“So this whole ‘other people’ thing that Quentin kept talking about?”
“I want to tell you that he made that up. Believe me, I do. But this research has broad implications. Just what will the Outliers be able to do if they are given the opportunity to perfect their skills? It could be much greater than we realize, and valuable to a whole range of people. Good and bad.” He looks down for a minute. “You know, your mom wanted me to tell you about your test results. She thought you deserved to know. That you had a right.” He takes a deep breath. “I didn’t even tell her about your results until a month later, after Thanksgiving. And then we fought about it nonstop right up until the accident. Six wasted weeks. One of my greatest regrets will always be that I didn’t listen to her. She was right. She was always right about everything. Obviously, I shouldn’t have recorded your results at all. But the scientist in me …” He shakes his head again. “I was hesitant enough that I switched them with Cassie’s, then came to my senses and pulled them down altogether. But by then it was too late—the data had already been hacked.”
“Did you know when Cassie was gone that it had something to do with this?”
He shakes his head some more. “I didn’t know. But then, when Dr. Simons called that evening when Karen was here to tell me that his friend who’d been helping us with cybersecurity had reported another attempted data breach, I was concerned,” he said. “It seemed like a significant coincidence. But I also couldn’t see how they were actually connected. I certainly never considered Dr. Caton an actual threat.”
I think then of the last time my dad and I spoke. When I was on the phone with him at the gas station. How I had shouted at him that I wished he’d been in the car that night instead of my mom. That I wished he was dead basically. I wince, remembering.
“I didn’t mean it. What I said about you and the accident. Really I didn’t.”
“I know. And I’m sorry for threatening to call Dr. Shepard. But as soon as you said you’d heard from Cassie and were going to get her—I knew something was very, very wrong. I figured she must have told you something very serious for you to go, and then you wouldn’t tell me where she was.”
“Because I didn’t know yet,” I say. “I just—I wanted to be a good friend.” I shake my head as the tears flood back.
My dad reaches forward and puts his hand over mine. “I know you did, and this isn’t your fault, Wylie. It’s mine. I did try everything I could think of to find you. I called the police, but they dismissed me even faster than they had Karen. There was no doubt you’d left on your own, and they made it clear they weren’t chasing after you, period. So my mind jumped to my only other alternative, Dr. Shepard. Obviously, those texts that said I had called her and that she’d reported you a danger weren’t from me. I promise I never would have actually done it. But I shouldn’t have even suggested it,” he says, looking sad. “It’s not an excuse, but I was terrified that something would happen to you. You should have seen me here trying to track your phone. For a moment, I thought I had it. But the signal up there was weak. I had it at one point while you were somewhere in New Hampshire, so I knew you were far away already, but then I lost it for good right after that. They must have had it scrambled up at the camp, too.” My dad reaches forward with his other hand and wraps it around the back of my neck, eyes glistening as he rests his forehead against mine. “I’m just so glad that you’re okay.”
His forehead is still resting against mine when the doorbell rings. I think of how the doorbell rang when Karen showed up at our door. Only two days earlier, but it feels like a lifetime ago.
“Wait here,” my dad says. “I’ll get it.”
I listen as he goes out to the foyer and opens the door. There’s a voice I can’t make out. Then my dad speaks.
“Yes, can I help you?” He does not at all sound like he actually wants to help. The other person must say something else, something I still can’t hear. “Can’t this wait?” my dad asks, sharp now, for sure. “She’s exhausted.”
“She” would be me, obviously. Now I’m up, headed to see who’s there, what’s going on. Because I am worried. And not because I am an Outlier—my dad and I have a lot more talking to do before I will believe that is true—but because anybody in my position would be.
“Afraid it can’t wait, Dr. Lang,” a gruff, official-sounding voice says as I get into the foyer. “We have some questions we need to ask your daughter. Unfortunately, time is of the essence.”
“She’s already told the police everything she knows,” my dad says, as I try to see past the door. Still not entirely sure that I even want to.