with flowers, begging for my forgiveness. He might offer to pay the fine.
“You know, this isn’t the first building that’s been vandalized in the last month.” The detective held up a folder to show me the proof.
“We’ve got a dentist’s office, a gas station, and a McDonald’s. Same sort of handiwork we found on the city hall. We’ve been searching for the vandals, and tonight we caught you.” He leaned back in his chair, his hands folded smugly in his lap. “It would be a shame if these got pinned on you too.”
My stomach lurched. Bo hadn’t vandalized those other buildings, had he? Tonight had happened because he was mad about my father and stepmother losing their jobs. He had thrown those rocks for me.
“You’re making that up about the other buildings,” I said.
Without a trace of emotion, the detective flipped open the folder, took out a picture, and slid it to me. “Look familiar?” It didn’t. The photo showed a gas station with red slashes across the side of one wall, like a giant cat had scratched it. Why would Bo have sprayed graffiti on the other buildings?
The detective put the picture back in the folder. “I don’t think you realize how much trouble you’re in, so I want your parents to come down and talk with you. Then you can decide what to tell me.” He pushed himself away from the table. “If you’re a smart girl, you won’t take the rap for someone else.”
He stood up and motioned me to follow him out of the room.
When we reached the lobby, he said, “Take a seat. It will be a while before Mary gets around to calling your parents. It’s been a busy night.” He glanced over at the waiting room’s other occupant, a teenage guy.
He sat in the middle of the only row of chairs, flipping through a magazine without paying attention to it. Before the detective left the 36/356
room, he sent me a humorless smile. “Hope you’re not out past your curfew.”
I sat down on the last chair in the row. I had remained outwardly calm so far, and I’d been proud of myself for staying tough. But now my hands shook. I wasn’t tough. And I was alone sitting in the police station. The last thing I wanted to do was cry, but the tears ran down my cheeks without permission. The most I could manage was to choke back the sobs that pulsed in my throat.
I hadn’t noticed the teenage guy move, but he sat down on the chair next to me, holding out a box of tissues.
“Thanks.” I took a couple and blew my nose. I had never blown my nose in front of a stranger, let alone a guy who was my age and good-looking. And he was good-looking. I wouldn’t have even glanced at his face, except I wondered if I knew him from school, and once I saw him, the handsome thing was sort of hard to overlook. He had wavy brown hair, tanned skin, and dark brown eyes that made him look like he’d stepped off a movie set somewhere. He wore a pair of faded blue jeans, the kind that have been worn comfortably thin, and an olive green T-shirt that fit snugly across his broad shoulders.
I hoped he had already graduated from high school, because the fewer people from Rock Canyon High who knew about my trip here, the better. Then again, he was here too, so he couldn’t look down on me for being hauled into the police station.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice a soft lull in the large room.
I nodded, then laughed at my automatic reaction. I clearly wasn’t okay. I took another tissue from the box and wiped tears from my cheeks, trying to pull myself together. I must have looked like a mess.
“So what brings you here?” I asked.
He grinned like it didn’t matter. “Same thing as usual. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You drive your truck through a 37/356
park, do a few spinouts, and these guys get all bent out of shape.” He stretched out his legs. “What about you?” I let out a grunt. “I should use my one phone call to contact The Guinness Book of World Records. Because I’ve just had the worst date in history.”
“A date, huh?” The guy looked around the lobby. “So where did he end up? Do they have him in the back?” Now that the police were gone, I suddenly wanted to talk about what had happened. I wanted some sympathy before my father came down to the station and ripped into me. “No, he left with his friends when they saw the police coming. At least, that’s what I assume. I was around the back of a building making a phone call.”
“Oh.” The guy nodded philosophically. “Girls using cell phones while on dates. I see your boyfriend’s point.” I smiled despite myself. “That’s not how it was.”
“Just joking.” He held up a hand like he was taking a pledge. “Personally, I would never leave my girlfriend talking on a cell phone while the police closed in.”
Hmm. I guess that made him a loyal criminal. I shouldn’t have found that attractive in a guy but I did.
He surveyed me, his dark eyes resting on mine. “So what was so important that you had to make a phone call while your boyfriend was out committing a crime?”
“I was asking advice on how to make my boyfriend stop committing the crime.”
“Ahh.” The guy drew out the sound. “That’s irony. Or bad timing.”
“That’s my usual luck.”
He raised an eyebrow at my statement. “Do you come here often?” Then he smiled. He had gorgeous straight teeth. “That sounded like a 38/356
pickup line, didn’t it? Hey, if your boyfriend is the jealous, violent type, forget I said that.”
“I’ve never been here before.” I glanced around the lobby at the gray plastic chairs. “And somehow I don’t think it will make my list of favorite date destinations.”
The guy lowered his voice. “So how did a date with your boyfriend turn into a crime? Did he say, ‘Hey, do you want to catch a movie, and then we’ll hold up a convenience store?’ ”
“He didn’t tell me where we were going,” I said. “And I thought he was doing it for me—taking on city hall, or at least breaking their windows.” That didn’t make sense, so I added, “Bo wanted to get revenge for me.”
I hadn’t realized I said Bo’s name out loud until the guy said, “Bo Grimes?”
“You know Bo?” I asked.
“Oh yeah, Bo and I go way back.”
It figured I would run into one of Bo’s friends in the police station. I wondered why I hadn’t seen this guy at Indestruction’s practice.
On second thought, I didn’t really wonder that. He probably had some musical taste.
“Let me guess who his friends were.” He ticked the names off his fingers as he spoke. “Gibbs Johnson, Mike Hunsaker, and Steve and Brandon Hart.”
“Yes,” I said, with as much surprise as if he’d done a magic trick.
“You know them too?”
The guy leaned back in his seat, trying to hide his smile. “Of course.”
Of course. The detective had told me everyone knew each other in small towns. Apparently it was true. He had also said that people talked. And judging by the fact that the police knew who I was, people 39/356
hadn’t been saying good things about me. This night would just give everyone more to talk about.
I wadded the tissue in my hand. “This is a stupid hick town. I can’t wait to move back to New York.”
“Right,” the guy said with a slow drawl. “ ’Cause the police don’t hassle teenagers in New York.”
The guy had a point, but I didn’t concede it. I glanced at the front door. Dad and Sandra would be here soon and I still wasn’t sure what to tell the detective. It was a desperate thing to do, asking advice from a stranger in the waiting room of the police station, but he was the only one around. Besides, looking into his deep brown eyes, I felt he would understand my predicament. He knew I was in trouble, but he was also cut from the same cloth as Bo—he was someone who bucked the system. I whispered, “The detective said if I don’t tell them who was with me, they’ll pin everything on me—including a bunch of other vandalism jobs. Can they do that?”