“Are you his boyfriend?” she asked, her green eyes wide with interest.
Robby’s gaze cut to Calder like he waited for him to deny their relationship. As if he would do such a thing. “Yes. I suppose you could say that.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said, throwing her arms around him in a tight hug. He hugged her back, even as his stomach clenched.
“Why don’t we go into the conference room and speak?” Calder asked. “I’d like to have an associate sit in on this, if you don’t mind. It helps to have somebody else in the loop.”
“Sure, that’s fine,” she said, her spunky Kentucky accent the antithesis of Calder’s slow drawl.
Had Robby once had the same accent? He couldn’t picture it. Calder guided Rebecca to a seat and sat opposite her. He’d expected Robby to take the chair beside his sister, but instead, he sat beside him, rolling his chair until it bumped up against Calder’s, like Robby needed him as close as possible.
Calder hit a button on the boomerang shaped device in the center of the conference room table. Linc’s voice filled the space. “Is she here?”
“Yeah, we’re ready for you.”
When Linc entered the room, Rebecca seemed to shrink in on herself, and Calder realized how young the girl really was. Not that much older than Robby really. Maybe meeting here wasn’t such a great idea, after all. If she was intimidated, she might not talk.
“I got your note, obviously. So, how can I help you?” Robby asked, sounding slightly stonier than he had just a moment ago, as if he’d remembered some long forgotten feud.
Rebecca wrapped her arms around herself just like Robby did when he was nervous. “I-I’m scared about what’s happenin’ at the farm.”
It was such a vague statement, but Robby’s leg started to jitter under the table. “What about it?” he asked.
A single tear slid down Rebecca’s cheek, but she wiped it away, sniffling, and then sat up slightly straighter. “I think I made a mistake. I think maybe you were right about the place all along.”
“Rebecca, how about you start by telling us what’s got you spooked enough to come all this way just to hand Robby a note,” Calder said, hoping to steer her towards any helpful information.
“He’s got guns,” she blurted. “A lot of them. And I think he’s got some of the kids makin’ bombs.”
“What?” Robby gasped.
Rebecca shook her head like she didn’t even believe the things she was saying. “I know. I know it sounds crazy, Obi, but he—Samuel—he’s gone crazy, likereallycrazy.”
“Like guns and bombs crazy?” Robby asked, incredulous.
“It wasn’t like it just happened overnight. It was sort of slow like. At first, he started talkin’ ‘bout how he was the anointed one and how he’d been chosen to raise God’s army, which near as I could tell was just more noise so he could justify why he was sleepin’ with everybody’s wives. But then he started separatin’ everybody, isolating the parents from their kids. Then the women from their husbands. He claimed that they all belonged to him now and he needed to be creatin’ as many babies as he could to raise them up to be soldiers.” She shook her head, clasping her hands together on the table, her fingers twitching. “Then he kicked me out of my own house. Said I was damaged goods ‘cause I still hadn’t gotten pregnant after all these years.” She flushed, her cheeks pinking just like Robby’s.
“Why didn’t you just leave?” Robby asked.
“Where was I gonna go? I don’t know nothin’ else. Besides, once he wasn’t climbin’ on top of me all the time, he started lettin’ me do supply runs, which is when I started going to the library and readin’ up on you and Daddy and whatever else I could find.” She smiled to herself, but then it just slipped away. “Then I found out about Dinah. He’d moved her into our house. She was sat beside him at dinner and she was dolin’ out punishments like a good little helper. Then she showed up to church with a band on her finger and declared herself Samuel’s true wife.”
“I mean, it's not legal, but I imagine none of the marriages performed there are, if that’s your concern,” Linc said.
Rebecca cut her gaze to him. “My concern is that Dinah is twelve years old.”
“Jesus,” Linc muttered.
“Yeah. He’s gone insane. He keeps talkin’ ‘bout the end times and how he’s bein’ persecuted by the government and how Satan is usin’ them to create a new world order. About six months ago, the guns started showin’ up. Crates full. I don’t even know where he’s gettin’ them or how. It’s not like we have money. We’re self-sustainin’. Then, last month, bags and bags of fertilizer started comin’ in and gettin’ stacked in the barn. His talks of doomsday and the apocalypse are getting worse too, and he’s sayin’ that God is talkin’ to him and tellin’ him that sacrifices must be made and not all of them will survive and how it's better to die in service to the lord than to live to be old and do nothin’. He’s crazy. They all are.”
Calder scrubbed his hands over his face. Christ. What was it with these crazy fuckers? Did they truly believe their own bullshit or was this just about power? “Have you tried going to the police?”
“I can’t. They’re on his side. It’s why he moved us away from Kentucky and out here to California. The cops are in on it.”
Robby frowned, his hand reaching for Calder’s under the table, squeezing tightly. “How do you know that?”
“Because I tried to leave a few weeks ago. I wanted to get help, to get to you. But the local police came and got me and drove me back. They said it was in my best interest to not try to leave again.”
“So, you’ve been in California this whole time?” Robby asked.
