Chapter 26 – Beau
BEAU
“ W hat can I get you?” the liquor store clerk asks me as I walk up to his register. He’s in his sixties, with a thick white mustache and glazed brown eyes that tell me he’s seen a lot of shit in this store.
“I know this is going to sound crazy, but hear me out,” I tell him. “I want the weirdest whiskey you have. Not the best whiskey, or the most expensive, or the most popular. In fact, I want the least popular bottle, the one that even crazy whiskey aficionados haven’t drunk before.”
The clerk’s face freezes. The only sign that he’s not having a stroke or something is the slow blinking of his brown eyes. He looks like an old computer, processing a request that’s way beyond its computing abilities. Just when I’m about to repeat my request, he says, “You stay right there.”
He shoves aside the velvet curtain behind him and disappears into a dark storeroom. I tap my fingers on the counter while I wait. The store is almost eerily empty, considering that it’s almost 8:00 p.m., prime booze-buying hours.
It takes about fifteen minutes for the clerk to finally return, clutching a dusty bottle with an ancient-looking label.
“Here,” he grunts.
I peer at the label. The writing is in some alphabet I don’t recognize. “What’s this?”
“Reindeer whiskey.”
“As in…”
“They stuck some reindeer antlers in it as it aged.”
“And the ‘they’ who did this are…”
He shrugs. “Dunno.”
“Huh.” I examine the bottle. “Well, you got me something weird. I’ll give you that. How much?”
“You really wanna pay for this?” he asks, eyes widening the smallest amount.
“Yup.”
“You gonna drink it?”
I shrug. “Not sure yet. It kind of depends.”
This whiskey bottle is my Hail Mary. My single chance to possibly disarm the wrath of Luke Windsor after I tell him I’ve been seeing Brinley for years.
Luke loves whiskey, especially the kind of weird stuff he can’t just get at any store.
After all the texts this afternoon, I got right in my car to drive to the liquor store my wine distributor recommended to me.
After I pay the disbelieving clerk $150 for the reindeer whiskey, I head out to my car in the parking lot. I open my phone and scroll back up through the group chat, looking for any loophole that will keep me from having to actually use the whiskey.
Ryan
Lisa Barnes has officially been ruled out. She was in Thailand during all the July posts from the Canadian IP address. Unless she had a proxy hitting the publish button for her, and I don’t know why she would, she’s out.
Damn it. Lisa Barnes was a former coworker of Pippa’s at Belladonna , and one of my favorite red herrings.
I theorized that she could have hacked into Pippa’s computer, gotten access to her phone, and pulled details from there.
Ryan has been crossing names off his list faster than I could prop them back up.
Luke
Hell yeah. How many people are left on your list?
Ryan
Only four. Working on clearing Nate’s old housekeeper as we speak.
Luke
We are so close to catching Peppermint, I can taste it.
Ryan
That might just be your gum.
Nate
My PI has almost finished his report. We can expect it in the next two days.
Luke
Oh man, how great would it be if we could toast to catching Peppermint at poker tonight?
Ryan
Beau, if that happens, we’re opening every fucking bottle of champagne you’ve got at Velvet & Vice.
Shit. Nate’s PI has delivered reports early a few times now, which means two days is the maximum amount of time I have left. I don’t know how I can steer this investigation away, short of magically inventing a time machine to undo the last ten years.
I have to tell Luke about me and Brinley tonight. Before the PI report drops, before James runs out of patience, before the whole thing detonates without me in the room. If Luke is going to hear the truth, it should be from me. I owe him at least that much.
I already bailed on poker tonight. I can’t just sit across the table from Luke, playing poker and shooting the shit for hours, pretending everything’s fine.
I’ll show up right after the game ends and convince Luke to hang around with my bottle of reindeer whiskey.
Maybe if I’m lucky, he’ll win big against Ryan, and that’ll put him in a forgiving kind of mood.
Okay, so I’m not holding my breath on Luke forgiving me. Unfortunately, that shitty plan is all I have to hold onto.
There’s only one thing left to do—warn Brinley.
I wish I’d had time to discuss things with her, maybe even come up with some kind of plan to keep Luke from losing his mind.
Normally, she’d be my sounding board for this, but she hasn’t been reachable for days.
She’s keeping a pane of shatterproof glass between us, and no matter how hard I hit it, I can’t even get it to crack.
It’s not a surprise when she lets my call go to voicemail. I’m almost positive she’s screening my calls, but just in case she’s actually busy, I text her.
Beau
I’m telling Luke about us tonight. I just wanted you to know.
I stare at my phone screen, willing her to answer me. If she asked me to keep it a secret, I’d do my best to respect it. I would promise James anything, from the Terrace Steakhouse deed to my firstborn child.
Read: 8:18 p.m.
I wait a few minutes before sighing and shoving my phone away.
That’s it, then. I’m finally bringing my relationship public in the most important way, and my girlfriend wants no part of it.
Hell, she probably doesn’t even want to be my girlfriend anymore.
She’s been fading away from me since we got home from Italy.
I never thought that telling Luke would end with me single, but then again, it’s not like any of this has been easy.
The drive home feels like walking the plank. I try rehearsing what I’m going to say, but every version sounds wrong.
I’ve been in love with your sister for five years.
I’ve been sleeping with her for three.
I know she’s Peppermint. I’ve known for weeks, and I didn’t tell you any of it.
There’s no version of this that doesn’t end with Luke’s fist in my face. I know that, but I’m going anyway.
It takes me three tries to park straight.
It’s hard to focus on anything other than Luke.
His face swims in my head for the whole walk to the building lobby.
When the elevator doors slide shut, it’s like they shut out all the oxygen.
My heart slams against my ribs as I watch the numbers slowly climb.
I realize then that I left the bottle of reindeer whiskey back in the car—my one feeble peace offering three floors down where I can’t use it. Oh well. It’s too late to back out now.
It’s finally happening.
The elevator doors open.
Nobody is playing poker.
Chips and stray cards are scattered across the green velvet surface like shards of broken glass. The chairs are all pushed back, one knocked to the ground. An energy of wrongness sweeps over me. This isn’t the buzzing excitement of a close game or the frustration of losing everything.
This is bad, and I haven’t said a word yet.
Nate’s on his phone, his scowl deeper than I’ve ever seen it. Ryan has his hands up, trying to calm someone down. James is standing apart, arms crossed, expression unreadable. At the center of it all is Luke, holding a manila envelope.
I take one step off the elevator, and everyone’s gaze swings to mine at once.
Shit.
Ryan reaches for Luke’s arm, but Luke shakes him off. He’s already striding across the room toward me with a stack of documents and photographs fanned out in his hand. He shoves them at my chest, wrinkling the pages.
“Is it true?” he demands.
Fuck. The PI report must have arrived early, sometime in the middle of poker.
I look over Luke’s shoulder at James, hoping for context. How much does Luke know? About me and Brinley, about Peppermint, about all of it? James’s face is passive, offering nothing. So is Nate’s. Ryan’s attention is fixed on Luke, like Luke’s a wild animal about to charge.
I take the documents from Luke’s hands, trying to stack them in some semblance of order so I don’t drop more on the floor.
The first document is a series of numbers overlaid underneath each other, scrambled bits of IP addresses, narrowed down to a single final number.
Then a paper of what looks like writing pattern analysis, including Peppermint articles, the Copper Cup’s website, and Brinley’s published fanfic.
Under that is a careful table of timeline correlations tying Brinley to each Peppermint post.
Damning, undeniable evidence.
Then there’s the hotel records. My name on the receipt for the St. Regis, and a photo of Brinley walking through the lobby, shot on a security camera. A quick glance shows me more receipts, with both our names on them.
When they found Peppermint, they found me, too.
Luke knows everything now. Not because I told him. Not because James told him. Because a stranger in a PI firm compiled his sister’s secret life into a manila envelope and sent it by courier to a poker game.
“Is. It. True?” Luke glares at me, daring me to deny it.
I don’t lie. I’m done lying. “Yes.”
The first punch comes before I even finish the word.