INT. CROSS DISTILLERY — RICKHOUSE NO. 3 — NIGHT

Rain hammers the tin roof. A single bare bulb sways on a frayed cord at the far end of the aisle, throwing the long rows of stacked barrels in and out of shadow. Oak. Char. The sweet aroma of angel's share.

SCARLETT CROSS (mid-20s, dark waves under a small black hat with a half-veil, traveling coat over a silk dress, pearl earrings, red lipstick) steps down the aisle holding a small purse. Three years gone to a Swiss finishing school, and a telegram dragged her home this morning. Her heels tap on the wood floorboards.

SCARLETT

(calling, uncertain)

Daddy?

No answer. Just the rain.

A barrel lies on its side at the end of the aisle. Wrong. Barrels don't fall in her father's rickhouse.

She steps closer. The bulb's light catches something dark pooling out from beneath the barrel. Slow. Spreading. Black under this light, but she knows the color.

She knows the color.

SCARLETT (CONT'D)

Daddy. Daddy, no —

She drops the purse. Runs. The hat goes. A pearl earring. She is on her knees in it before she understands she has knelt.

SILAS CROSS (60s) lies pinned beneath the toppled barrel, top hat crushed beside him, white shirt soaked through, chest broken. His eyes are open. Looking at nothing.

Scarlett plunges her hands under the barrel, under his shoulder, trying to lift what cannot be lifted. The wood doesn't move. Her palms come up wet.

SCARLETT (CONT'D)

(a whisper, then breaking)

No. No no no. Daddy, look at me. Look at me —

She grips his face. Leaves red on his jaw. Red on his collar. Brushes the hair from her face and leaves a long red smear across one perfect cheek.

Then — she sees it.

Past her father. On the pale oak head of the next barrel over. Letters drawn thick and unsteady. Still wet.

S — C — A — R — L — E — T — T.

Her own name. In her father's blood.

She doesn't move. She can't. The rain keeps coming.

INT. RICKHOUSE — AISLE ENTRANCE — CONTINUOUS

Wet footsteps. A man's tread, unhurried, the way a man walks when he's seen enough bad nights to be tired of them.

CUTTER BOONE (early 30s, trench coat dark across the shoulders, snap-brim fedora pulled low, three-day shadow a razor doesn't fix) rounds the corner.

He stops.

The bulb swings. Light. Dark. Light again.

Scarlett kneeling in a black lake. Hands red to the wrists. Red on her cheek where she pushed back her hair. Her father beneath the barrel. And on the wood above them — her name, written in what's left of Silas Cross.

Something old and bad and tender moves across Cutter's face. He puts it away.

She looks up at him. Slow. The years go through her in a single second.

SCARLETT

(flat, faraway)

He wrote my name, Cutter.

CUTTER

(careful, too careful)

Honey. Stand up and walk to me.

SCARLETT

He wrote my name in his own blood and I want you to tell me why.

CUTTER

(a beat)

Sweetheart, before another soul walks through that door, you and I need to decide where you've been the last three hours.

A beat. The rain. The bulb.

Cutter looks at the barrel. The letters. The girl he's known since she was twelve years old, kneeling with her father's blood on her hands.

Outside, somewhere down the gravel road, a truck engine turns over and pulls away into the dark. Tires on wet stone, fading.

Neither of them hear it.

CUT TO BLACK