“Oh God,” Ivy says, growing even more pale. “Now what?”
She heads down the hallway with Mateo and me at her heels. Charlie is almost exactly where I left him—curled in one corner of the couch, his eyes half-mast and his expression vacant—except now he has a remote in one hand. The television in front of him is tuned in to Central New England Cable, where Dale Hawkins is standing in front of…oh shit.
Carlton High School. Flanked by Emily Zhang, Ishaan Mittal, and Zack Abrams. “What are those three doing there?” I ask. I know Emily is Ivy’s best friend, but I’ve never seen her with either of the other two.
Ivy’s mouth is a thin line. “Can you rewind, please, Charlie?”
“Um…” Charlie stares at the remote like it’s a PhD-level math equation he has no hope of solving, and Ivy snatches it from his hand with a frustrated huff. She restarts the segment from where Dale first appears on-screen.
“Good afternoon, this is Dale Hawkins, continuing with today’s special edition of The Hawkins Report,” he says smoothly. “I’m at Carlton High School, where students are reeling from the news that their classmate, seventeen-year-old Brian Mahoney, was killed this morning. While reporting on that tragic occurrence, I was sent a link to a YouTube video featuring two of the Carlton High seniors standing beside me. These young men claim that one of their classmates, who has a history of bad blood with Mahoney and fits the description of the person of interest police have been seeking, has been missing from school all day.”
“No.” The last drop of color drains from Ivy’s face. “This can’t be happening.”
The camera pans across the three students standing beside Dale. Emily looks upset, Ishaan looks like he’s trying to figure out which side of his face will look better on television, and Zack looks nervous.
“Zack, what the hell,” Mateo mutters behind me, and it’s only then that I remember the two of them are friendly.
“Tips have been coming into the station all day, and we can’t possibly respond to them all,” Dale continues. “But this one interested me, because I’m acquainted with the young woman involved. Furthermore—and this is breaking news—my crew and I also happen to have seen her in Boston, not far from the crime scene, less than an hour ago. However, she fled before I was able to speak with her.”
“Oh nooooo,” Ivy moans.
On-screen, Emily leans forward to interrupt. “Excuse me, but I think it’s important to say that the YouTube video wasn’t a tip. It was gossip.”
Dale ignores her and angles his microphone toward Ishaan. “Ishaan Mittal, you’re one of the founders of the Carlton Speaks YouTube channel. When did you first begin to question whether Ivy Sterling-Shepard might be involved in what happened to Brian Mahoney?”
“Oh my God.” Ivy freezes the screen, like that’ll do something to slow the train wreck headed her way. “He said my name. On television. I am so screwed.” Her eyes dart wildly around her living room. “I can fix this. I have to fix this.” Then she flings the remote onto the couch, drops into a chair, and covers her face with her hands. “I have to fix this,” she repeats, voice muffled.
Mateo and I exchange glances. “How many people even watch cable news, though?” I say. Nobody answers me, which is probably just as well, since I have no idea and it might be a lot. Mateo puts a hand on Ivy’s shoulder and leans down, murmuring something in her ear that I can’t hear. She doesn’t move a muscle.
“Damn, that was messed up,” Charlie says, sounding almost sympathetic. “Except for Emily. She’s your ride or die, huh?”
Ivy doesn’t respond, and her misery tugs at my conscience. All day, she’s been trying to piece together the truth. And I’ve been either getting in her way, or staying so far out of it that I’m no help at all. Because I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know. I’m still not, but I can’t just stand around while her life falls apart, either.
“Charlie,” I say, turning toward the couch. While Ivy and Mateo were in the bathroom, I was so focused on pulling the drug story out of Charlie that I barely had the chance to ask him anything else. “When I answered Boney’s phone, you said, Did the guy show up? Who were you talking about?”
“A buyer,” Charlie says. He steeples his fingers and places them under his chin, forehead creased, like he’s making a mighty effort to concentrate. “Some dude called over the weekend about meeting up in Boston for a big order. We all have burner phones, and this one came through Boney’s. He wanted, like, twenty times as much as we usually sell. Boney was psyched, but Autumn freaked out.”
Mateo blanches. “Well, yeah. That’s way too much.”
“But Boney went anyway?” I ask.
Way to state the obvious, Cal. Really moving things along.