorite kind of diamond, you might as well save your money, Dev. She promised her mama she wouldn’t get married before thirty,” Cassidy said hefting her beer.

  I caught Nicolette’s eye and pointed at Cassidy’s beer.

  “This isn’t about diamonds,” I said. “This is about something… delicate.”

  Cassidy’s eyes narrowed. Nicolette dropped my beer off with a nod and left again. “Define delicate.”

  “Say I was representing the family of someone accused of a crime.” I waited a beat and looked at her hard. I wanted to know if Scarlett had already spilled to Cassidy.

  “Jesus, what did Scarlett do now?”

  “Scarlett didn’t do anything this time. No one did anything. Let’s say this is all hypothetical.”

  “I’m not liking how this conversation is going,” she said, sitting back in her chair and crossing her arms. She had the cool, flat eyes of a cop.

  “Did a good friend of yours come to you recently with something he or she found?” I asked.

  “Like what? A missing dog?”

  “Like something connected to a crime.”

  “What are you getting at, Devlin?”

  I waited a beat and repeated the question.

  Cassidy sighed, grudgingly. “No. No one brought me any evidence recently.”

  Scarlett trusted Cassidy with her life but not with this. Either I’d have to trust her, or I needed to get up and walk out of here right now.

  “Spill, McCallister.”

  I leaned in and lowered my voice. “What if someone found something in a deceased relative’s house? Something that was connected to the biggest crime ever committed in Bootleg?” I asked.

  Cassidy stiffened. She glanced around us and leaned in. “What did Scarlett find?” she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “Let’s say my client,” I said.

  “Fine. What did your client find?” Cassidy asked.

  “First, what wouldn’t you do for Scarlett Bodine?” I pressed.

  Cassidy’s eyebrows winged up toward her hairline. “What wouldn’t I do? There’s not a damn thing in this world that I wouldn’t do for her. If she needs help burying a body, I’m there with a shovel and duct tape.”

  I nodded. It was the answer I wanted. And I believed her.

  “What was Callie Tucker wearing when she disappeared?”

  “Cut off shorts, a blue tank top, red sweater, and blue flip-flops.” She rattled off the list, and I remembered that Cassidy had been one of the last people to see Callie alive.

  “My client,” I said, placing emphasis on the words, “found a red cardigan sweater that matches the description tucked away in her deceased parents’ possessions.”

  Cassidy leaned in until we were almost nose to nose. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she hissed.

  I shook my head and glanced around to make sure none of the bar flies were listening.

  “And she told you and not me?” Cassidy hissed. “And she didn’t go to the cops? What is wrong with her? I’m going to kill her.”

  I put a hand on her arm. “She didn’t tell me. I was there when she
found it. But she didn’t tell me that it’s what Callie was wearing when she disappeared.”

  “Then why are you here? How did you find out?”

  I shrugged. “I connected the dots. I’m guessing Scarlett’s trying to handle this on her own. Whatever that means.”

  “If word gets out that the first clue in a decade has turned up in that case, we’ll have the state police and FBI and media crawling all over this place. Jesus, Judge Kendall just got back in town.”

  I nodded. “And the Bodines will be under the microscope.”

  She flopped back in her chair. “Dang it, Devlin. I thought you asked me here to talk about engagement rings.”

  I looked into the depths of my beer. “I wish. Scarlett decided this is just a summer fling and that, when I go back to Annapolis, we’re over.”

  “What?” Cassidy slapped a hand on the table. My beer sloshed over the rim. “That girl is ass over head in love with you.”

  “She said we wouldn’t work. Said she’d be a liability to my career.”

  “Because of the sweater,” Cassidy sighed, connecting the dots. “She doesn’t want you to get dragged into the circus.”

  “I think that’s why she didn’t tell you either,” I pointed out.

  “Well fuck her,” Cassidy announced, picking up her beer. “I’m going to help the shit out of her.”

  “We both will. Whether she wants us to or not,” I agreed.

  44

  Scarlett

  Devlin’s house smelled like charcoal. All the first-floor windows and doors were wide open. Dressed in gym shorts and a t-shirt, he ushered smoke out onto the deck with a dish towel.

  “Something sure smells good,” I drawled, eyeing him with amusement.

  “Hilarious,” Devlin said dryly. But I noticed the way his gaze lingered just for a second on the scoop neck of my tank top. “Grab a towel and help me.”

  I pulled a rooster towel out of the drawer and fanned from the front door until the smoke dissipated.

  “What’s for dinner?” I asked, strolling back into the kitchen where blackened pieces of some kind of meat smoldered like coals.

  “It’s Jonah’s fault,” Devlin said. “His handwriting is illegible.”

  “Awh. Jonah’s teaching you to cook?”

  He swung an arm around the wrecked, smoky kitchen. “Obviously it’s not working.”

  I laid my hand on his arm, pleased at the muscles that bunched under my touch. “Maybe we should just face facts that neither one of us belongs in a kitchen.”

  “I refuse to accept that,” he announced, giving me a perfunctory kiss on the forehead.

  I poked my nose into the covered bowl on the island and found a yellow-ish potato salad. I plucked a potato cube out and popped it into my mouth. It was inexplicably crunchy. I swallowed hard.

  Devlin seemed tense, a little moody. I could relate.

  Nothing between us had been normal since that day at my father’s house. I’d stashed the sweater in a kitchen cabinet and tried to pretend it didn’t exist. In the middle of the night, I’d had a moment of pure insanity and wondered what would happen if I just threw it out. But I couldn’t do it. I knew I had to take it to the police. I had to pull the plug on my own life as I knew it, and it sucked.

  Everything in my life had frozen at that moment. I couldn’t move forward in my father’s house knowing that there could be other evidence tying him to Callie. I couldn’t just enjoy my time with Devlin while he was here because the closer we got, the deeper he’d get dragged for this. But I wasn’t going to break. I wasn’t going to be selfish and spill my guts to him dragging him and his newly repaired reputation into this mess.

  I needed to do what needed to be done. And I just wanted a few more days with him.

  Devlin shoved the take-out menus at me. “Take your pick,” he said.

  Our fingers brushed, and I felt that electric zing swim through my blood. It had been selfish of me to continue seeing him while he was here.

  “You know, Scarlett, if you need help all you have to do is ask.”

  I frowned. “I think I can pick take-out just fine on my own.”

  He eyed me and rubbed a hand over his beard. God, I hoped he’d keep the beard even after he moved back. “You have friends who’d be willing to help you.”

  I felt a tingle crawl up the back of my neck. He was talking like he knew something.

  The take-out menus fell through my limp fingers, and I bent to pick them up. The front door opened and shut.

  “It smells like someone set the house on fire,” Jonah announced, strolling into the kitchen.

  “I blame you,” Devlin said.

  “I wasn’t even here,” he argued.

  “He’s blaming your handwriting, and let’s just skip ahead to the part where we all decide what kind of take-out we’re orderin’,” I suggested.

  Jonah pulled out a stool and plopped down to study the menus. It’s not like he hadn’t memorized them already. There were three places in town that did decent take-out, and we’d eaten them all in a rotation for the past few weeks.

  “While you’re both here,” Jonah said, studying the pizza menu like it was the most fascinating novel in the world. “I’m thinking it might be time for me to head home.”

  “What do you mean home?” I demanded. I knew I hadn’t been making much time for Jonah the past week since the “discovery.” But I wasn’t ready to let my new brother go because, odds were, he wouldn’t come back.

  “I’ve been here long enough. I’m getting antsy. I’d like to get back to work and let everyone else get back to their routines.”

  “But you can’t go!” I noticed Devlin take a step back, his face a mask of hurt, and then it was gone. I plowed on. “Jonah, we just met. You can’t just pack up and go home. Don’t you want to stay and… and…”

  “Be part of the family, the community,” Devlin said flatly.

  “Yeah! That!” I agreed, pointing at him.

  Jonah looked at Devlin, and they telegraphed something between them. “Listen, I think I’m going to go for a drive,” Devlin announced. “Why don’t you two stay and talk?”

  He picked up his keys and was gone before I could say another word.

  “Well, what in the hell was that all about?” I asked when the front door shut soundly behind him.

  “Scarlett. Seriously?” Jonah looked at me with disapproval.

  “What? What’s wrong with everybody all of the sudden?”

  “You begged me to stay because you’re not done getting to know me in front of the guy you told to go home without you.”

  “But that’s different! You’re my brother,” I argued.

  Jonah shook his head. “Did you ask Devlin to stay?”

  “Why in the heck would Devlin stay here? He’s got his career path all planned out. He’s worked for it his whole life. He’s not gonna give all that up for some redneck girl in some backwoods town.”

  Jonah opened the fridge and pulled out a beer. “I guess you’ll never know the answer if you can’t ask the question.”

  I sputtered after him as he strolled out of the room, beer in hand.

  “I guess I’ll just make myself dinner then,” I said to the empty room. With Devlin gone to sulk and Jonah judging me, I figured it was safer and kinder back at my house. I’d make a sandwich and then figure out if I should go to Cass or straight to her daddy. Maybe I could beg them not to tell anyone until after Devlin went home?

  My stomach flip-flopped on itself as I ducked out the back door and scurried down the stairs.

  Maybe I should call my brothers first? Then we could provide a united front. I hurried through the woods. I’d fucked up, keeping the sweater this long. Callie’s family deserved answers, even if we were the ones to pay the price for them.

  I broke through the woods into my yard, and I saw the police cruiser in my driveway. Cassidy was leaning against the hood in her uniform. I’d seen her in uniform about ten thousand times. Hell, I’d even
seen her arrest people. Once it was even me. But I’d never felt nervous being around Cop Cass before now.

  “Evenin’, Scarlett,” she said.

  She fucking knew. “Bowie’s got a damn big mouth where you’re concerned,” I said flatly. I couldn’t believe my own brother had gone behind my back.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said mildly, pushing away from the car. “But I do know you have something that you want to tell me.”

  Cassidy wasn’t usually such a good liar. I’d deal with Bowie and his head-up-his-ass crush later.

  I sighed. There was no turning back now. “Come on in then.”

  Cassidy followed me inside. She’d been in my home hundreds of times. We’d giggled drunkenly over men and eaten way too many pizzas and dozens of wings under this roof. We’d guzzled beers and sunned ourselves on the dock. And now I was about to confess to withholding evidence. A crime. I’d looked it up online.

  “Are you mad?” I asked.

  “Hell yes, I’m mad! I’m mad that you didn’t tell me, Scar. What the hell were you thinking?”

  I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Are you asking as a cop or my best friend?”

  In answer, she smacked me on the back of the head. “What do you think, jackass?”

  I gave a weak laugh. “I found it, and it took me a few minutes to put it together. I knew it was hers, but I didn’t realize she’d gone missing in it, and when I did...” I took a breath and shook my head. “I just wanted to get Dev as far away from that sweater as I could.”

  “He wouldn’t have turned you in, idiot.”

  “I know that. But he’d want to get involved, and he’s running for re-election next year. That wouldn’t be an option if he were tangled up with the daughter of a potential... whatever you’re going to say Daddy is. It’s one thing to date me. I think we could have made it work. But there’s no way Dev’s career would survive a murder investigation.”

  “Even if your daddy had something to do with it—which I’m not saying he did—you had nothing to do with it. None of you did.”