Chapter 30 - Collin

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?"

"What the fuck?" Amon says. "What the hell is the military doin' up there?"

Jim Bob sighs. "This is a mistake. A very big mistake. I sent Lowyn up there to smooth things over?—"

"You what?" It comes out mean. Loud, too.

"I sent her up there to have a talk with them. They're pissed. You have no idea how badly you have pissed them off, Collin Creed."

"I pissed some military people off and you decide that the best course of action is to send my fuckin' girlfriend up there? What kind of asshole does that?" I wave a hand in the air. "This is why I'm actually here. Lowyn. Lasher just told me that she's married to some guy called Ike Monroe? A festival wedding nine years ago? And this guy runs a place called Blackberry Hill. Let me guess… I stumbled into Blackberry Hill this morning, didn't I?" I narrow my eyes at him, because I might want to be calm, and I might know that calm is the best way forward here, but I am not calm. "Is this your secret then? Blackberry Hill, whatever that place is, is part of the Trinity?"

Jim Bob huffs. It's kind of a laugh, but not quite. "The Trinity." He huffs again. "You know how those Catholics are always making that sign of the cross?"

My anger is building, so he better get to the point.

"They cross themselves and say Father, Son, Holy Spirit and all that shit? Well, don't you think it's kinda weird that they call it a trinity when it's a cross?"

"I'm losing my patience here, Jim Bob. What the hell are you talking about?"

"I told you this already. You just didn't catch on. There's four points to a cross, Collin. That's what I'm talking about. It has never been a trinity. There are four points to a cross and Blackberry Hill completes the quad. But here's the funny thing…" He stops. I wait. But he doesn't continue.

"Well? What's the fuckin' funny thing?"

"Never mind. I'm gonna keep that one to myself. But here's what I'm gonna tell you now, Collin. And then you're gonna get the fuck out of my office, go home, and let me handle this shit."

"Yeah, right," Amon says.

Jim Bob ignores him. "When you signed that contract, I promised you answers about that night you killed that man. And that's what I'm gonna give you. I'll pay you early, but understand that you owe me now."

I'm clenching my jaw, so fucking angry. "Let's hear it."

"That man who was trying to kidnap your sister? He wasn't kidnapping her. He was trying to take her home. Your sister isn't your sister. Your mama found a runaway girl when you were about nine years old. This girl was pregnant and she came from Blackberry Hill."

"Holy shit," Amon says. He looks at me. "What the fuck is this?"

But I don't know, so I can't answer.

"She hid this girl in your basement."

"No fuckin' way." I can't believe it. I shake my head.

"You were away for a week or so. A Boy Scout camping trip. Does that ring any bells? At any rate, during that time, the baby was born, the girl ran, leaving the baby behind, and your mama and daddy come to me with an infant, told me the story, and asked to keep her. I said yes. I didn't know Blackberry Hill was a thing because Blackberry Hill wasn't a thing. At least, not like it is now. And that's all I'm gonna say about that. The point is, Olive wasn't your sister, that man that night was her rightful father, and you killed him because he tried to take her home."

I take a seat and lean over, putting my head in my hands. Running these words back through my head. It's not true. It can't be true. I remember… well. I'm not sure what I remember about Olive's birth. I was nine. I didn't know anything about babies. Where they come from or how things happen. Did I ever see my mama pregnant?

I can't say either way. I just know one day I had a baby sister.

But it kinda makes sense. It's a reason, at least, for why a man would break into my house and try and kidnap her.

I look up at Jim Bob and let out a long breath. Anger not in check. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me this earlier?"

Amon is pissed too. "Yeah, what the fuck, Jim Bob! What the actual fuck!"

"Collin," Jim Bob says. "You guessed right. These people are military. This operation they're running is beyond top secret."

"There's no such thing as beyond top secret," Amon says. "Trust us, we know."

"Then you know damn well that there are special considerations for that, then, don't you? This operation they're running up there is called Blackberry Top Secret. That's what I was told. That's all I know. I don't know what they do up there."

The military is all compartmentalized. It's all need to know. There is a chain of command and if you're not on the chain, you don't get to know. So I do believe that Jim Bob is telling the truth about this. But it's really bad sign. I know better than most that there's a lot of corruption in the military. Congressional hearings, Exhibit A. So whatever is going on up there, that's how it's gonna end. Eventually. One year, or five years, or fifteen years from now someone will blow the whistle and that's how Blackberry Hill will end.

Or… maybe not. Maybe it's so much more than illegal private armies and experimental biological treatment and it was made to last forever. Either way, doesn't matter. I might not know any details but I got a secret this morning. And people, like this Ike Monroe guy, are pretty upset about that.

"OK," I say, pulling myself together. "How the hell does Lowyn fit into all this?"

"She's the only one knows how to get up there besides me. She's the only one of us who's ever been inside. I'm too damn old to walk two miles up a fuckin' mountain these days. So I sent her up to smooth things over with Ike because you found his fuckin' boneyard, Collin. I had to send her up there because of you."

"How long ago was this?" Amon asks.

Jim Bob looks at his watch. "About… two hours ago."

"Two hours?" I stand up. "What the fuck has she been doing up there for two hours?"

"Smoothin' things over, I assume."

"This is why you couldn't get through," Amon says. "There's no signal up there."

"Well, there must be some kind of signal," I say. "A landline, or somethin'. Because Jim Bob already admitted he got a call from Ike. So you call him, Jim Bob. You call Ike Monroe right the fuck now and tell him to put Lowyn on the phone."

"It doesn't work that way, Collin."

"Then how's it work, Jim Bob? Because I'm holding my shit together right now, but just barely. And you're the one I want to be angry at."

He takes offense to this because his chin juts back in surprise. "Are you threatenin' me, Collin?"

"You're damn right I am."

"Even if I could"—Jim Bob glares at me—"after your threat, I wouldn't. But as it is, I can't. They call me. It's a satellite phone. I have no way to contact them at all. And if I tried to go up there, or you try to go up there, or any one of your small army tries to go up there, they will shoot you, Collin. If you learned nothing else at all this morning, I hope you learned that. They will shoot you."