CHAPTER 169

Lincoln

“I loved them,” Shelby sighs wearily on our way home.

“They love you too,” I say with absolute conviction.

“If it bothers you to talk about it, it’s okay, but I was hoping you would tell me about your brother Rutherford?”

The question hangs for a moment. I do my best to keep my voice neutral and not show how much the topic angers me. “He went to Afghanistan, did three tours. The war changed him. He had a best buddy who died over there too. That was bad enough. Then my brother Andrew was murdered while working the border. Rutherford didn’t handle it well to say the least. He didn’t make it home in time for the funeral. He showed up two months later, no longer in the Marines.”

“I’m so sorry,” Shelby says.

“He went to Mexico to find the men who killed Andrew. It didn’t matter what we all told him. The government was doing everything they could to find and prosecute the drug cartel. He didn’t call my parents for months at a time. My mother was sick with worry, my father furious. H