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“Say something, Ree. Go ahead.”
Emery shut his mouth.
“What about you?” John-Henry asked Theo. Then, to Auggie, “You?”
Auggie shook his head.
Colt looked like he was about to burst into tears. “Pops, I didn’t know—I just thought Lorcan and them—”
“It’s all right, Colt,” Emery said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“No,” John-Henry said. “He didn’t. Apparently, he is the closest thing I have to a responsible adult in this family.” He took a deep breath, pinched the bridge of his nose, and let the air out slowly. Then he said, “Do I have to handcuff you, or can I trust you to drive yourselves to the station?”
9
Auggie had never sat in the chief of police’s office before. He wasn’t sure he liked it. The office itself was fine: it had John-Henry written all over it, from the tastefully modern desk to the oh-so-slight disorganization of files spread next to the keyboard, to the framed photos of Emery, John-Henry, and Evie—and now, one that had clearly been taken over the summer at a beach, with Colt. When John-Henry had sat them in here, he’d pulled the blinds on the windows that looked out on the station’s bullpen, but sounds filtered in through the glass: men and women talking, the rattle of the copier, a ringing phone. The smell of burned coffee soaked the air.
“So, if we go to prison,” Auggie said, “I won’t be upset if you don’t want to share a cell.”
Theo tried to smile, but it was like muscle memory, there and then gone. His eyes were seeing something Auggie couldn’t see.
Auggie took Theo’s hand. This got him a glance that seemed almost startled, as though Theo had forgotten he was there.
“It’s going to be ok.”
Theo nodded.
The door opened, and John-Henry stepped into the room. The color was high in his cheeks, and he moved stiffly, without the usual ease and grace Auggie associated with him. He sat, back straight, and shot a look at the files on the desk. He closed them. He set them aside. He looked up again.
“John-Henry, we’re really sorry—” Auggie began.
“Be quiet, please,” John-Henry said. And this wasn’t the guy who flipped burgers at the grill—poorly—to make Colt laugh, and it wasn’t the guy who raced Evie and Lana around the backyard, and it wasn’t the guy who got sent into the living room to pick up his socks, and who laughed and shook it off, when another guy might have felt like he had to put on a show for the guests.
Auggie stopped talking.
For a moment, John-Henry seemed to struggle with what to say. What came out, hard and low and furious, was “What were you thinking?”
Theo’s head came up.
“Do you want to explain it to me?” John-Henry asked. “He’s seventeen. He’s a minor. He was being held against his will, threatened—”
“No one threatened him,” Theo said.
“—and interrogated by a gang of misfits with an excessive regard for my husband. That’s kidnapping—”
“False imprisonment,” Auggie said with a weak smile.
John-Henry’s palm cracked against the desk. “I told you to be quiet.”
“Don’t talk to him like that,” Theo said.
“It’s ok,” Auggie mumbled, but his face was prickling, and he had to blink rapidly. “Theo, it’s fine. We both need to be quiet.”
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” John-Henry said, “if you want to explain why you’ve decided that vigilante justice—”
“Give me a break,” Theo said.
“—is an excuse for you to commit a felony—”
