The subterfuge was killing me. I’d been avoiding Devlin for twenty-four hours. Good guy that he was, he was giving me space with the occasional sweet reminder by text or voicemail that he was around if I wanted to talk or not talk.

I didn’t go back to Daddy’s house. I’d promised I wouldn’t go there without Bowie or Jameson, and to be honest, it hadn’t been a hard promise to make. One little sweater, tucked in the corner of memories, and the whole house felt foreign to me. Everything felt strange and new as if my childhood hadn’t been what I thought it had. My family hadn’t been who I was sure they were.

There was one person who might have some answers, and I wasn’t looking forward to asking him the questions. After he ignored my texts and calls for a full day, I decided enough was enough. Gibson Bodine would talk to me if I had to string him upside down over a camp fire.

I hopped in my pick-up that Devlin and Jonah had thoughtfully returned to me and headed up the mountain. Gibson took his outsider role seriously, building himself a cabin on three acres of woods on a dead-end lane half a mile back from the road. The land had belonged to our grandfather. The shack that still stood at the backside of the property was where Great-Granddaddy Jedidiah hid his still during Prohibition.

Gibson’s only neighbors were deer and bear and birds. Just the way he liked it.

His house was dark, but the lights were on in his shop. He’d built a metal pole building to house his cabinetry business and spent more time out there than inside the house. He was a restless soul, preferring to work long into the night than make small talk with acquaintances over beer. Everyone in town believed him to be the asshole our father had told him he was his whole life, and they accepted it about him. Gibson had never seemed inclined to prove them wrong, even though I knew there was more to him than a bad temper and broody looks.

I pushed open the heavy door next to the garage bay. He was sanding down a set of base cabinets. The space smelled of sawdust and stain. Gibson, asshole that he was, was a master craftsman and made beautiful cabinetry. He charged a hell of a premium, too. But he poured his heart and soul into every piece, making them perfect in ways he could never be.

“I’m busy,” he said without turning around.

In a way, Gibson and I were the closest out of the siblings. Jameson was off in his own world, creating art, avoiding people. Helpful, friendly Bowie, on the other hand, immersed himself in the outside world. But Gibs and I understood each other. Even though we didn’t always agree.

“I need to talk to you about something,” I told him, sliding onto a padded stool against his lacquer red metal cabinets. “It’s bad.”

I saw the hitch in his shoulders, and then he turned to face me. “What?”

No matter what went on in our normal daily life, no matter how much my love of our daddy upset him, I could always count on him. “I found something when I was cleaning out his house.”

Gibson wiped his hands with a cloth and tossed his safety glasses onto a work table. He strolled over to a mini fridge and pulled out two bottles of water. He tossed one to me, and I caught it in mid-air.

“Go on.”

I wasn’t going to sugar coat it for him. “I found the sweater that Callie Kendall disappeared in. It’s stained with what might be blood.”

He stared at me as if I weren’t speaking English. “You’re fucking with me.”

I shook my head. “I wish I were. It’s hers, Gibs. The top button—”

“Daisies,” he said, interrupting me. And I wondered how in the hell he remembered that. But then again, everyone in Bootleg knew everything about Callie except where she disappeared to.

I pressed on. “We were all at your apartment when she went missing. We spent the night.”

He took another drink and looked away. Remembering.

“Why were we there, Gibs? I was fourteen, Jameson sixteen, and Bowie eighteen. Why did we spend the night at your apartment?”

I closed my eyes and prayed for an answer that wouldn’t gut me.

“It was a long time ago,” he hedged.

“Gibs.”

He sighed and pulled out a stool that matched mine from under a sawdust-encrusted table. “Mom called. She asked.”

“She just asked you to keep the three of us at your place that night?”

He shrugged tired shoulders. “I don’t know. It was late. Like after ten. She sounded upset. Said it would help her out. I assumed they were fighting.”

What did Mama know? What was there for her to know?

I rubbed my forehead, a new worry blooming bright. “It wouldn’t have been the first time,” I said. They’d fought before. Usually Gibs or Bowie would keep me entertained in their rooms until the shouting stopped. Sometimes we went to Cassidy and June’s house and stayed there until the fight was over and all was normal again.

“Bowie drove y’all over,” Gibson said with a small smile.

“Did you think it was odd that she asked you to keep us for the night and then Callie up and went missing?” I asked.

“The connection never occurred to me,” he said. “You think he didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“He” meaning our father. And it definitely wasn’t a question.

I shook my head and jumped on the defensive. “I know what you’re gonna say, Gibs. Daddy was many things. But he didn’t take Callie. He didn’t hurt her.”

“Then how the fuck did her sweater end up in his house?”

“He could have found it—”

His rage, poker hot, surprised me. He threw his half empty water bottle across the room. “When are you going to finally realize what a low-life he was, Scar?”

“He never hit us,” I said, rallying. It was an old argument.

“Since when in the fuck should that ever be the line?” Gibson demanded. “Why would everything else up to physical abuse be okay? He told me over and over again that I ruined his life. That I was the reason he wasn’t off playin’ in a band or makin’ something of himself. He told me I was nothing.”

Gibson came by his musical talent honestly. But as a “fuck you” to our father, he purposely never pursued it.

I wasn’t hurt by the anger I heard behind the words. That was Gibson, a walking fit of rage. It was the pain that got me.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

“He told me I was nothing. And you know what? He was right. Because I’m just like him. He made sure Bowie knew he’d never be good enough for him no matter how hard he tried. And Jameson? He shut that boy down every time he came in for a hug, every time he asked to go fishing, every time he made that fucker a special drawing. Jonah Bodine crushed his spirit, Scarlett, and the sooner you realize what a monster he was, the better.”

I had tears spilling down my cheeks now. We’d danced around this topic for years, neither one of us ever daring to say all of the words.

“He was sick, Gibs. Sick. Alcoholism is a fucking disease like cancer or Alzheimer’s.”

“He had a damn choice in the way he treated us.”

“Did you deserve better?” I asked, my voice breaking and echoing around the metal walls. “Of course, you did. We all did. We deserved a dad who would be there for us. One who’d coach the soccer team or cook dinner or even just listen when we spoke. One who didn’t look at each one of us as the ball and chain to a life he never wanted. But we didn’t have that. We had him.”

“And he’s gone now. Finally,” Gibson spat out.

“Jesus, Gibs. He was our father.”

“He was nothing to me. And now? Now, you expect me to give him the benefit of the doubt and say maybe this drunken asshole didn’t have something to do with that girl’s disappearance? Then how the fuck did that sweater end up in his house?”

“I don’t know, but I believe—”

“Goddamn it, Scarlett!” Gibson snarled. “Stop it. Just stop defending him!”

“Jameson doesn’t think he did it—”

Gibson rounded on me. “They know?”

I nodded. “I told them when they came to apologize to me for being fucking lousy brothers and dumping all of the responsibility on me!” It wasn’t fair, but I was tired of being fair. I was tired of brushing things under the rug and hoping they’d get better. “You saddled me with him for all these years because you couldn’t handle dealing with him.”

“Fuck you, Scarlett.”

“Fuck you back, Gibson.”

I hopped off my stool and flipped him the bird for good measure. “You have fun up here in your lair avoiding life while I clean all of this up for you. As usual!”

I didn’t hear his response because I slammed the door so hard the garage doors rattled. I’d expected it to go this way. But that didn’t mean I was happy about being right just this once.