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“Sit down,” Emery snapped.
Keelan dropped back into the seat, paling under his tan.
“Yes, exactly,” Emery said, still staring at the kids. “Would you like to explain what the hell you’ve done? Feel free to start with the kidnapping and proceed from there.”
“This is why I said you probably weren’t a police officer,” the beanpole said.
“And for the last time,” Emery said through gritted teeth, “I most certainly was a police officer.”
“Because a police officer would know that kidnapping involves taking a person against their will to another location—”
“Which you did,” Keelan said. “I was changing in the locker room!”
“—whereas false imprisonment simply involves the act of restraint, limiting a person’s movement to a restricted area.”
“Yeah, that!” Keelan shouted.
“Be quiet,” Emery said, the words cold and snipped off. Then, heat blooming, he turned his attention back to the beanpole. “You seem to be operating under the delusion that because you coerced this boy at gunpoint—”
“At stun-gun point,” the girl said, and the stun gun zapped the air. Keelan jolted again. His eyes were huge.
“At any kind of gunpoint!” Emery’s voice had a slightly unraveled quality. “God damn it, you made me forget what I was going to say.”
Arthur made a sympathetic noise. Auggie choked—and then Theo realized it was smothered laughter.
Emery’s face turned a shocking red.
“I’m going to step in here,” Theo said, “because I have no idea what’s happening, and because I think John-Henry would hold me responsible if Emery had a stroke. Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”
Everyone started talking at once.
Auggie whistled, and the sound cut through the noise.
Throwing him a thankful glance, Theo said, “Keelan, let’s start with you.”
“They’re crazy!” Keelan put his hands on the arms of the chair, as though he might push himself up, but when Emery made a noise deep in his throat, he let his hands fall again. “They broke into the locker room and told me they were going to zap me with that thing if I didn’t do what they said! Then they made me come in here, and then they taped me to the chair, and that guy showed up. He wouldn’t let me go! I’m going to sue the shit out of all of you!”
“I cut the tape and told him he was free to go,” Emery said. “I also suggested that other adults might be interested in the contents of his bag.” He nodded toward the hockey bag snugged between a pair of floor scrubbers. “Coaches, for example. Athletic directors. The police. A wide variety of people have a vested interest in the abuse of controlled substances.”
“I told you, they’re mine,” Keelan said. “My mom has to get the prescription filled, that’s all.”
“I’d like to meet the physician prescribing ten milligrams of diazepam to a teenage boy.”
“It’s for my anxiety.”
“Sure,” Emery said. “But you’re still here, aren’t you?”
Keelan shot him a furious look, one that Emery returned unfazed.
“And why did you kidnap Keelan?” Theo asked the Breakfast Club.
“Falsely imprison,” Auggie said. Then, with a grin for the Butterscotch Kids, “He wasn’t a cop either.”
Dot and Stevie laughed, and Arthur nodded like he’d suspected all along. Only Lorcan looked slightly horrified.
“Thank you for that,” Theo whispered.
“Answer the goddamn question,” Emery said.
