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Guiding her up the aisle, I don’t let her argue. The last thing I need is for something to happen to Cassandra. Because if I wasn’t already warring internally about caring for her, I am now. And I couldn’t bear it if she was hurt while I was trying to decide what she’s going to mean to me.
11
CASSANDRA
The officer taking my statement yawns, and an uncomfortable weariness clenches my gut.
“And you say your doors were locked?”
“I say? Yes, I locked all of my doors.” His accusatory tone sits wrong, like he’s questioning whether I made this all up.
“Sometimes people forget. Are too tired. It happens.” He shrugs, his buzz-cut head bobbing to the music overhead.
As if this is all casual. As if I’m weaving a story he’s too bored with to follow.
“And because people leave a door unlocked, it’s okay for someone to come into their home uninvited and after dark?” I question, trying not to let my jaw hit the floor.
That’s pretty much how this entire thing has gone, from the moment I gave my name at the counter and said I wanted to file a police report. They brought me back to this guy, who took one look at me, and I swear he had to refrain from rolling his eyes because of who I am. It took him five minutes to even pull out a report, and I am half convinced he won’t even file this one he’s scribbling on.
But, hey, at least this cop is making my fear vanish and replacing it with anger. If this interview doesn’t underscore that people in this town hate me, I don’t know what does. I am the victim of a crime, and he’s treating me like a felon who isn’t confessing to illegal activities.
Then there’s the knight in shining tin foil who hadn’t even bothered coming in with me. Sure, he pushed me to come here and report it, but one thought about being seen with me, and his possessiveness shriveled up.
Patrick said he shouldn’t come in with me, that he had nothing to contribute since he wasn’t there but that he’d wait to take me home. I knew what that meant. I knew he didn’t want to be seen with me, because people would start asking very different questions than who broke into my home.
Seeing him in that Home Depot triggered every response in me to let someone take over. To let someone hold me and handle it all. I thought that’s what he was attempting to do when he pulled me in, his shirt smelling like freshly baked bread and chocolate. But, of course, reality set in as soon as we pulled up to the station. Now I am in here alone, doing something I hadn’t wanted to do from the start.
“Do you need to send someone out to fingerprint or …” I don’t know if that’s a stupid question.
The way the officer looks at me, it sure feels like it is. “If nothing was stolen, there isn’t really a point.”
Wow, they are going to donothing. My eyes flash to his badge as he ho-hums about paperwork, and I study the name. Officer Drafter.
Drafter… the name sounds familiar. I keep studying him as he fills out the report, his hands moving slowly like he couldn’t care less, and then it clicks.
Nikolai Drafter, one of the kids who had filled my locker with rats. Or, well, one of the ones I thought did it since he never got blamed for it in any official capacity.
Unease creeps up the back of my throat because it’s clear his opinion of me hasn’t changed. At the same time, I can’t let on that I know who he is. That would only make things much worse for me. So I answer the rest of his questions and head out of the station with nothing promised and nothing gained.
The last thing I want to do is get in a car with Patrick, who is infuriatingly handsome even when he’s being an ass. We barely know each other, and yet I feel like he sees me better than anyone I’ve met in my life up until now. It’s unnerving, and I’m on my last nerve, not to mention two hours of sleep.
“What did they say?” he asks as I duck back into his passenger seat.
“The officer didn’t see how they could do anything. Doesn’t want to send someone out.” Even speaking tires me out as I buckle in.
When he starts the car and pulls out onto the road, I think that’s the end of it.
But Patrick never knows when to stop. “What the hell? They need to investigate. See if they can find who did this. Did you tell them that?”
“What do you want me to do, Patrick?” I sigh, exhausted to my bones.
“You should have pushed them to come out to the house and take fingerprints, something. Investigate further. It’s not like the department ever has shit to do. Sleepy town where the worst crime is a teenage party to breakup or a bad car accident.” He scoffs like he cares about this more than I do.
His flippant attitude, like I didn’t try my best and he could have done better, is the thing that finally makes me snap.
Slamming my hand into the console between us as he drives toward the outskirts of town, the volume of my tone reaches a fever pitch.
“Well, maybe if you wanted them to do all of those things, you should have come in with me. Thrown your Ashton weight around. But, oh wait, you’d never do that, because you wouldn’t want to be seen in public with Butch’s daughter, right? Couldn’t possibly make it known that you have any sort of positive feelings about me, lest everyone in this goddamn town turn on you, too. How pathetic. Spare me, Patrick. I did what I could and it’s done. This town will never,everthrow me a bone. So, I’ll handle it by myself, like I always have.”
