“What’s wrong?” Theo asked.
“Nothing. What happened to your house?”
“I told you: those assholes were here looking for the flash drive.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know it was this bad.”
“It’s actually a lot better than it was. Cart’s made this shithole livable.”
“Right,” Auggie said. “Cart.”
Theo met his gaze.
“That’s nice,” Auggie said. Then Auggie rubbed his mouth. “Why do we need to talk?”
“What’s going on? You’re acting weird.”
“Nothing’s going on.”
With a grunt, Theo limped back to the kitchen. He got one of the Christmas Ales, opened it, and spun the cap into the trash. Then he sat at the table that had somehow survived two break-ins by the Ozark Volunteers—the table Ian had refinished, the table Ian and Theo and Lana had shared God only knew how many meals at.
“Your roommate is trying to blackmail me,” Theo said. He grabbed his satchel from the seat next to him, pulled out the flash drive, and set it on the table. “He has a video of us outside the sheriff’s office. It shows me kissing you. You can see both of us pretty clearly.”
“Oh shit.”
“I know you’re worried about your business—”
“No, fuck that. That piece of shit is trying to blackmail you? What does he want?”
“He wants me to stay away from you.”
Auggie was silent for a moment. “You’re joking.”
“No, I’m not joking.”
“Theo, I didn’t—I don’t know how he—I’m eighteen, right? So it’s legal.”
Something about the way Auggie said it made Theo close his eyes and laugh. “Calm down. He can’t get me arrested.”
“So what’ll happen to you if he releases this?”
“Nothing. I mean, people will ask questions, and it certainly won’t look good. But it didn’t happen while you were in my class, and I won’t be the first instructor who’s had a relationship with a former student.” Theo took a drink, and the ale’s honey and cinnamon was cloying tonight. “What’ll happen to you?”
“What?”
“If he posts this, what will happen to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it going to ruin your business?”
“I don’t know. I mean, maybe.” Auggie squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again. “I’m going to talk to him.”
“Auggie, that’s not a good idea. In fact, it’s not a good idea for you to be around him at all.”
“No, I’m going to talk to him. I’m going to tell him to fuck off and never—”
“He’s not right in the head, Auggie. Pay attention. He’s obsessed with you. This isn’t normal behavior, and you shouldn’t be around him.”
“We’re going to fix this,” Auggie said. “We’re going to figure it out.”
“Ok.”
“It’ll be fine.”
Theo took another long pull of the beer.
“Anyway, I think I’ve got a break in the stuff with Robert.”
“What? Really?”
“Yeah, I got into the cloud backup for his phone. Do you have your laptop?”
After a moment of digging around in his satchel, Theo set the computer on the table.
Auggie navigated through a series of screens, and there it was: the full contents of Robert’s phone.
“Holy shit,” Theo said.
“I’ve been looking at it,” Auggie said. “There’s a few things I think you should see.” He clicked into the archived messages and then to a chain of messages with AL. “Albert Lender, right? And look at this.”
It was a series of messages from late August escalating in intensity, with Lender demanding that Robert produce some sort of information about the Ozark Volunteers and their drug operations.
“But what does he want to know?” Theo said.
“Nothing. I mean, nothing in particular. He just wants a bust or something. Whatever Robert can give him. Now look at the last message from Robert.”
Theo read it aloud: “Don’t need your narc money anymore. Pretty soon someone’s going to be paying me to be quiet. Got everything I need on one little flash drive.” After a moment, Theo said, “Well, that sounds like blackmail. Christ, how stupid was he to blackmail a dirty cop?”
“I don’t know,” Auggie said. His hands hovered above the keyboard, and then he said, “This next part is going to be weird.”
“Oh boy.”
“Remember how we couldn’t figure out why Robert was so interested in me?”
“Please don’t tell me he’s another psycho like Orlando.”
“No, but I think my ex might be.”
“What?”
Auggie clicked into Robert’s emails. “My ex-girlfriend, Chan. She posted this Craigslist ad; she wanted to hire someone to get embarrassing pictures of me. Or video, I guess. Whatever. She says, ‘Dirt on my ex, pics preferred.’ And Robert answered it. We know he picked up Craigslist jobs, especially ones where he had to play a role because he thought he was such a great actor.”
“How do you know this is about you? How do you know this is your ex?”
Auggie went back to the archived messages, where a long string of texts between Robert and Chan spelled out the details.
“That is fucking batshit,” Theo said.
“She’s got an Instagram account built around this kind of material; she was obviously planning it all the way back in August. It’s not just good revenge; it’s going to make her a fucking fortune.”
Theo shook his head. “So that’s why Robert wanted to add my class. That’s why he pretended to pledge Sigma Sigma. That’s why he approached you at the party and suggested stealing a car. That’s why he filmed you driving the Porsche. Then what?”
“Then somebody killed him and posted those clips to throw suspicion on you and me.”
“Who killed him?”
Auggie shook his head.
“Why us?” Theo asked.
“Probably because we were in those videos from the night of the car crash. They were the most recent videos on Robert’s phone.”
“Why kill him?” Theo asked.
“I think Lender did it. To silence him, because he thought the blackmail was about him. It wasn’t, though; Robert was planning on blackmailing me.”
Theo sipped his ale. Then he shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. Lender couldn’t have killed him because Lender was
