Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Ike smiles at me. One could mistake this smile for charm, but it’s not charming. It’s… ugly. And when his words come out, they’re ugly too. “He owes me, Lowyn,” Ike says, his voice deep and threatening now. “He owes me Olive and the man he killed that night when we came to take her back.”
And this is when I realize I don’t know him. Not a little bit, not at all.
But at least now I do know what he did.
Ike Monroe, and all the other people up here on Blackberry Hill, are the ones responsible for changing our lives that one horrible New Year’s Eve twelve years ago.
He’s the reason Collin killed someone.
He’s the reason Collin left and joined the Marines.
He’s the reason why, in just two seconds’ time, all my dreams were crushed.
When we come through the door to Jim Bob’s office Ester is typing her little heart out. She doesn’t look up. “Go on in,” she says, nose pushed up against her computer screen. “He’s expectin’ ya.”
Amon and I share a look. But who cares how and why he knows we were coming?
I walk forward—Mercy still at my knee—then open the door and go in.
Jim Bob is on the phone. “Yep.” He nods to us, pointing to the chairs. “I hear ya,” he tells the person on the phone. “Not to worry. And I gotta go now, I have a meeting. Goodbye.” He sets the phone back down in the cradle and lets out a long breath. “Do you know who that was?”
I take a guess. “Lasher?”
“That was Lasher. He wanted to remind me of our contracts. Which I am well aware of.”
Amon and I look at each other, not sure what this is about. “OK,” I say. “You wanna explain that? Or should I just assume it’s related to why I’m here and just get to the point?”
He clears his throat. “Collin, you are a thorn in my fuckin’ ass today, do you know that?”
“Jim Bob, this is not a friendly visit and I’m not an eight-year-old kid who was just called to the damn principal’s office. I’m the pissed-off owner of a small army, that’s who I am. And I’ve got questions.”
“Save your breath, Collin. I don’t care about your questions or your little army.” Amon huffs here, taking exception to the minimization of our organization. “I told you when you’d get your answers and you’re not gonna get them a minute early. I’m here to ask you what the hell you were doing up on that mountain this morning.”
“What mountain?” Amon looks at me. “Does he mean when the dog ran away?”
Jim Bob ignores him. He’s staring right at me. “Well?”
I let out a breath. I’m pissed off and being angry is never the right way forward in a negotiation. I will get my answers today, but I need to play this right. “I’m not gonna waste time here because I have shit to do that doesn’t involve you. So I’ll tell ya, even though it’s none of your fuckin’ business.”
Jim Bob is unfazed by my f-bomb. “Let’s hear it.”
“Amon here specializes in military dogs.” I point down at Mercy. “She’s one of them. And the other day the power went out, so I went down in Lowyn’s basement to check the breakers and a key fell out of the breaker box. I didn’t think much of it, but later I noticed that Mercy was acting a little weird. Like she caught a scent. And later that night she took me back into the basement like she was on a track. And she pointed me in the direction of a loose brick, behind which was a box with a lock. Key fit the lock, I opened it up, and there was… a map. Kinda. I didn’t know it was a map, it just looked like a scribble. But the next morning I gave her the map and told her to seek. And she caught something on the wind. Turns out”—I look at Amon for this part—“it was bones.”
Amon laughs. “She flunked out of cadaver school.”
“She most certainly did not.” Now I look back at Jim Bob. “It wasn’t just one bone, but I’m guessin’ you already know that, Jim Bob. It was an entire boneyard and it was surrounded by weird granny-witch shit.”
“Where was this?” Amon asks.
“Don’t tell him, Collin.” Jim Bob shoots me a stern look. “Do not. Tell him.”
I look Jim Bob in the eyes. “Straight up the hill just back of my house. About a thousand feet up.”
“That was a mistake,” Jim Bob says. “A mistake you’ll regret, Collin. Mark my words.”
I keep goin’. “There were people up there.”
“What kind of people?” Amon asks.
“Hill people. At least”—I pause here to watch Jim Bob’s face—“they wanted me to think they were hill people. But they’re not, are they, Jim Bob? They’re military, aren’t they?”