Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
The only room that hadn’t been touched was the office, which only Byron and I had a key to, and it was where I’d spent the night doing two things: going through Harris’s files and business information on Mitchell Creek Distillery, and researching the fuck out of the Mitchells and the O’Ralleys.
“Did you sleep at all?” I looked up to see Isaac standing in the doorway, wearing a pair of red boxer trunks. He yawned and scratched his head, his blond hair sticking up all over the place.
“Dozed for a little while, but not much. None of this makes any sense.”
Isaac padded over and plopped down on the brown leather sofa I’d wiped off last night. “Hit me. I’ve always wanted to solve a mystery.”
I rolled my eyes playfully. “Simmer down, Shaggy.”
“Does that make you my Scooby?”
“And fuck off,” I teased back. “Seriously, though. I didn’t get a lot of information when Byron originally contacted me. We met up. He showed me paperwork leaving me the distillery and land. That shit’s in the car. I’ll pull it out today. I didn’t go through it with a fine-tooth comb, to be honest.”
Isaac nodded. “Go on.”
“The thing is, according to these files, Mitchell Creek was doing very well. He has everything on paper, literally. There’s no computer that I can find. I’ll contact Byron about that today. So Harris has balances and numbers for the few years before he closed, and he was in the black. I see his estate also gave the employees who lost their jobs when he closed a good severance package. I guess I don’t understand why he closed. Or why he didn’t sell. Did he simply not want to be in the whiskey business anymore? Where the hell is the money—not that I want it. And where are the files that go further back than the years before he closed?”
“I bet there’s a journal. There’s always a journal. Did you look for false bottoms in the drawers?” Isaac winked, and I chuckled.
“We’ll be sure to search the house, Shaggy.”
“This is exciting!” Isaac rubbed his hands together.
“Probably not. I’m sure Byron will sort it all out. He wanted to meet again when we got into town anyway.” I couldn’t get over how well the distillery had been doing. I was a numbers guy. Business was my thing, whether I was working with my father or helping someone else with their company. I didn’t mean to pat myself on the back, but I was good. I’d saved businesses before. Mitchell Creek hadn’t needed saving, though. Harris had just closed the doors, paid his employees very well, and from what I could tell, spent his last two years living a simple life at Mitchell Creek.
And still not looking for me. I shoved that from the forefront of my thoughts, telling myself I didn’t care. I had an adoptive mom and dad who’d chosen me. Yeah, it was a little awkward at times. They came from money on both sides, and then my dad made even more of it himself. The only thing we ever bonded over was business. He taught me more than college did, but I also knew he didn’t really love me. Not the way a father is supposed to love a son. He liked me, but I didn’t think he saw me as his kid, and I knew he only adopted me because Mom had wanted a child.
And I knew Mom loved me. She tried her best, but it was still always…distant. She wasn’t real affectionate, and she’d been as busy while I was growing up as Dad had been. It wasn’t the type of family most people had, I didn’t figure, but then I always felt like shit thinking that way. They had taken me in, given me a home. I’d never lacked for anything.
“What about the Hatfield-and-McCoy thing?” Isaac asked, pulling me from my thoughts. “I can’t believe you have a real family feud and you didn’t even know. I’m so jelly. I want a secret past and a family feud,” he said, making me laugh again.
“You’re such an idiot.”
“Which is why we’re friends. Are you the Hatfields or the McCoys?”
I sighed. That was something else I couldn’t piece together, and it was making me crazy. I had no idea why there was a feud, or if Lauren had been exaggerating. “I’ve seen stuff online about it. They were in competition, obviously—both distilleries specialized in whiskey and opened up around the end of prohibition.”
“The start date is probably a lie. I’m sure back in the day they were doing illegal shit.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “I found some articles about public disagreements, numerous think pieces on the feud, ten different reasons for how it started, but I don’t know which are true, if any. I don’t know if it was just a business thing or what. Some are sensationalized—love stories and all that shit. I plan on asking Byron.” At thirty-three years old, I was suddenly feeling adrift, wishing I could ask my biological mom all these questions swirling in my head. Why hadn’t she ever told me anything about Mitchell Creek? Why wasn’t Harris on my birth certificate, and why hadn’t he come for me?