Charlie squints at her, thoughtful. “Is it weird that I find you kinda hot right now?”
“Okay, listen,” Mateo interrupts, clearly not liking the conversational shift. “So what exactly are we saying here? That Ms. Jamison is part of some drug ring? Working with the guy Boney talked to? She figured out who was selling the stolen drugs, and he—what? Tried to buy them back? Or take them back. Or offer Boney some kind of partnership, maybe.” His jaw sets. “Whatever it was, it didn’t go well for Boney.”
“Or the guy,” I say. “If he’d gotten what he wanted, Charlie’s house probably wouldn’t have gotten ripped apart.”
“Right,” Mateo says, turning to Charlie. “How many pills did you guys take from the shed, total? Autumn wouldn’t tell me.”
Charlie tugs on his puka shell necklace. “I mean, a lot.”
“What’s a lot?” Mateo presses. “Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?”
“Like a hundred,” Charlie says. I relax a little, because it could be worse, until he adds, “Bottles.”
“A hundred bottles?” Mateo starts pacing the room. “Are you kidding me right now? How many pills per bottle?”
Charlie passes a hand over his forehead. “Dude, this is like…a lot of math.”
I jump in. “Conservatively, let’s say twenty per bottle, but it’s probably more. At minimum that’s two thousand pills, and at eighty dollars a pill, we’re talking about…”
Ivy wrings her hands. “Hundreds of thousands of dollars,” she finishes, her eyes wide and alarmed. “That’s a ton of money to lose.”
“So we’re talking a big-time operation, aren’t we?” I say. “Run by the kind of people who’ll hunt you down and kill you if you cross them.” I can’t believe those words just came out of my mouth; at what point, exactly, did this become real life? I’m pretty sure it’s Charlie’s fault, so I turn to him and add, “How did they figure out it was you guys?”
Charlie heaves a deep sigh. “I don’t know, man. Maybe it was the Weasel.”
“The what?” Mateo asks.
“The Weasel,” Charlie repeats.
“Okay. Sure.” Mateo puts a hand over the non-injured half of his face and rubs it vigorously for a few seconds before turning to Charlie with a look of patient forbearance. “I’ll bite. Who’s that?”
“Dude, no one knows.” Charlie sits up with more energy than he’s shown since he tried to gouge Mateo’s eyes out. “But you know my brother, Stefan? Last year, when he was a senior, he said that any time someone in Carlton tried to have a little drug hustle on the side, they’d get shut down. Like, their supplier would flake out, or the buyers wouldn’t show, that kind of thing. Stefan decided there had to be somebody making the rounds at parties and ratting people out. Either a total narc, or somebody who has their own business and doesn’t want competition. Stefan calls them the Weasel.” Charlie turns toward Mateo and adds, “You know what? Whoever it is, you probably got on their bad side, if they switched your name out with your cousin’s. Don’t antagonize the Weasel, man!” He starts laughing, like this is all a big joke, and I’m seized with a sudden urge to punch him.
Mateo looks as though he feels the same way. “Let me get this straight. You’ve known since last year that someone’s been keeping an eye on anyone who tries to sell drugs in Carlton—and you decided to do it anyway?” The smirk fades from Charlie’s face as Mateo asks, “Did you bother telling Boney and Autumn about this person?”
“What? No. That’s—listen, man, that’s just Stefan being Stefan, you know? He always says weird Breaking Bad shit like that. I mean, come on, the Weasel? It’s a joke. I don’t take it seriously.”
“Maybe you should have,” Mateo says in the same cold undertone.
“Okay, but…” Charlie’s gaze darts around the room, like he’s looking for someplace else to cast blame. “But you guys said Ms. Jamison is the one who put the list of names together, so that doesn’t fit. She doesn’t go to parties, and if she did? People would notice. She’d be a crap Weasel.” He nods, seemingly satisfied with his own logic, before adding, “Why do you think she’s dealing? Because teachers don’t get paid enough, or what?”
“Well, they don’t,” Ivy says. “But we haven’t fully analyzed her motives yet. They could be financial, or they could be more personal. Maybe she got involved with the wrong type of guy.” Her eyes slide toward me, eyebrows raised, and she mouths the words we read on Lara’s card: Love you so much, angel.
“What, Coach Kendall?” Charlie snorts out a dismissive laugh. “Gotta tell you, I don’t see it. That guy won’t even hand out Tylenol.”
“I’m not talking about Coach Kendall,” Ivy says. “We think she’s seeing somebody behind his back. Somebody with the initial D. Maybe he’s Boney’s mystery buyer, and she gave him the code to the building.”