I point the car in the only direction that feels like a viable option. There’s only one person I know who would probably hand me an award if Sylvia Riscoff were to die just from seeing me.

My great-uncle Magnus.

His cabin is more of a shack precariously held up on the side of the gorge that leads down to the river. I have no idea how he’s able to maneuver the rickety stairs that wind to the water since he doesn’t have a fancy hydraulic chair on a rail like the house next door, but the fishing pole on the platform below tells me he’s been out there recently.

I knock on the cracked wooden door and am met with the sound of a cocking shotgun.

“Who is it?”

Magnus always was a crotchety old man, and that hasn’t changed.

“It’s Whitney. Your grand-niece.”

After a few thumps, he pulls open the door. “I know who the hell you are. ’Bout damn time you came around to show some respect to your elders.”

“I think I might’ve killed Sylvia Riscoff.”

His rheumy blue eyes widen. “’Bout damn time someone did that too.” He jerks his bald head toward the inside of the house. “Come on in. I’ve got some moonshine that’ll go nice with this story.”

I step inside the cabin and pick my way across the uneven boards. For a man older than dirt, he moves with more pep in his step than I would have expected. In fact, he seems just as nimble as he was ten years ago.

He snags a mason jar off the counter and walks out the slider onto the deck. “Hear your daughter-in-law almost kicked it today, Commodore!”

Good Lord. Commodore Riscoff lives next door?

I don’t know when that happened, but that’s the worst thing I could imagine for these two. Commodore still lived at the Riscoff estate when I left Gable, but neither he nor Magnus ever miss a chance to rile the other and keep the feud alive.

Like that lit rag Magnus shoved in the gas tank of Commodore’s fancy Mercedes right before I left town. The car blew up just like in the movies, according to everyone who saw it. Of course, though, no one actually saw Magnus do it, or at least no one would admit it. Regardless, there was no doubt in my mind that it was my great-uncle.

“The fuck you say, Gable?”

I step out onto the deck behind Magnus against my better judgment and immediately fear for my life. The railings are barely attached, and there’s nothing else to keep me from tumbling into the rushing water of the river below.

Making sure I’m directly in the middle, I turn to the left. A white-haired old man in a fancy-looking chair sits on a much grander deck holding a shotgun pointed in my direction.

“Oh my God.” I duck behind Magnus, and he waves an arm.