Page 142 of This is Why We Lied

The last item Christopher placed on the counter was a ring of keys. There were four in all, which was strange considering none of the doors at the lodge locked. Will recognized a Ford ignition key. A barrel key that probably opened a safe. The remaining two keys were of the smaller padlock variety with black plastic grips. One had a yellow dot. The other had a green one.

Will kept his hand on the revolver as he stepped back from the wall. “Open it.”

Christopher’s head stayed down. Will made sure to watch his hands because the man was clearly not going to convey his intentions through facial expressions. Christopher selected the key with the yellow dot, slid it into the lock, pulled back the hasp, opened the door.

The first thing Will noticed was the smell of stale smoke. Then he saw the pieces of foil where they’d been test-burning combinations of wood. There were oak barrels. Copper tanks. Spiraling pipes and tubes. They weren’t putting cheap liquor in expensive bottles. They were making their own.

“There’s two keys,” Will said. “Where’s the other still?”

Christopher would not look up from the floor.

Will was going to have to rattle him again. Nothing freaked out a man more than feeling the cold metal of a pair of handcuffs ratcheting around his wrists. Will didn’t have cuffs, but he knew where Christopher kept the zip ties. He reached down to open the drawer.

Early this morning, Will had felt guilty for leaving the zip ties loose. Sometime between then and now, someone had banded them back together. He assumed that someone was the same man who’d left six empty bottles of Eads Clear eye drops in the drawer.

18

Faith longed to take another shower. And not just because she was sweating her ass off. Keisha had looked at her with such disgust that Faith had felt like a stand-in for all the shitty cops all over the world.

This was why she didn’t want her son to join the FBI, the GBI, or any other law enforcement agency. Nobody trusted the police anymore. Some of them had damn good reasons. Others were inundated with constant examples of bad cops. It wasn’t just a matter of bad apples anymore. Entire departments were bad barrels. If Faith had to do it over again, she would’ve become a fireman. Nobody was mad at the people who rescued cats from trees.

Faith shook her head as she traveled along the bottom half of the Loop Trail. That was enough wallowing about things she couldn’t change. For now, she had two murders and one suspect. Will wanted her to take the lead on interrogating Christopher. He figured the man shared Chuck’s incel-adjacent beliefs, which meant that being interviewed by a woman would irritate the hell out of him. Faith agreed with the strategy. Christopher sounded too calm for his own good. She needed to find a way to scare the shit out of him. Fortunately, he’d given her a lot of ammunition.

In the state of Georgia, simply owning a still that produced anything but water, essential oils, vinegar and the like was a felony. Add to that the distribution, transportation and selling, and Christopher was looking at hard time in state prison. But that was only part of his problem. The federal government was supposed to get a piece of every drop of alcohol sold in the country.

If the two murders didn’t keep Christopher in prison for the rest of his life, the tax evasion would.

“Hi.” Sara was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. “Will and Kevin are still down at the lake. Christopher is taking them to the boat dock to show them the second still.”

Faith grinned. Will was dragging Christopher around like a dog on a leash so that by the time Faith got to him, he would feel completely helpless. “His timing is great. Dave showed up at the house right before I left, so now they all know he didn’t kill Mercy.”

Sara frowned. “How did he get up here?”

“Dirt bike,” Faith said. “He’s gotta be hurting butt to nuts.”

“He probably scored some fentanyl as soon as he left the hospital,” Sara said. “I called Nadine to tell her about Chuck. The problem is, the death notice moved the lodge up the list to get the road fixed, so we won’t be isolated up here much longer.”

“Well I’ve got even worse news. The phones and internet are back up, so this place is no longer our little slice of Cabot Cove.”

Sara looked worried. “Jon’s been hiding out in the cottage next door. I should tell him that Dave is here. He’s probably looking for a reason to go home.”

“I don’t know, look at what he has to go home to.” Faith thought of a better idea. She tapped the side of her purse. “Jon can’t get online from cottage nine anyway. Can I show you the map? Maybe you can help me fill in some blanks while I wait for Will to give me the heads-up on Christopher.”

“Sure.” Sara motioned for Faith to follow her up the stairs.

Faith had to readjust herself first. She’d borrowed a pair of Sara’s yoga pants. They were about a foot too long and an inch too snug. She’d had to roll the waistband three times to keep the crotch from dangling down to her knees, then roll up the legs like puckered mouths around her calves. Her milkshake was bringing exactly zero boys to the yard.

The cottage had been cleaned since Faith had showered. Sara had obviously straightened up. Or maybe Penny had, because Faith picked up the scent of oranges and, while Sara was tidy, she wasn’t that tidy.

Sara asked, “What’ve you got?”

“Colored markers and a taste for vengeance.” Faith sat down on the couch and dug around in her purse for the map. She laid it on the table. “I walked around the property with my phone to test the Wi-Fi signal. The yellow lines approximate the reception area. Mercy had to be inside these areas to make the phone calls to Dave.”

Sara nodded. “So, that includes cottages one through five, plus seven and eight, plus the main house, plus the dining hall.”

“The relay in the dining hall covers the viewing platform and halfway down Fishtopher Trail, which is where Chuck died. On the other side, the signal extends a bit into the area below the viewing platform. I didn’t want to get too far away from civilization without someone knowing I was down there. Also, there was a shit-ton of birds.”

Sara said, “It’s interesting that both bodies were found in water.”

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