Deploy, Part One (Rawlings #1)(37)

Horrid visions of what a drill sergeant would do to him if they even thought he had been involved in statutory rape—or even worse, was the reason she killed her father—raced through her head.

By the time she heard the sirens she was numb again.

By dawn, she had heard Murdock say the same story enough, and heard herself agree, on record, that she nearly believed her father must’ve slipped and fell. She hadn’t gotten there fast enough to save him, and she was devastated.

Murdock never left Justice’s side. The first responders had insisted she be taken in to be checked out, him too. He didn’t like leaving her in the room alone with her grandmother, the grief counselor, or the doctor, but they made him.

When he saw the flash going off, glowing through the curtain, from the bay he was in, he became all the more tense. He knew he’d have to stay hip to hip with Justice for a long while to make sure all this stuck the way it should. He had told his father that he wanted to be as close to Justice as possible, for as long as possible. Monty happened to agree.

Murdock would have gone to his mother with the same reasoning but she was taking the loss of Brent Rose harder than Murdock expected her to. He knew they were friends, but having to be medicated into a deep sleep because she was panicking was a bit much for Murdock to understand. And in all truth, he didn’t really care what his crazy ass mother was going through.

He had to get Justice right, and at first light, he had to go back to the scene of his own crime and make sure there was no evidence to shatter the broken ground he was standing on.

With his father, the Sheriff, insisting, Murdock drove Justice home. Bell rode with them. It was a silent stand off but he didn’t care. As long as Justice had eyes on him, then he knew their pact was growing stronger.

Murdock waited until he heard Justice get in the shower, then made up the excuse that he was going to look for her cat who must have gotten out the night before during all the madness.

Murdock fired Brent’s four-wheeler to life and took off.

The shop was still smoldering, and there was still a fireman or two there, investigators, but no one was paying him any mind. He pulled up right in the middle of them, asking if they had seen a cat—one he knew was actually in the house. Covering his ass with his empty excuses and exhausted ‘I just want to help’ smiles.

They joked with him a bit, told him he was brave to try and help his girl’s dad, but a fool. The shop was obviously an inferno waiting to happen.

Murdock donned a devastated expression as he stared at the pile then nodded. “Gotta find my girl’s cat,” he said then he pulled off, driving along the tree path as if he was really looking.

Once around the bend, he took off wide open to the scene of his crime.

The pooling rain had covered most of the tracks from his truck, and from where Declan’s drove off the side, but for good measure, he drove his four-wheeler over the same path.

Earlier, at the ER he had stepped outside, rifled through his toolbox. He was pretty sure he was only missing three baseballs. He hadn’t intentionally counted them when he loaded his bag the night before, but it was a habit of his from batting practice, making sure he left with what he came with.

He scoured the road and found one more, but that was all. With fear and anxiety ripping his belly his dark gaze moved to the river he could see through the trees. To hide any more guilt, he went up a ways, then looked down river. His gaze searched the bank and the water.

Murdock could not figure out why Declan hadn’t even bothered to hit the brakes, or why he hadn’t swam out of the truck once it hit the water. He was sure he hadn’t, that Declan had not reached out for help somewhere—Murdock had listened to every murmur from his father’s radio.

It was just a matter of time before someone started to look for him. Those Rawlings’ were worse than any cult.

Murdock was going to have to figure out if Justice knew Declan was stopping by and where that box went—without asking her. She was the only one who could connect him to any ‘disappearance’ of Declan Rawlings.

***

A thousand times, maybe more, Justice had thought to just tell someone—anyone—what happened. Especially when she saw the knowing look in her grandmother’s stare. Bell knew the story didn’t line up.

Justice and Murdock snuggling on the porch? After Justice had cried herself to sleep every night that week? After Justice’s gaze welled on the way home as she told her grandmother she’d seen Declan that dawn and he was going to write.

It didn’t fit.

Not even if Murdock happened to show up at the house after she left—Justice didn’t have it in her to fake affection. Emotion in general was hard for her to express in front of others.

Justice had come close to telling both Bell and the counselor, who’d asked to take photos of Justice’s face and the spot on the back of her head where a clunk of her hair had been ripped clean.

The counselor wanted to take pictures of the fading bruises on her side, too, but Justice refused, sticking to her ‘she fell’ story. What stopped Justice from uttering a word was when the lady said the Sheriff didn’t have to take the statement, he would just make sure she was safe once Justice put it in writing.

“All you have to do is tell us you need help...needed help,” she’d said.

Both Bell and Justice met each other’s gaze, a gaze that said a million things. The Sheriff was a well-known friend of her father’s, and he was an elected official. Being linked to an abusive man was bad PR, and more than likely whatever Justice did say would be washed away and then, just like Murdock said, they would turn this all on her to save their own image.