Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 106839 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106839 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
I force myself to wait until seven a.m. before I call Collin. I figure I’ll be waking him up, but he answers on the first ring and there’s so much noise in the background, he’s gotta yell. “Hello!”
“Collin?”
“What? Amon? Hold on a second.” He must cover the phone because things get all muffled. And then the horrendous background noise abruptly cuts off. “Sorry,” he says, kinda out of breath. “Amon, is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me. I got a problem.”
“We need to talk.”
“I know. My problem—”
“No. I don’t mean your problem. We gotta talk about this fuckin’ mine.”
I’m confused. “Mine? What?”
“The mine. The old mine. The one Sawyer was poking around that week?”
“Oh, right. I’d forgotten about that.” I wave a hand in the air. “Forget the mine. Forget that asshole too. Cross is missing, Collin. We gotta get back on this.”
“Oh, I know. I just sent twenty-five men back to Disciple so they can start searching.”
“Right. Well—”
“Amon?”
I turn and find Rosie standing in the front doorway looking all disheveled and blurry-eyed. I cup my phone with my hand. “Hey. The search is gonna get started soon—”
“They’re not gonna find anything.”
Despite the fact that I agree with her, I can’t let her go down this path. So I say, “You don’t know that, Rosie.”
“I do. He took him. Erol took him. He’s not dead. I don’t care what your people say. He’s just not. This is all him, I know it. I feel it in my soul.”
“Amon!”
Collin is yelling at me so I put the phone back up to my ear. “What? Yeah. I’m here.”
“I gotta go. We’re opening up the mine. You need to get here.”
“I can’t, Collin. I gotta stay here with Rosie.”
She breezes past me, heading towards her bedroom. “No, you don’t, Amon. If Collin needs you, you should go. Because I’m gonna take a shower and go to work.”
“Work?” I say this loud because I’m like… what the fuck? “You’re not going to work, Rosie! Cross is missing.”
She whirls around, angry. “He’s not missing. We know who he’s with. And he’s not coming back until Erol brings him back. I need to get the hell out of this house, so I’m going to work at the diner. Because if I stay here I’m gonna cry my eyes out and lose my mind.”
I don’t say anything back to that and we just stare at each other for a second. Then she turns and goes up the steps to her bedroom.
“Amon!” Collin is yelling again.
“What? Yeah, I’m here.”
“Get here! I’m telling you, you gotta see this.”
“Wait!” I say this quickly because I know he’s about to hang up.
“What?”
“Did you call Charlie?”
“About the mine? Fuck no.”
“Oh, my God. Shut up about that fuckin’ mine. The boy, Collin. Cross Harlow. Did you call Charlie and ask him to help us? Because at this point, I’m a hundred percent positive that Erol Cross is connected to this Blackberry Hill shit.”
“No, Amon. I didn’t call Charlie about Cross.”
“Well, could you? Could you at least ask him to help us?”
Collin blows out a breath. “Well, of course. Yeah. But I don’t know what he can do, Amon. This kid is not connected to us.”
“He’s connected to me, Collin.”
“Well… I get that you and Rosie are kind of a thing. But Charlie Beaufort isn’t gonna make waves in his little black-ops boardroom over a missing Disciple boy who is not yours, Amon.”
I don’t say anything. I know he’s right, but I’m pissed about it. And when I’m pissed, it’s better that I don’t say anything.
Collin knows me well, so he gets this and starts backtracking. “Look, I don’t mean it that way. But you know what I had to promise to get that man to help me save Lowyn. You know it was a bad deal, Amon.”
“I don’t care. I’ll make that promise too. Just… call him. Just ask.”
After a short pause, Collin relents with a sigh. “Fine. I’ll call him right now and call you back.”
The call ends and I exhale, then say a little prayer. Which I am not one to do, but it’s just an automatic thing when shit starts going sideways. I go outside and pace the porch, wondering how yesterday could’ve been so fun and we were so happy and now everything is falling apart.
My phone buzzes and I answer. “Yeah.”
Collin sighs, so I know it’s bad news. “He said no. He’s not gonna help. He said there’s no scenario in which he could interfere here.”
“Not even if I agreed to work for him on his personal projects?”
“He said it was out of the question. That he’s replaced you already.”
“What about you? You owe him ten hours.”
“Yeah, I know. I asked him and he said he’s got nothing for me right now. So he’s saving me up for a rainy day, Amon. I’m sorry. He can’t help. But if you really think this Erol guy is connected to Blackberry Hill, then you should get up here.”