Deploy, Part One (Rawlings #1)(60)

It helped a lot because since she was in school and she was not bringing home full-time cash anymore, making the ends a littler harder to meet at times.

If she didn’t save money that year, there was no hope of her getting far in any kind of school. Not that she had a clue what she wanted to do anyways, she just knew she needed something—something she could count on to feed her for the rest of her life.

It blew Justice’s mind how different Boon was from his brothers. He had the shortest temper, she was sure of as much. She’d seen him get far too frustrated with himself when trying to learn something new to not get a taste of it.

At the same time, he was sweet. He’d make it a point to make her laugh when he saw how some days her gaze was a bit too dim. He’d pick her wild flowers and leave them on her car seat—then raise his hands in defense when she’d glance at him nervously, hoping she had not sent the wrong signal his way. “I was following orders,” he’d say with a wayward wink.

“What orders are those?” she’d ask with a lift of a brow. Desperately wanting to know not only what they were, but also who gave them. She was still learning to ‘interpret’ the Rawlings’ clan as a whole. She would swear they were all telepathic or something because they used few words but they were all on the same page, and she was always scrambling to find any hint any one of them might have dropped.

Boon would impishly narrow his gaze. “Who do you think?”

At the next base Declan went to, he could use his phone, and Skype, too. Paper letters all but stopped, it was faster to email if he really wanted to write. Well, they stopped for everyone but her.

Now Atticus or Boon would drop a sealed letter off with their name on it at least once a week. On the back there would be the tiniest hand drawn rose. A symbol that meant the words were all hers.

If she doubted she had fallen hard for Declan, the way her heart would pick up when she saw one of those letters, or how she’d run to find a place to read them sealed the deal. Those letters, the ones just for her, were love letters. “I dreamed of you again last night. You were smiling, and all those long curls you like to hold back were free...let them down for me today, pretend I’m right there, rushing my hands through them.”

The emails he sent or the texts to his brother had words for her too, but those were all about the hunt for Nolan, someone else they could ask, when and how.

Declan had a theory that some of these girls the boys were trying to talk to about Nolan would be more open to talking to a girl—which is where Justice came in.

All of Nolan’s friends that were girls cried and wailed when Justice even tried to talk to them. All but one, Faith’s sister, Ex. Her full name was Exodus Tidwell.

She was intimidating as hell, but Justice was good with facing off with her. She’d do anything to find Nolan. Faith had gone to public school, but she was the only one. The others lived out in the middle of nowhere, and what they exported for a living was never talked about but known. The best moonshine and cannabis was said to be made and grown by Marshall Tidwell, Ex’s father. A man who was barely forty but already a legend. The reasons, of course, were another story.

Justice’s job was to ask Ex where Faith was. No one had seen her since the summer, and apparently Nolan was doing his best to help her with a personal issue before he left on his trip. One of the most terrifying theories was the Tidwell’s had crossed Nolan. When people do such things...they vanish.

Justice finally found Ex down by the Savannah river, arguing with a fishing boat captain and the two crew guys with him.

“I got this,” Justice said to Atticus who had helped her track Ex down.

Right then, him and Ex were locked in a silent stare, even though they were at least seventy-five yards away. Atticus was behind the wheel of his truck, leaned into his door.

“I already asked her. She doesn’t know where she is.” His tone was low and measured.

Curiously Justice glanced over him. She knew he had, she was there when he said as much to his dad and the private investigator, but Declan asked Justice to try. “The Tidwell’s loved your grandfather...maybe she’ll open up more to you, Faith could hold the entire key to this—we gotta find her.”

“You make her nervous,” Justice said, not even having to look Ex’s way to know so. She could feel the tension in the air.

Atticus bit his lip before he spoke. “I’m not what scares Ex.”

Justice waited for him to go on but he didn’t. “Wait here.”

When Ex saw Justice walking down the dock, bundled up in a flannel shirt that was two sizes too big for her and her wild blonde curls dancing in the wind, she smirked and shook her head.

Ex had always been a loner; some even said she hated people in general, which might be true. She had the same wild, long heavy curls Justice had, only hers were jet black. Their eyes were mirrors, a heart stopping blue, full of secrets, confusion, and anger.

“I almost didn’t recognize you,” Ex said in her common slow southern drawl.

“Why is that?” Justice asked, expressionless.

“Missing the book,” Ex said. “Hadn’t seen your eyes in a good ten years.”

“The view is better in books,” Justice said with a glance down the river. “How’s your sister?”

“Look, I already told Atticus, and that jarhead investigator of yours, I haven’t seen Faith. She bailed in the middle of last summer, long after Nolan was seen for the last time—she’s not with him.”