Page 44 of Whiskey Kisses

“That you had dirt on Maribelle,” I say. “I always assumed she and your dad were tight, but after hearing the way she talked about him and the distillery, I’m not so sure. She was simmering.”

“She’s been simmering for years,” Evie admits. “I don’t blame her, honestly. Maribelle’s awful, but she worked hard for Daddy, for a longtime. She poured a lot into the distillery, and now she’s lost it because of his shit choices.”

I nod. This tracks with the vibe I got off Maribelle earlier. “Tell me what you know.”

“Okay, so I worked at the distillery the summer before college, helping Maribelle. She had just gone full-time there,” she reveals. “I hated it, so I was waiting tables by the next summer, but let’s just say that my time there was quite enlightening.” She pauses, cracking her knuckles. “Doyle Whiskey exports a substantial amount of its product internationally. You need all kinds of documentation to comply with customs and regulatory requirements. My job was to deal with commercial invoices, packing lists, certificates of origin, that kind of stuff.”

She pauses, looking at me.

I crack a smile, nodding. “I’m following. My family owns a shipping company.”

“How’d I not know this?” She gives her head a little shake. “Well, you’ll definitely find this interesting, then. I’d notice that sometimes there would be two invoices for one shipment. Or the amount on the invoice was higher than what was actually in the shipments. At first, I thought it was just a mistake, so I’d fix it, only to find it back where it started. But when I brought it up to Maribelle, she told me to stop snooping and start doing my job. Which, I thought I was. But I realized she just wanted me to take what she gave me and finish it, not make changes.”

“Good old-fashioned money laundering,” I say. This also tracks with what I know about her sister.

Evie blinks. “I never thought about it like that, but yes. That’s exactly what it was.”

“And your dad wasn’t aware of what she was doing?” I ask, dubious.

“I’m not sure. Maybe?” she hedges. “But Maribelle was in charge of accounting by that point. I know she was skimming off the top a lot, too. I know he doesn’t know about that. And she doesn’t know I know, either.”

“Howdoyou know?” I ask, curious.

Evie shrugs. “Once I realized that things were shady, I started doing exactly what she told me not to—I snooped. The accounting software she kept wasn’t that secure, so I’d poke around whenever she left forlunch. I wasn’t gonna do anything with the information; I was just curious.”

I tuck this away for future reference, allowing the conversation to veer into what my family, especially Lucky and I, actually do back home. Evie’s curious now, so why not? A secret for a secret. She might as well know who she’s hitched to.

A small, but insistent, voice suggests I clear up Maribelle’s assertion that Evie used to like me, but that might not go over too well. Evie can be sensitive, and the last thing I need is her getting angry or defensive about it if it’s true. Because there’s a possibility that “old crush” is still hanging around, and if it is, then things are more complicated between us than I thought.

A lot more complicated.

We driveby a couple of subdevelopments before Evie directs me down a quiet road where the houses are more spread out. “There it is,” she says finally, pointing to a large, two-story house set back from the road, partly hidden by trees. I pull up to a locked gate, which Evie manages to open after trying several keys on her ring.

Pulling through, we continue down a driveway lined with manicured shrubs. The lawn is surprisingly well kept, considering no one lives here right now, and so is the house, an attractive, older home with a wraparound porch. Evie gestures to a cluster of palm trees on the right. “Let’s park over there, in the shade.”

Evie’s quiet at first. I follow her from room to room, watching her peek below the sheets covering the furniture. I can tell that being here makes her emotional, but soon she starts telling me stories about her great aunt. How close they’d been, her mother too, how this had felt like a magical place.

“Myrtle was my dad’s aunt, but she couldn’t stand him,” she says with a thick laugh, running her fingers over the engraved surface of an antique wardrobe. “She loved us, though. I think she saw herself in my mom.”

Evie leads me upstairs, her hand lingering on the banister. At the top, she pauses and turns to me, her eyes bright. “This was my room,”she says, opening the door to reveal a cozy bedroom with faded, blue floral wallpaper. “Whenever I slept over.”

I follow her in, imagining younger Evie curled up on the white canopy bed with her manga. She goes to the window, parting the lace curtains, and looks out. Her profile seems wistful as I join her, gazing out at the gardens below. “Tristan,” she says after a moment. “Thank you for doing this. For being here with me.” She turns then, face upturned, and my heart constricts at the trust in her eyes. I don’t know if I deserve it, but I like how it feels.

Why is that? Why do I like how it feels?Without thinking, I push her hair over her shoulder, letting my hand linger at her shoulder. “Sure.”

Her eyes flare. The air seems to thicken between us. I know I should pull my hand away, but I can't seem to move. “I want to show you the garden,” she blurts, backing away. “It’s the reason I love gardening so much.”

“Lead the way,” I say, but she’s already gone, probably spooked by me touching her. I keep thinking about what Maribelle said earlier and how blind I must’ve been not to have noticed it. Evie’s always been a skittish, blushing little thing. How was I supposed to know she’d harbored actual feelings for me? Feelings that might not be totally gone?Fuck.

Downstairs, Evie holds the screen door open for me as we leave the glass sunroom at the rear of the house. We step down into the backyard, where a sprawling, lush garden stretches out for about a half an acre. Unlike the meticulously groomed gardens I’m used to, this is kind of wild in a beautiful way, an explosion of colors and textures. There are shade-giving palms and oaks, foliage and flowers so thick in places I can’t see beyond it.

“Holy shit,” I murmur, following Evie over to a stone fountain. No wonder she loves plants so much. This place is like the Garden of Eden.

“There used to be water in this,” she says, running her fingers over the lip of the basin. “And it was full of lily pads.” Walking around the fountain, she points to a cluster of multi-hued blossoms. “I helped her plant those. Zinnias, coneflowers, asters … they attract butterflies, see?”

A pair of yellow butterflies float around the flowers, dipping down as if to drink from them. “Who’s been taking care of it?”

“Theestate pays Ms. Bianchi’s firm, believe it or not. Aunt Myrtle set it up before she passed,” she explains, stepping down a brick pathway that winds through a cluster of flower beds.

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