Chapter Twenty
Whiskey
By nine the next morning, I’m standing in Sheriff Amos Dix’s attic holding a photograph of sixteen-year-old Twila in a wrestling singlet while her daddy watches me like he’s debating whether murder counts as property maintenance.
“Touch anything else, I’ll shoot you.”
I look over my shoulder. “You say that a lot.”
“Hasn’t stopped being true.”
Twila is kneeling beside an old cedar chest beneath the attic window, flipping through envelopes and muttering at both of us.
“Would both of you quit measuring dicks in my mother’s attic?”
I look at Amos. “Mine wins.”
Twila’s head snaps up.
Amos points at me. “Not if I shoot it off.”
The attic goes quiet.
Twila stops with one hand inside the chest, and I forget how breathing works for about half a second. Even Amos looks pissed at himself for saying it.
The attic smells like cedar, dust, old paper, and the dry sweetness of things somebody couldn’t make themselves throw away.
Morning light slips through the small window and catches floating dust above boxes marked CHRISTMAS, old clothes sealed beneath plastic, photo albums, a sewing basket, and two quilts folded carefully inside clear bags.
Twila’s mother is everywhere up here without actually being here.
Amos already pulled the evidence out before we arrived, but Twila wanted to see exactly where he’d hidden it. I understand why. Some secrets feel different once you see where somebody buried them, and this one spent twelve years beneath a quilt her dead mother made.
Hard to get more personal than that.
Amos sets another banker’s box beside the cedar chest. “That’s everything.”
Twila looks inside. “You copied all this?”
“What I could.”
“Before somebody started deleting the report?”
“Yeah.”
I put the teenage wrestling picture back where I found it.
Reluctantly.
Twila catches me. “You were staring.”
“You were cute.”
“I was sixteen.”
“You were a child. I meant the braces.”
Her eyes narrow. “Good save.”
“Wasn’t saving shit. Those bangs were criminal.”
“Daddy!”
Amos takes one look at the photograph. “He ain’t wrong.”
I grin.
Twila looks betrayed. “Both of you can go to hell.”
“Live there.”
Amos mutters, “Explains a lot.”
Then Twila lifts the first folder from the evidence box, and every bit of humor leaves the attic.
Pearly Gates Youth & Family Retreat.
Inside are old brochures, photocopies, property records, donation sheets, and handwritten notes in Amos’s blocky cop handwriting.
One grainy photograph shows a community fundraiser from years ago with a younger Reverend Crowley standing beside a banner, one hand raised like he’s blessing whoever took the picture.
The man looks harmless, which is usually when I start assuming the opposite. Clean white shirt. Gray already starting at his temples. Good teeth. Pleasant smile. The kind of face people welcome into schools, hospitals, churches, and grieving families without asking why he’s there.
I’ve always hated the man.
Twila taps one of the papers. “Ruthanne Peck.”
Amos nods.
Her name sits halfway down an old volunteer list, nothing prominent about it. Just another woman mixed among dozens of church volunteers.
“That was ten months before the girl was found,” Amos says.
“You checked volunteers after Peck picked her up?”
“Tried.”
“Crowley?”
“No. Couldn’t accuse a man of God so easily without causing a big scene.”
I pick up another page. “Board donors.”
“Some of them.”
My eyes move down the list until one name catches.
“Montgomery.”
Twila leans over my shoulder.
There it is, though not Sophie’s father’s name directly. A charitable trust called the Montgomery Family Community Fund, followed by dates and donation amounts that aren’t enormous by rich-people standards but are more than enough to matter.
Treasurer brain takes over. I stop reading names and start reading dates, amounts, and where the money landed. Numbers don’t give a shit whether the name printed above them is respectable.
Twila looks at Amos. “You showed Sophie’s father this?”
“Not this exact sheet.”
“But you asked him about the contributions.”
“Yes.”
“And he acted like lawyers handled it.”
“More or less.”
I scan the page. “These payments could be clean.”
“They could.”
“Could be dirty.”
“Yes.”
“Helpful.”
Amos gives me a look. “You want certainty, find God.”
“Been busy avoiding church.”
Twila snorts.
Amos ignores me.
Probably healthiest.
Then she pulls out an old deed transfer and stops.
“Here.”
I move beside her, but Amos already knows exactly what she found.
MERCY HOUSE.
The title sits at the top of the filing in faded legal type. This isn’t a name dragged out of somebody’s damaged memory or scribbled in an old note. Mercy House was a real property with paperwork behind it.
Underneath the title it reads:
Mercy House for Girls, a residential outreach program administered through Pearly Gates Community Ministries.
Twila reads the line twice before saying, “Girls.”
I look at Amos. “You ever go there?”
“Once.”
“What’d you see?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
“The building was shut when I got there. Man on the property told me the program had closed years earlier.”
“What man?”
“Didn’t give a name.”
“You believe him?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Amos flips through the box until he finds another page. “Property changed owners six months later.”
“To who?”
The transfer names a shell nonprofit I’ve never heard of, but the mailing address matches another church charity in the pile.
Different name. Same address. Property changing hands six months later.
I handle enough LLCs and property paperwork for the Kings to know what it looks like when somebody wants distance on paper without actually going anywhere.
I whistle softly. “Somebody worked hard.”
“That’s what worried me.”
“People don’t work this hard to hide bake sales.”
Twila looks at me. “No.”
She slides the Mercy House deed into a separate folder.
“We take this to Legend,” she says.
Amos’s face hardens immediately. “No.”
Twila doesn’t even look up. “Yes.”
“Twila.”
“The Kings already know pieces you don’t.”
“That don’t mean I hand an outlaw club twelve years of law-enforcement material.”
“Copies,” I say.
He cuts his eyes toward me. “Still.”
Twila closes the folder and finally looks at him.
“Daddy, the Kings already knew Pearly Gates was tied to missing girls before Kaylee. Cider’s memories overlap with what you found.
Kaylee came out of that old complex alive.
Somebody connected to this mess was in Whiskey’s woods near his daughter, Wren, and your department has already lost reports and cleared access records. ”
Amos’s mouth pulls tight. “That ain’t the whole department.”
“I know.”
“But?”
“But I trust Legend to protect these copies more than I trust whoever made your report disappear.”
Amos looks at me.
I lift both hands. “Her decision.”
Twila glances over, and something warm flashes through her expression.
Amos sees it too.
He hates it. “Copies,” he says finally.
“Copies.”
“Originals stay with me.”
“Fine.”
“Anything leaves that clubhouse without me knowing…”
“Daddy.”
“What?”
“You already agreed.”
By ten thirty, copies of Amos’s evidence are spread across the big table inside the Lockup, and everybody who matters is gathered around them. Legend and Sophie. Oaks with Brittany beside him. Royal and Becki. Derby. Cider. Bullet and Kaylee. Twila and me.
Sunlight pushes through the barred windows and falls across papers, coffee cups, beer bottles, property maps, and the scars carved into a table that has heard more bad news than most confessionals. With the women here, it feels less like church and more like a family reunion nobody wanted.
Brittany has one of Sophie’s older Pearly Gates files open in front of her, and Oaks keeps glancing at the page like he’d rather burn the whole ministry down than let it drag his woman back into this mess.
Royal looks at Twila when we walk in. “Deputy’s back.”
She sets her coffee down. “Miss me?”
Royal grins. “Whiskey did.”
Becki, sitting beside him with one hand resting on the curve of her stomach, sighs. “He’s been waiting all morning to say that.”
Royal looks offended. “Was funny.”
“Was predictable.”
I let them know, “Deputy’s not been out of my sight.” I wink at her.
Twila pulls out the chair beside mine without reacting and starts opening folders before she’s completely settled.
I stare at her.
She catches me. “What?”
Royal leans halfway across the table. “I don’t see a property patch.”
Twila and I both turn.
“Shut the fuck up, Royal.”
Same time.
He looks delighted.
Becki pats his shoulder. “You earned that.”
Legend slaps one palm against the table. “Can we focus before Whiskey murders my brother?”
“Still considering it.”
Royal smiles.
Sophie reaches for the Mercy House deed, and her expression changes almost immediately.
“I’ve seen this foundation.”
Legend looks at her. “Which?”
She taps the donor line. “Montgomery Family Community Fund.”
Twila watches her carefully.
Sophie doesn’t look away from the page. “I already traced money from this fund through two other foundations into Pearly Gates. This is the first time I’ve seen Mercy House attached to the same chain.”
That gets everybody’s attention.
I drag Amos’s older donor sheet closer and compare the dates to Sophie’s printout.
“So the trail didn’t start where we thought. Same pool, same network, just years earlier.”
Sophie nods. “Exactly.”
Royal leans forward. “So her daddy’s money paid for this sick place?”
Sophie’s eyes snap up. “No.”
Harder than I expect.
Royal eases back while Sophie lays Amos’s old donor sheet beside one of the financial printouts she brought with her.
“This proves the same fund was feeding Pearly Gates-related organizations years before the transfers I found. It still doesn’t prove my father personally approved what the money bought.”
Becki says gently, “Could’ve been his lawyers.”
Sophie nods. “Could’ve.”
Legend watches her, and his first instinct is written all over his face. Take the papers away. Tell her she doesn’t have to do this. Protect her by making the decision for her.