Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 103552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
“You blame him for what he did to Griffen,” she said. “But he doesn’t deserve this.”
I let out a sigh, flicking on my blinker to turn into the station’s parking lot. “I don’t have the luxury of that opinion,” I said, honestly. “As your brother’s friend, I have a lot of feelings about Ford, but I’m the police chief of this town, and he’s one of my people. That means something to me. I’ve never stopped looking for your father’s killer, and I won’t until we find them.”
“Well, neither will I,” she shot back, mutinously, reaching down to unsnap her seatbelt.
I opened up my mouth to threaten her with something—I don’t know what—but the words didn’t come out.
Avery was headstrong and reckless, and this was a terrible idea from start to finish. I didn’t bother to tell her to stand down. I already knew she wouldn’t listen. Bossing her around wasn’t the way to keep her safe. If I wanted to keep her out of trouble, I’d have to figure something else out.
Chapter Five
AVERY
Iwandered the brewery, fiddling and fussing, double-checking my stock of ingredients, even grabbing a cloth and polishing a scuff on one of my shiny, stainless-steel tanks. I was procrastinating. I checked on my attempt at recreating the fall brew, currently fermenting in one of the tanks, and right on track to start bottle conditioning next week. My gut told me it was going to be good, better than good, that it could be something extraordinary. Yet again, I cursed my faulty memory. I always kept notes. I had a database of recipes on my laptop, and my notebook was filled with ideas and musings about flavors that might be good together.
But with this recipe, I just couldn’t nail down the details. I’d gone back and forth over so many things, changing my mind on technique and proportions, finally writing down my final decisions in the notebook that had been in my desk with the file on the necklace. It had never occurred to me that anyone would empty out my desk.
I knew the basic ingredients. It was beer, after all. Water, hops, malt, and yeast. But this one, a fall brew, had a hint of apple and the tiniest aftertaste of spice. I wasn’t one for over-flavoring my beer. I liked beer to taste like beer.
But within that definition, there’s so much variation. Lagers, ales, stouts, porters, sours, and my favorite, IPAs because I was a sucker for hops. I stopped in front of the hops bin, drawn there by instinct. I needed the comfort of pulling apart the bright green buds between my fingers, the deliciously acrid, piney, citrusy scent of the hops sneaking up my nose and filling my brain, spreading happiness with every deep inhalation. The sticky shreds clung to my fingers, staining them lightly with green and soothing my soul.
I’d been accused of making more than a few too-hoppy IPAs, and I refused to apologize. In the new recipe, I hadn’t gone overboard, the bitterness of hops running counter to the hint of apple and spice I’d wanted for the fall brew.
I paced the open space, my boots thudding on the concrete floor, my brain sifting through what I could remember of the recipe and what my gut told me would give me the result I was looking for. For the millionth time, I stopped, pulled the note card out of my back jeans pocket, and jotted down an idea, the whole time my stomach was tight. I hated this feeling of uncertainty.
Usually, when I came up with recipes, I was led by my senses, my instincts, to the ingredients I’d use. Once I had that down, I fiddled with the proportions, with the process, the science of it at the front of my mind. But smell and taste, the heart of the beer, always came first. I rarely did anything this way with bits and pieces of incomplete memory. Normally, I was trying to create something new, and wherever my vision led, so be it. Not everything came out great, but some things did, and that was enough. But with this, I wasn’t looking for something new. I wanted exactly what was in that vat. Nothing else would do.
It was possible I could reverse engineer it. I shoved the note card and pen back in my pocket and crossed the room to look at a stack of labels that had come in. The artwork was brightly colored, in deep reds, oranges, and yellows, a reflection of the gorgeous fall leaves that drew so many tourists this time of year. Designed by a local artist, they were vibrant and unique, perfect for the new recipe. I needed a special label since this might be the only bottling I’d have.
I wished Matt were the one who’d broken in and stolen the file and the recipe. If he had, I wouldn’t think twice about storming over to his place and demanding my recipe back. It could have been him, but the more I’d thought it through, I didn’t think so. For one thing, he didn’t need to steal the recipe—he’d worked on it with me; he’d been the fucking brewmaster—and he probably had his own copy. I could ask.