Deploy, Part One (Rawlings #1)(44)
Sunday morning by 4:45 a.m., fifteen minutes after she should have been at work, she was sure Murdock knew Atticus had hung out with her on Friday and was mad. At least, she assumed that was why he didn’t pick her up.
She tried taking Bell’s car, but it wouldn’t start, an issue she’d had for weeks. Most times Bell could get the neighbor to drop her off, but waking a neighbor that early seemed cruel.
Calling her boss wasn’t any easier. He was furious.
Finally, Murdock flew into her driveway at a quarter to six. By then Justice felt like she had already endured a day of hell and was not ready to face the hell her boss would give her for being this late.
~
“Overslept,” Murdock said, looking as if he were still asleep. And in some way he was. He didn’t get in until after two and only thought to rest his eyes for a second. He was almost sure he was still drunk, too.
Drinking was the only way he could stop his mind from making him relive shit he was too young to endure—watching that truck charge into the water, seeing Brent Rose’s body in a pool of blood. Every night, if he did sleep, he woke up in a sweat swearing he had been drowning moments before.
He had fished the spot Declan went down, and he could not find anything. It was too deep.
What made things worse was no one had said one damn word about Declan not showing up for boot camp, or being missing. Nothing. It had been months and nothing.
Still, he felt like every Rawlings stared him down like they knew something, like they were waiting to strike at any second.
The lack of a missing persons report, any stitch of gossip that something was off had Murdock questioning if he had imagined the whole thing. And at some points in the day, he could convince himself that he had.
“I was going to tell you it was good we had space yesterday, that I could set up rides and stuff if you wanted to find something fun to do for the rest of the summer—but clearly it is not an issue since I will be fired today!” Justice said, crossing her arms.
“Whatever, that f*ck fires you and he looks like an ass.”
“You know what, not everyone gives a damn what people think. Or what they look like! Life is not a game of popularity, it’s a game of survival!”
Murdock shot a glance her way. He hadn’t heard her talk like this since long before the accident. “Popularity, what people think, especially here—in a town where you murdered your father—is survival.”
She reached across the cab and punched him in the arm. “I did not! I pushed him off me.”
“With rebar in your hand, I’m aware.”
“Fuck you! I picked that up as I ran for my life. He bled out that fast because he was shitfaced—drinking with you, I’m sure.”
Murdock breathed a tight, quick, grin. Her dad had been drinking long before he came across him, but that was not the point. “See if that holds.”
“I will. Is that what I need to do? You’re turning into a f*cking alcoholic, we all but hate each other. I’m not living with this secret if it’s going to end up killing me in the long run. Not worth it.”
Murdock swerved off the side of the road.
“I’m late!” she yelled, raising her hands only to drop them and stare at the ceiling of the truck with a flustered stare.
“At this point, five more minutes is not going to make a difference!” he yelled, throwing the truck into park then hitting the steering wheel.
His aggression had her attention, her defensive attention. “You’re not telling anyone anything.”
She stared at him as long seconds ticked by before she spoke. “I can’t do this. I won’t.”
“Is that how it is with you? Out of sight out of mind? You don’t care all this will come down on your precious Rawlings family, too?”
“Your imagination is twisted. I believed you that night, hell I still might—maybe my dad knew I was alone with Declan, maybe he would have struck out and tried to hurt him. And yeah, I can see people thinking I would have wanted to stop him. But the thing is, what’s done is done. Declan wasn’t there that night. I was. You were. I fought back, you covered it up.” She raised a hand as he went to argue. “And yes I let you, yes I took whatever money this town gave me and paid to put the bastard in the ground and a few months’ worth of rent—oh, and I paid off what was left on my grandmother’s car which is now a hunk of metal. Maybe a meal or two. Whatever. And maybe the life insurance will help make a dent in one of the mortgages my father had against my house, or if I’m lucky pay off one of the thirty-one credit cards he opened and maxed out in my name.”
Murdock only glared back. He never liked it when she talked bad about her dad because the * was actually grieving for the man. Even when he watched her fight against these companies, claim identity theft—and then accuse a dead man, her father at that—for them only to laugh at her, or put her file ‘in review.’ Murdock still defended Brent. Said the man had his reasons.
Whatever.
“They want to lock me away for fraud, for self defense—fine. Let me get my sentence out of the way so I can have some kind of a chance at a life.”
“You don’t mean that, you’re mad,” he said, moving his stare forward. He’d be afraid she was going to screw his alibi if she hadn’t said this a thousand times over.