The Outliers (The Outliers, #1)(54)

“You’re kidding, right?” Jasper takes another step forward, his voice rising. He is much bigger than this Quentin guy. “We don’t even have any idea who you are. Why the hell would we ever trust you?”

“You okay in there, Quentin?” A nasally voice outside draws out his name like a schoolyard bully. The toothless guy, no doubt, reminding us that he’s out there. With a gun.

Quentin shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “Yes, Stuart, we’re fine.”

“You’re not from some reform school, are you?” I ask.

“No,” Quentin says quietly, pressing his lips together and shaking his head again. “And everyone feels terrible about all the deception. We were really hoping he’d be here by now so he could explain himself.”

“Him, who?” I ask. “Who are you talking about?”

“Oh.” Now Quentin looks confused. “Your dad, Wylie.”





“My dad,” I hear myself say. It’s not a question. Just a word that doesn’t make any sense.

“Don’t worry. He’s fine,” Quentin hustles to add. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like there’s a problem. I guess he’s just taking the long way around.”

“Why is my dad coming here?” My heart is throbbing in my head again. “How do you even know him?”

“Oh,” Quentin says again, looking even more confused, and officially nervous. “You don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“What is going on?” I shout, and so loud I almost scare myself.

“Okay, okay.” Quentin holds up his hands. “Your dad would have preferred if you had stayed home, obviously. But once Cassie”—he motions to her, smiles uncomfortably—“I mean once we knew you were already in Seneca, your dad had us bring you here so that you’d be safe. That’s the most important thing.”

“No, he did not,” I say, my voice quiet and trembling. I can barely force any sound out.

And it cannot be true. Because that would mean my dad knew all along what had happened to Cassie. That he stood there in our living room while Karen freaked out. While I freaked out. Pretending he had no clue. Pretending he was trying to help when really he had something to do with it. What kind of monster does that? And why?

But it feels like some kind of awful key sliding into place. I’m terrified what’s going to happen when somebody pops the lock.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do, Ben?” my mom asked my dad that last night at dinner, her last night.

I didn’t know what she was talking about, except that she was launching into another one of their fights—the ones they had all the time now right in front of us, without ever revealing what they were actually fighting about. But from the way my dad’s face puckered, he knew what she meant. And he was not happy.

“Do about what?” I asked. This couldn’t be about my dad’s study. Finally that was finished, about to be published. “What happened?”

My dad eyeballed my mom: see what you’ve started. “There have been some lapses in cybersecurity campus-wide,” he said, glancing in my direction. “But Dr. Simons got a colleague from Stanford’s computer science department to bolster my study’s data security until our university can work out its problem.”

My mom crossed her arms. “And so that’s it?” she asked him. “You don’t have anything else to say.”

“Yes, Hope, that’s it.” Now he was glaring at her.

I’d stopped eating. Whatever they were fighting about, it was not campus data security. I looked over at Gideon, but his eyes were on his chemistry homework. I was never sure if he didn’t notice our parents fighting or if he just didn’t care.

“So I guess that means you still didn’t talk to Dr. Simons about the Outliers?” my mom pressed on. “I thought you said you were going to mention it the next time you spoke.”

My dad took a deep breath and put down his knife and fork to look at her.

“What are the Outliers?” I asked, hoping his explanation might make me less worried about them getting divorced.

“They’re the ones who can do Dad’s test blindfolded and with the headphones,” Gideon said without looking up from his homework. He was an expert on my dad’s work, had read every one of his papers, was always peppering him with questions. Partly that had to do with Gideon being interested in science, and partly that had to do with Gideon wanting my dad to be more interested in him. “You know, the ones with ESP.”

“It’s not ESP, Gideon!” my dad shouted.

Gideon startled, his cheeks flushing a blotchy pink. For a second I thought he might cry.

My dad closed his eyes, took a breath. “I’m sorry, Gideon, but you know how much I hate that comparison. It’s inflammatory, and it degrades the real potential of my research.” He reached out a hand but didn’t actually touch Gideon. “I shouldn’t have shouted, though. I’m sorry.”

In my dad’s defense, even I knew that ESP was not a word anyone was to use in our house. The number of times I’d heard my dad trying to explain to others that ESP was not what he studied was too many to count. And whenever he did, I could hear the defeat in his voice.