Page 24 of The Outsider

She wrinkled her nose. “Never developed a taste for it.”

“Orange juice?”

“Please.” Her tongue went tight, her mouth watering as she anticipated the sour juice. Having choices like this was... amazing. But she didn’t want him to know just how grateful she was.

She sat down at the table, and he gave her a big glass of juice. Then he sat down across from her.

“All right. Give it to me straight. All your information, so that I can get you put on payroll.”

“Bix Carpenter,” she said.

“It’s really not short for anything?”

“I think it’s short for neither of my parents gave a shit.”

“Right. And where do you come from?”

“Idaho originally. But we’ve been all over. Mostly western Idaho and eastern Oregon. But a bit up into Washington. Sometimes down to California.”

“What do your parents do?”

“Not a damned clue what my mom does, since I haven’t seen her in about twelve years. As for my dad, I think he makes license plates.”

“He’s in prison?”

She rested her forearms on the table and looked at him full on. “That was the joke, Sheriff.”

“And what was it you all did?”

“We made moonshine. That’s what we did.” She didn’t see much point holding it back now. That was the thing. He was going to find out.

“Right. That it?”

“Yes. My brother, my dad, they got into some heavier stuff. There were drugs sometimes. But I never had anything to do with that. We were always together. Sometimes we tried our hand at splitting up for a little bit, because it was easier. But we usually drifted back.”

“How old are you?”

She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It does.”

She sighed. “I’m twenty-three,” she said.

“Why did you tell me you were older?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I wanted you to believe that maybe I had more of a life. Like maybe I had somebody looking out for me. The truth is, I don’t. The truth is my dad, and my brother were the only two people that really had any involvement in my day-to-day life. And now they’re in prison. For a while.”

“Because of the drug running.”

“Yep. I knew it was bad news. I did. I told them that. But they didn’t listen to me. My dad doesn’t... He likes to think around the system. He doesn’t believe in limitations. He believes that society is stacked against people like us.”

“And what are people like you?” he asked.

She suddenly had the feeling that she was in an interrogation room. Damn that man—he’d softened her up. She almost had to admire it, because he was good.

It was just like being down at the station. It was just that he’d fed her. And there was a beautiful view of the mountains outside, rather than it being one-way glass with more cops staring at her from a hidden vantage point.

“Just... We’re poor. Okay? Uneducated, white trash. It is what it is. We were homeschooled because my dad didn’t want the school system to indoctrinate us.” She frowned. She said that, and she knew it was a lie. It was what her dad had always said.

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