2019-09-12 - When All Else Fails, Ask a Detective

The night-time air is beginning to take over for the heat of the daytime sun as the camera fades in on the Two-if-by-Sea, a hip, themed bar where all sealovers come to mingle, meet, and get shitfaced while in proximity to the ocean. It also happens to be Sarah Stevens' favorite watering hole because her boat is just a little ways down the beach, tied to a dock. So it was that she'd used those digits that Claire had passed on to her and invited the woman out.

The blonde is currently in the process of buying a pair of drinks, herself a Heineken and... whatever it was that Claire had asked for. After a bit of back and forth between her and the bartender, a bit of friendly banter and a tip left, she turns around and heads back towards the firepit they've claimed as their own, her hips rolling with every step.

The Detective wears a simplistic, Navy Blue shirt on top of a new-looking pair of jeans that hug her a little too well to be truly comfortable. There's a sweater thrown over the back of the chair she's claimed as her own, just in case the chill snuck up tonight. Flashing a broad smile as she nears, the blonde settles Claire's drink within her reach.

Sarah slides her own seat closer, so they are able to sit on the same side of the thing, and also face the ocean beyond it, before slithering her butt down into the chair. She takes a long drink of her beer, before setting it aside with a little 'ah!', wiping her mouth with a single finger, and throwing another smile Claire's way.

"So, here we are. Two gals, a fire, and the beach. Only thing that could make it better would be if we could see the stars when they come out. Too much light pollution. How's life been since I saw you last, Clairedy-cat? I see the Boogie Man has yet to get you."

Rum and Coke. That's what Claire would have chosen when asked. At least to start out. It's no more than ten minutes after Sarah settles in that the cop's auburn-haired sister shows up at the bar for her first time. She takes in the inside of the establishment, the bar with its engraved mugs, the eating area, then she follows the faint scent of sea-breeze mingled with woodsmoke to the outside open area.

Claire's wearing a black dress, some cute black heels, and a black leather jacket, since the night doesn't look like rain. Though by the time she skips down the stairs and reaches the sand, she's pulling off first one shoe and then the other to dangle from her fingertips. She returns Sarah's smile with bright one of her own and drops to the low slung chair beside the detective's. "You really have to meet Carter," she greets the older woman by saying. "And how is it that you always look so good?" A sidelong but still overt compliment from Claire. She reaches for the drink Sarah got her and lifts the glass, swirling the ice cubes a bit before tipping it against Sarah's beer bottle. "Thanks for this." She looks around with interest. "Corey said this was the place to come when I got all maudlin about the distinct lack of parties in Gray Harbor. He wasn't wrong." She takes a drink of her R&C and smiles a pleased smile before taking a second sip and setting down the glass.

Sarah invokes the night and Claire smiles a bit of an amused smile as her gaze swings back to the other woman. "Some cute guys wouldn't hurt. I'm just saying. I'm good. We got a crapload more done on the house. And I went swimming with a chef since I saw you. Exciting stuff. What about you? How's the boat? How's work?"

"Oh, it's a process. I jog, I do the stairmaster thing at the gym, and I have incredibly good genes." The blonde replies flippantly when asked how she looks so good. She watches the other woman settle in and drink her drink, glancing around the place at the mention of a lack of parties. "Welcome to small town life, Claire-bear. I came here from Los Angeles. I actually enjoy the bit of quiet. But I'm crazy that way."

"Look at you, you get all dressed up for me? You shouldn't have." Those out of control eyebrows waggle a little. "But I like it. So about this brother of yours, he never seems to be around. Maybe you're just hiding him from me. I haven't run into him at the station, either. Only a matter of time, I'm sure."

As Claire chats about guys and a chef, the blonde toes her feet out of her sneakers, leaning forward to tug off one sock, then the other. The second one gives a little more trouble, requiring a yank to dislodge. She tosses them on top of her shoes before sitting back, feeling the sand between her toes with a small little smile. She looks back at the emergency responder.

"I prefer cute girls. Just saying. So if you're trying to set me up with your brother... I haven't done anything so exciting as a chef. I got a dead body and a sneaking suspicion I'm about to be handed a kidnapping. So... yay for that. Um..." She pauses, presses her lips together, then tilts her head to the side. "Boat still floats. So all is good there. Work is work. Thought I'd get a lot more calls about chickens being loose than I would violent crimes. But you know what they say about towns: It's always the quiet ones."

"That's probably people they say that about. So tell me about your chef."

From LA. Claire is intrigued. "How did you get used to it in the beginning? I mean aside from missing good Indian food and great parties and all the choices. I'm struggling with that." Claire doesn't seem so much upset or bothered: she wants to make life in a small town work. "I'm hoping starting work will help." She looks the stunning woman over again as she shares her workout regimen and genetic disposition. "You can say that again."

"Well, for you and for me. I miss going out. A lot. So why not imagine we're at some posh club? I do like the fire pits, though." Claire glances toward the nearest fire with a smile. "Only a matter of time, you're right. You can haze him all you want, but keep and eye out for me, yeah?" In regard to her brother. Claire flickers a look back at Sarah, mildly assessing, then grins at the eyebrow waggling.

Her shoes are dropped to the sand beside her chair and Claire pulls her legs up in the chair beside her, knees down. "I won't hide him from you. I even texted him that I'd be here with you. Maybe he'll show up."

Claire's brown eyes sparkle at the confidence. "Do you? No wonder you're so electric." Whatever that means. Then she elaborates. "I'm not entirely about guys. But they're a nice part of this nutritious breakfast." She lifts her glass from the table and toasts with a sparkling grin.

"But violent crime wins, doesn't it? That's what everyone, and I mean everyone keeps saying. They'll say something about it and then act like nothing's strange about it at all. I just don't get it." Always the quiet ones. "I hear you. And I'm not that surprised, really. I hate to say it because you've lived here for awhile, but this town has some serious creep-factor going on."

"My chef? He isn't mine at all. But he was fun to play with."

Speak his name and he shall arrive. Carter comes wandering down to Two if By Sea, having gotten Claire's text that she was in the area. He notices them sitting outside at one of the firepits on the lowest level near the beach and drifts in that direction. He's dressed in a pair of navy blue board shorts, sandals, and a white t-shirt, perfect for the hot summer weather. He slides his phone back into his pocket as he makes his way toward the pair.

"Hey," he says in greeting once he's close enough so that he doesn't need to shout to greet them both. He leans down to drop a kiss on top of Claire's head in greeting and then offers a hand to Sarah, "Hi. I'm Carter. Claire said she was out here meeting a friend. Nice to meet you." He hasn't started at the PD yet. His first day isn't until the following Monday, which would be why no one has seen him there yet.

"Mm. Well." Sarah takes a moment to answer about the abrupt change if lifestyle and circumstances moving from an enormous, bustling, rich, famous city to a speck on the map entails. "It's definitely different. Different people, different speed, way of life, way of thinking. Both good and bad. Everyone knows everyone here, that's a plus. No gangs, also a plus. Or at least none large enough to warrant an FBI taskforce."

"Work will help. Keeping yourself busy. Making friends. In a small town, I find it's less about material things, buying things, getting into select places, and it's more about... experiences. Beautiful sunsets. The ocean. Backroad travel. Being outdoors. You just have to alter how you find your happiness."

Hollywood flashes her trademark grin, laughing a little. "We do have a club or two here in Gray Harbor, you know. There's even the occasional rave. We could have went to one of them, if you prefer. Maybe next time, yeah?"

"I don't know about electric!" Sarah runs a hand through her hair with a laugh, a real one she rarely gives these days. It's usually chuckles and snarky scoffs. Too much time being a cop, not enough living her life. She lets her eyes roam over Claire as the woman cocoons up in her chair, folding in on herself. "Well that's very good to know that my gaydar isn't totally off. I like you, Claire. Maybe next time I'll take you somewhere... not shitty. If you play your cards right."

The blonde sits forward a bit, turning, her hand on the back of her low-riding chair as she glances around the place with a mild, gaze-narrowed frown. Maybe her cop sense is tingling. Or she's just silently judging the place's 'shittiness'. Her attention returns to the emergency responder quickly enough, turning a bit sideways in her chair to more face the other woman.

"Huh? Oh yeah. Well, if you want to talk about work, there's creepy shit every time I turn around. This town is fucking nuts, that don't offend me. We got the population of a medieval village and the murder rate of Chicago. What's been needling at you about it lately? See something? Sense... something?"

There is a sudden surge of incoming bro that has Sarah raising her eyes above Claire's head just as the man is making himself known. She shows him a small smile, half-lifting out of her seat to take his hand, giving it a firm grip and a brief shake. She tumbles back down into her seat. "Well, well, the famous brother! Your sister talks about you a lot. Made me promise to babysit you. So when I do, make sure you blame her."

Listening to Sarah's wisdom of the nature of small town life, Claire watches the woman's gestures, her expression, the way she speaks. "I don't know how fun it will be to misbehave when everyone's in your business. I mean, if not for me, for Carter. And I so enjoy getting into trouble." Claire affects a small grimace before she's smiling again, nodding along to what Sarah says about activities that fit in well with living in Gray Harbor. "Experiences. That's positively philosophical, Sarah." Someday. Someday Claire will learn the 'Hollywood' nickname.

Claire perks up. "You definitely have to take me to some clubs. I need to get my rave on." She watches Sarah shift positions in her chair and leans in to rest her forearm across the armrest of the chair closer to the woman, as if proximity would get her the answers she's looking for. "Definitely electric. You glow a little." Lifting her glass Claire gestures with it so that the ice cubes tink against the glass. "Don't argue with me." Sarah wasn't arguing, but Claire demands her due. "That'd be fun. I'll work on my card game." An inclusive smile.

Sarah addresses the topic of the oddity of the town and its crime and Claire leans in a bit more. "I definitely want to talk about work." Claire laughs at the description of medieval-with-the-crime-of-Chicago. She laughs hard, but then the question about sensing things drags a solemn gaze from the young ginger. "Well, since you ask, there was something strange..."

And then Claire feels her brother lean in to kiss the top of her head. Interesting that she didn't startle when he touched her. He draws back and she looks up with a major case of kid-sister adoration. "Carter! You made it. I'm so glad. This is Sarah Stevens. She's the cop I met who was surfing at the beach the other day?" Clearly Claire's shared the encounter with Carter. "Sarah, This is my brother, Carter. Carter Reid." To her brother she says, "Grab a chair and pull it over and join us. Sarah was just telling me about Gray Harbor."

Both brows arch upward when Sarah informs him that Claire made her promse to babysit him, eyes sliding over to her with a questioningly amused look before he shakes his head and says, "I'll remember that." He then settles himself into a seat on the other side of Claire from Sarah, off to one side a little so that he can talk to both of them easily from where he's parked himself, slouching comfortably and stretching his legs out, one ankle over the other.

"Yeah?" he asks Claire when she says that Sarah was telling her about Gray Harbor. "I keep hearing how dangerous the place is and lots of weird stuff goes on. Other than Grizzly Den, though, I haven't seen anything particularly weird." He glances over at Claire for a moment, something unreadable in his expression, before he looks back to Sarah. "I mean, as far as weird crime and stuff goes. But, I don't start at the station until Monday. I suspect I'll be learning a lot more, then."

"That's me. Sarah 'Philosophy Queen' Stevens." The blonde raise a finger and twirls it in the air a little, like a princess declaring her own self-granted nickname. The hand is dropped back down to her beer. "But one thing I am sure about, is that you will find plenty of trouble to get into. You don't strike me as the kind of woman that won't. Mischevious." She narrows her eyes with a smirk. "That's you. Mischief incarnate."

The policewoman waves a hand around, as if dismissing a notion. "I'm not exactly an expert, but I've done my homework on our new little home here. In between making plans to go out again, I was talking about the weird deaths that abound here. The funny disappearances."

The Detective leans forward, setting her drink aside to stand just a bit, enough to turn her chair to more properly face the Reids. She slides back into it, but remains sitting forward, her legs curled up, resting on one hip, an arm braced against the arm of her seat to keep her upright.

"You're definitely going to see a lot more of it on the job, Reid. There are cases officially classified as an animal attack, with wounds made by no animal I've ever seen. Bodies pop out of lakes years after they've gone missing. People vanish from inside of locked homes. The more 'accidental' and non-homicide deaths I look into here in Gray Harbor, the weirder the pattern becomes. It's never flagged, it's never talked about, and trying to convince most people about it just gets you looked at and... talked about."

"When you get the cold cases, it gets even weirder. Things even the most head-in-the-sand denier can't easily explain away. It's like people would rather pretend it's not happening than try to figure out what's going on." Sarah stretches out an arm, briefly putting her hand on Claire's knee to get her attention. "You were about to say something? About something strange?"

Claire casts Sarah an iniquitous bit of a smile in response to the mishchievous declaration. "I don't have any idea what you mean, Sarah." The female cop alludes to homework about the strangeness of Gray Harbor. Claire doesn't hide that interested-hungry look from her brown eyes. The topic gets volleyed at her brother and she looks between the cops to and fro while sipping her R&C. The lack of attribution and conversation is even more intriguing than it was before. This may be the closest Claire's heard anyone local speak so candidly. She's look ing at her brother when Sarah's hand grazes her knee. With a startled look she turns back to Sarah. The query has Claire glancing pointedly at Carter, however, her brows raised. There's every indication that silent communication happens between the siblings before Claire pushes to her feet and sets her glass down on the nearby table. "I'm going to run inside to the restroom. I'll be right back." She steps over to her brother and leans down to whisper something further beside his ear, then smiles at Sarah and heads up to the main building without her black heels that are discarded in the sand beside her chair.

Carter smirks just a little bit when Sarah calls Claire Mischief Incarnate, clearly not disagreeing with that nickname, even if he doesn't say anything about it. But then Sarah goes on to talk about the sorts of crimes that he's likely to run into in Gray Harbor and his expression is somewhat neutral, composed, as though he's trying to just take it all in without judgment or reaction for the time being. He's used to big city crime, which has its own degree of weirdness. He can't help the tiny twitch of his lips when she mentions that it gets you looked at and talked about. Kind of how he is looking at her right now, possibly. "I guess I'll have to cross that bridge when I get to it, I suppose. See what there is to see."

When Claire leans in to whisper at him, he shoots her a dubious look, lips pressing slightly together but he says nothing as she heads up, watching her disappear into the building before his attention shifts back to Sarah. "So why do you think that so many people disappear mysteriously around here?" he asks.

Rather than answer, Claire declares bathroom breaks and gets up, whispering to her brother. Sarah's eyebrows shoot up in surprise, quirking her lips to the side in a little bit of bemusement as the redhead slowly retreats from view, towards the restroom of the establishment they currently patron. She watches her go, then looks back at the elder Reid with a snorted chuckle.

"Wow, your sister is something else, you know that? That wasn't suspicious at all."

The Detective snatches up her half-empty Heineken bottle as she leans to the rear in her chair, back coming to rest against it. She still leans heavily to one side, her legs curled up in the sand beside her as she eyes Claire's shoes for a long moment. There's a drink taken from the bottle as it's pressed to her lips, jaw and throat working to down most of the rest of it. When she comes back up for air, it's with a little 'ah' that has her setting the glass aside.

"That is a very, very good question, Reid. One I don't have an answer for. Yet. Maybe it is just crazy people. Maybe it's... just happenstance. But that doesn't add up. We're in the land version of the Bermuda fucking triangle here and nothing adds up. I believe in evidence, and there just... isn't any. No kidnapping is that clean. How many people just vanish into thin air and no one sees anything, hears anything, has any clues?"

"Very, very few, and that's across an entire country of three hundred million. Someone knows. That's just a feeling I get. Someone knows more, and I haven't found them yet. Haven't asked the right questions to the right person, maybe. Most frustrating thing in the world is not knowing."

"Yeah, subtlety is not her strong suit," Carter says with a little flicker of a smile that is fond as he glances in the direction that Claire disappeared off in. "She is definitely something else." It's a compliment, in its way. "Land-based Bermuda Triangle, eh?" he asks, considering that for a moment, but not seeming to have an opinion on it, not yet anyway. Too new. "So there's a /lot/ of unsolved cases around here, I take it? Proportionally to solved ones, I mean?"

"Land-based Bermuda Triangle." Sarah confirms, nodding her head grimly. Then she tilts it, waving a hand to flit the notion off into the growing night. "It's a crap metaphor, but you get what I mean. Here there be dragons and weird shit. Maybe you think it's just folklore, I don't. I mean, I did. But now I don't. Shit's... bizarre."

As the topic turns to the question of unsolved cases, the blonde surprisingly shakes her head, frowning intensely as her brows draw down.

"No, that's just it. They're declared solved. Accidents. Animal attacks. Manslaughter. Blamed on drifters or serial killers no one's ever seen or caught. But when you look into them, they don't add up. The wounds don't seem right. The facts and evidence don't point to that."

"I'm no M-E, but I lived in Cali. I've seen a cougar attack. They don't rip people's heads off. A bear might, but no bear tracks are found around the body. Or mountain lions for that matter. You get one that looks like it was clawed by the goddamned Wolverine, and it's written off as a lawnmower mishap. Or a drifter. The reality is that very, very few cases in Gray Harbor are considered 'unsolved'."

"But you try bringing that up, showing the pictures around, pointing at evidence that doesn't match up? People just look at you like you're crazy. So either I'm way crazier than I thought I was, and I didn't think I was THAT crazy, or... some shit is happening that no one wants to explain. It's the same with the S-O. No one at the Sherrif's looks any harder into this, either."

If there's one thing that Claire doesn't mind, it's being suspicious. She returns with a long glance to her brother before smiling at Sarah and dropping back to her chair, pulling her knees up and her feet to the side so as to maintain her dignity in the black dress she's wearing. She brushes sand off her bare feet, then reaches for her glass with her other hand. "What'd I miss? Have you reorganized the police department alphabetically or by height? I have to meet everyone in some order?" The bits of the conversation she heard as she approached sink in. "Sounds like it makes work a lot easier and a lot less rewarding."

"So someone's falsifying evidence, and closing out cases with false information, and no one is asking any questions? People's families aren't demanding justice?" Carter asks, finding it all a bit strange, brows furrowed in thought. "Are they brainwashed somehow? I mean... a whole town of brainwashed people who just accept whatever they're told?" That seems almost as unlikely to him as any other explanation. He looks over at Claire and says, "It sounds pretty fucked up, is what it sounds like."

Sarah says, "There she is. Back from her adventures." Sarah quips with a small, tight smile as the redhead returns and plops herself down. The blonde spends a few moments looking the woman over, as if trying to discern anything that might be different about her, before she shakes her head. "There's few things I hate more than not being able to solve a case.""

Sarah says, "It's awful. The nights we spend investigating, the sleep we lose. We do everything we can to detach ourselves, but some things get to you. You put too much of yourself into a case. Then... it happens. You don't get the win. The family blames you. Whoever did it walks. And at the end, there's the victim, whose life is ruined one way or another. To go through all that, and see the case labeled 'animal attack' when you KNOW it's a homicide...""

Sarah says, "Yeah." The policewoman looks down at her lap with a bitter smirk. "I can see why the suicide rate of cops is so high.""

Sarah says, "A whole town being in on it? Someone would have talked by now. A secret can only have be known to so many before it just becomes information. So either we have the cult straight out of Hot Fuzz going on here, or... fuck if I know.""

"There she is. Back from her adventures." Sarah quips with a small, tight smile as the redhead returns and plops herself down. The blonde spends a few moments looking the woman over, as if trying to discern anything that might be different about her, before she shakes her head. "There's few things I hate more than not being able to solve a case."

"It's awful. The nights we spend investigating, the sleep we lose. We do everything we can to detach ourselves, but some things get to you. You put too much of yourself into a case. Then... it happens. You don't get the win. The family blames you. Whoever did it walks. And at the end, there's the victim, whose life is ruined one way or another. To go through all that, and see the case labeled 'animal attack' when you KNOW it's a homicide..."

"Yeah." The policewoman looks down at her lap with a bitter smirk. "I can see why the suicide rate of cops is so high."

But she looks back up, once more shaking her head, this time raising a hand as if forestalling a notion. "No one's falsifying evidence. If they are... they're doing such a shit job of it. It's like people don't see it. They don't see what I see. I can look at something and clearly tell that more resembles a horror movie victim than a bear attack. And yet it's declared 'bear attack'."

"A whole town being in on it? Someone would have talked by now. A secret can only have be known to so many before it just becomes information. So either we have the cult straight out of Hot Fuzz going on here, or... fuck if I know."

A small, searing smirk. "Oh hey, welcome to the Force, by the way. Hell of an intro course. ...I really don't even expect you to believe me."

With a small frown at what Carter has said, Claire takes a drink from her glass, the expression melting away as she does so. "There will be no suicides of anyone on my watch." Claire says this with a certain vehemence that isn't unrealistic from a foster kid who has only ever had her brother to depend upon. She smiles vaguely at the mention of the crowd in 'Hot Fuzz' and looks between Sarah and Carter thoughtfully. This isn't her purview. Watching them discuss it is fine with her. "So you're saying this is a good place to start a cult. This is good to know." A smile breaks over her features and she lifts her glass. "Gray Harbor: Oh how fucked up you are, little town."

Grim. Carter just kind of listens to Sarah with a slight frown on his lips, his features a little bit pinched as she goes on. He's silent through it all, though, just taking it all in for what it is. There's a faint flicker of a half-smile when she welcomes him to the force and he says, "Yeah, thanks. I.. am going to go get a drink." Because he needs one after that intro class. "Either of you need a refill?" He then glances over his shoulder at Claire and smirks a little bit. "Don't start any cults while I"m gone."

"Honey, this is THE place to start a cult. And with everything I've seen, learning a coven of witches has put a hex on this place would not at all surprise me in any way whatsoever."

Sarah leans over again, once more placing a hand on Claire, this time on the woman's arm where bicep meets elbow and giving her a slight squeeze. "But next time we go out, Claire-bear, no work talk. Even a superstar like me needs her downtime." She clinks her empty bottle against the redhead's glass and then motions with it towards Carter.

"Yes, Rook! Buy your babysitter a Heinie!"

The blonde returns her attention to Claire, now that it's Carter's turn to vanish for a moment. "Seems like a nice guy. I guess there are much shittier brothers to have out there. Hey, uh... sorry about all this gruesome witchcraft cult talk in front of you. It's just easy to slip into that mode when you do it every day. To just... shop-talk. It's like it goes on autopilot and pours out of my mouth."

"Don't worry about him. We look after our own." Sarah rubs her thumb along Claire's arm, caressing skin reassuringly before she pulls her hand away. "But seriously, when we go dancing? Noooooo cop talk. I don't care HOW curious your morbid little mind is. I will put my foot down riiiiiiiiight... meow."

"Yes please," Claire sing songs to her brother's offer of a drink. "Another Rum 'n Coke, C. Thanks. And I'll start a cult if I feel like it!" A coven of witches. Claire muses on the idea for a few moments. "So.." She begins. "Is Carter what you expected after meeting me?" Brown eyes dance with ... yes, you called it, mischief. She stills as Sarah leans in and touches her jacket-clad arm. At Sarah's observation, Claire tosses her head back and laughs. "He's stubborn and a pain in the ass and I love him like I'll never love anybody else in the world. What? You don't have to apologize, Sarah. It's kind of a compliment that you feel okay to say it like it is in front of me. A lot of Carter's friends would clam up around me, like I was fragile or breakable or something." She sets down her glass and lays a hand atop Sarah's for a moment with a light pat. "I'm glad he's going to be working with someone like you. "

When they go dancing. Claire's full force smile returns. "When we go dancing there'll just be breathing and sweating and super-hot moves because that's how I roll, Detective. But I reserve the right to the juicy stories. It's one of the perks of being sister to a cop like Carter. So you'll spill. Oh, all the spilling will be happening." Claire regards Sarah with laughter. "Hearts will break. The beat will go on. Foreign substances may or may not be ingested. Like a real rave." She's still not certain she believes Sarah's talk of clubbing like she was used to in San Francisco. Not at all.

"Expected? No." The blonde presses her lips together solemnly, closing her eyes, and slowwwwly shakes her head side to side. "He is much, much better behaved. I can now see that you were the one your parents worried about."

"Some cops don't keep their families in the loop. So they worry when they hear things. Or don't... hear things. Or hear just the wrong things at the wrong moment. Point is, they worry more. They can't always handle it. And it's the not knowing that gets to them the most. You're cop adjacent, Claire-bear. I'll keep you in the loop."

Sarah laughs again, rare and brief as it is, leaning her head back and tilting a hand up to her mouth as she does so. Whens he comes back down, it's to run a hand through her hair and grin at the redhead next to her. "I'll be spilling all the things, don't worry. I have a hunch that you know just how to get it out of me."

"Listen, though..." Sarah glances down at the sand for a moment, then back up, a bit of reservation holding back the complete warmth in her eyes as they sit near the fire. "Look, I don't know you well. Maybe you're into that. Pop a few pills, smoke weed, I don't know. I'm not going to bust you for it if you are, and lord knows I don't judge people. But I can't do that."

"I told you I was in Vice, right? Well one of the reason I had to get out was addiction. It's pretty common in undercover work. I'm five years clean and plan on staying that way. Maybe that's not your thing, if that's too square for you, I get it. I will drink with the best of them, but I'm an addict and I always will be. One slip up and it's short step to pushing snorting or pushing shit into my arm."

Claire listens to the response about Carter with an expectant expression. When Sarah finishes it she laughs, delighted. "You got that right. All except for the parents part. We were foster kids almost all our lives. I don't remember our mom at all. And dad? Well we didn't know about him until we were notified of his will leaving us the house here in Gray Harbor. So -- I don't know about being worried about. Besides Carter. He's done the worrying over the years. So I guess you could count that."

Some cops don't keep their families in the loop. Sarah earns herself a small, quiet smile when she tells Claire that she's cop-adjacent. That smile turns devious as Sarah replies about how much spilling there'll be. "I usually just go on instinct." In regard to how she'll get anything out of the detective. "Yeah, you said something about Vice on the beach." Claire looks faintly startled when Sarah tells her she won't bust her for controlled substances or drugs. "I won't put you in that position, Sarah. I promise you that. But you've gotta let me go now and then to do my own thing." She adds, "Carter doesn't either. He's the cleanest brand of clean you'll ever meet." She quiets and listens to Sarah tell of her drug issues. "Wow, that sounds really awful, Sarah. I'm sorry you had to go through that. I'll keep anyone away from you. I promise." It's endearing and a bit naive of Claire to think it's so simple. But she's young. Her opinions of the world are strong. And she takes it upon herself to be the care-taker for people in her life.

Sarah's eyebrows launch up towards her hairline at the mention of being foster kids. Not because it was unusual, but... well yeah, it's kind of unusual. Sure cops meet a lot more of them, but it's not like they're a high percentage of the population. "Oh, I'm... sorry to hear that. It sounds like things have mostly worked out for you both, having each other through that."

She leaves off the unsaid 'unlike most fosters'.

"Hey, look, I'm a big girl all growed up, Claire. You don't have to worry about me. Even after leaving undercover, I still worked Vice for four years. I'm used to being around drugs, around people who use them. In my opinion it's stupid that they're even illegal."

"I don't care what you do, or how you live your life, I don't judge people. Just be careful who you buy them from. We have some real skeevy assholes around here that are... let's just go with 'not safe'? Don't buy anything from anyone in that fucking trailer park. It's liable as not to be poison."

She holds up a hand with a bright, toothy, sunny smile. "You don't owe me any explanations for you OR your brother. If he isn't clean, the piss test will tell. I just don't want you thinking you're with the buzzkill Narc when we go out next time."