“Somerville,” I say, and he nods, as if he suspected it all along.
“Somerville,” he repeats. He makes a few more notes on his notepad, angling the paper so I can’t see what he’s writing. “That’s right. I remember. You were in a bad accident this spring, weren’t you?”
I take a deep breath. Why does everyone always mention the accident? It’s like it has become my single most important feature, a defining trait, like a lazy eye or a stutter. “Yeah,” I say. “With Dara.”
“Two of my men took the call. That was Route 101, too, wasn’t it? Down by Orphan’s Beach.” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. Instead he writes another few words and tears off the sheet of paper, folding it neatly. “Bad spot of road, especially in the rain.”
I tighten my hands on the armrests. “Shouldn’t you be looking for my sister?” I say, knowing I sound rude and not caring. Besides, even if I wanted to answer his questions, I couldn’t.
Luckily he lets it go. He places both fists on the desk to stand up, sliding his bulk away from the desk. “Give me a minute,” he says. “Wait here, all right? You want another water? A soda?”
I’m getting impatient. “I’m fine,” I say.
He gives me a pat on the shoulder as he moves past me to the door, as if we’re suddenly buddy-buddy. Or maybe he just feels bad for me. He disappears into the hallway, shutting the door behind him. Through the glass, I watch him intercept the same redheaded cop in the hall. Hernandez passes him the note, and the two of them exchange a few words too quiet for me to hear. Neither of them looks at me—I get the impression this is deliberate. After a minute, both of them move off down the hall out of sight.
It’s hot in the office. There’s a window AC spitting lukewarm air into the room, fluttering papers on Hernandez’s desk. With every passing minute, my impatience grows, that itchy, crawling sense that something is terribly wrong, that Dara’s in trouble, that we need to stop it. Still, Hernandez hasn’t come back. I stand up, shoving the chair back from the desk, too antsy to remain sitting.
Hernandez’s notepad—the one he scribbled on while I was speaking—is sitting out on his desk, the top sheet faintly imprinted with words from the pressure of his pen. Seized by the impulse to see what he wrote, I reach over and grab it, casting a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure that Hernandez isn’t coming.
Some of the writing is illegible. But very clearly I see the words: call parents and, beneath that, emergency.
Anger flares inside of me. He didn’t listen. He’s wasting time. My parents can’t do anything to help—they don’t know anything.
I replace the notepad and move to the door, stepping out into the hall. From the front office comes the burble of conversation and ringing telephones. I don’t see Hernandez anywhere. But, coming toward me, a huge tote bag slung over one shoulder, is a woman I do recognize. It takes me a second to call up her name: Margie something, the reporter who has been covering the Madeline Snow case for the Shoreline Blotter and has been all over local TV.
“Wait!” I shout. She obviously hasn’t heard me and keeps walking. “Wait!” I call, a little louder. A cop, bleary-eyed, looks up at me from another glassed-in office, his expression suspicious. I keep going. “Please. I need to talk to you.”
She pauses with one hand on the door that leads out to the parking lot, scanning the room to see who was speaking, then has to sidestep as a cop enters from outside, propelling a lurching drunk in front of him. The man leers at me and drawls something I can’t make out—it sounds like Merry Christmas—before the cop directs him down another hallway.
I catch up to Margie, feeling breathless for no reason. In the glass doors, our reflections have the look of cartoon ghosts: big dark hollows for eyes, sheet-white faces.
“Have we met?” Her eyes are quick, assessing, but she pastes a smile on her face.
The receptionist behind the desk, the one who led me to Hernandez, is watching us, frowning. I angle my back to her.
“No,” I say, in a low voice. “But I can help you. And you can help me, too.”
Her face betrays no emotion—no surprise, no excitement. “Help me how?”
She studies me for a minute as if debating whether or not I can be trusted. Then she jerks her head to the right, indicating I should follow her outside, away from the watchful gaze of the receptionist. It’s a relief to be out of the stale air of the police station, and its smell of burnt coffee and alcohol breath and desperation.
“How old are you?” she asks, turning businesslike as soon as we’re standing on the curb.
“Does it matter?” I fire back.
She snaps her fingers. “Nick Warren. Is that right? From Somerville.”
I don’t bother asking her how she knows me. “So are you going to help me or not?”
She doesn’t answer directly. “Why are you so interested?”
“Because of my sister,” I reply. If she can dodge a question, so can I. She is a reporter, of sorts—and I don’t know that I want a story about Dara blowing up in the Blotter, not yet. Not until we know more. Not until we have no other choice.
She makes a grabbing motion with her hands—like all right, show me what you’ve got.
So I tell her about my trip to Beamer’s and the conversation I overheard outside Andre’s office. I tell her that I’m pretty sure that Sarah Snow was working for Andre, doing something illegal. As I talk, her face changes. She believes me.