The Outliers (The Outliers, #1)(41)

“Maybe that’s the police station,” I say, pointing.

I am relieved that we might be getting Cassie real help soon. But it’s a risk for me to go inside. After all, I am the crazy girl who stabbed a man in a diner bathroom. The girl whose therapist has already reported her as a danger to herself or others.

“What are we going to tell them?” Jasper asks as he pulls into a parking spot alongside the square, a little distance from the station. Like he’s still thinking we can guard Cassie’s secrets somehow.

“Everything,” I say. But I can’t not warn Jasper about the rest because I’m ashamed. Not when it could affect him, too. “But there is something else. They already know about the diner. The knife. Doug.”

“Who knows?” Jasper asks. “How?”

“I’m not sure, but my dad mentioned it in his text. I guess the police must have made the connection. He sent them out looking for me because I’m ‘unstable.’” And maybe I can just leave it at that. “Anyway, you might get caught up in this—my—you might not want to come in. Just in case these police know about it too. I could tell them about Cassie on my own if you want.”

“Unstable?” Jasper looks totally confused. Almost offended, as he turns off the car. “Yeah, I’ll take my chances. You weren’t in that diner alone.”

The police station is brightly lit, but so small—just six metal desks in a single open room. There are three men sitting there, playing cards, when we walk in. Two look on the younger side, maybe late twenties. One is older than my dad, fifties maybe. They turn in our direction when we walk in, not startled or surprised. But also not particularly interested even though you’d think they would be—two teenage kids, walking in at eleven at night.

“We help you?” the older one calls, though he makes no move to get up from his card game. He has salt-and-pepper hair and looks puffy, like a football player whose muscles have gone soft. He makes a big show of squinting up at the clock on the wall. “You lost?”

There’s an edge to his voice, too. Like he wants us to get lost.

“No—um—we’re not lost,” I say as Jasper and I make our way up to the counter. I sound nervous and guilty. I swallow hard, hoping my throat will clear. “We’re here, um, looking for our friend?” Like it’s a question.

“Missing friend, huh?” says the younger officer who’s facing us. He has beady eyes and a pockmarked face, and now that he’s talking, I can see that he’s really young—not that much older than Jasper and me. There’s the hint of a smile playing on his lips. “You lose her somewhere?”

This time he smiles wider, like a wolf. I wait for the older guy to shoot him a look telling him to knock it off. But the only one who does anything is the third officer, and he just begins collecting the cards. He hasn’t even looked in our direction.

“She texted us and said that she needs our help,” Jasper says. “We drove all the way up from Boston.”

He adds that part, I think, to make us seem like good, dedicated kids. Loyal. To help make up for the mess that Cassie is in.

The older cop finally heaves himself out of his chair with a grunt, looking officially annoyed as he makes his way over. For sure not concerned about what happened to this friend of ours. Like he’s already decided that nothing has. Once he’s close, I see his badge: Sergeant Randolph Sternbach. When I look up from it, he’s staring at me. Or my hair, to be exact. His eyebrows are scrunched together. His frown is disgusted.

“Let me guess, your friend came up here to party?” he asks, still staring at my hair, and making no attempt to pretend otherwise. I put a hand up like that could hide how crazily hacked it is.

“Party?” I ask. It comes out in a squeak. Already I do not like where this is headed.

The sergeant takes an exasperated breath and looks away from my hair to reach for a pad of paper. He slaps it down on the counter in front of us. “Yeah, you know, meth.” His eyes narrow on my face. “And I know, she’s never done it before in her entire life and she’ll never ever do it again.”

He even rolls his eyes a little. Blah, blah, blah. He doesn’t actually say that, but it’s what he means. All I can do is stare at him. It’s not very policeman-like.

“Meth?” Jasper asks like he must be hearing things.

“You know, chalk, dust, ice, crank, glass,” the pockmarked, weaselly one says, slithering his way over to stand next to his boss. Unlike the sergeant, he seems happy to be talking about it. Excited almost. Like he’s taunting us.

“You’re kidding, right?” Jasper asks. “We’re in high school. We don’t shoot up.”

I turn to look at him. The way Jasper says “shoot up” sounds so awkward, too awkward. Like he’s playing up how little he knows about it.

“Lots of ways to take meth, son. Most of them don’t require a needle,” the sergeant says, and like he’s damn sure Jasper already knows that. “And you’d be surprised what ‘regular people’ do. Trust me, you’re not the first to come in here looking for a missing friend. We got a whole damn cottage industry in screwed-up kids making a mess of what used to be—what ought to be—a nice town.”

“Pigs is what they are,” the weaselly guy says, but with this glint in his eye like it also turns him on a little. “Look at those tweakers from the other day.”