Why had Buck left the town of Kasselton?

There was only one person who, it seemed, could really answer that question for me.

Buck himself.

“Where’s Buck?” I asked.

Brandon looked puzzled by the question. “I told you. He lives with his mom.”

“Where does she live?”

“I don’t remember,” Brandon said. “Somewhere in Maine or Massachusetts.”

“You have no idea?”

“I remember he used to go there a lot in the summer.” And then Brandon added something that changed everything: “He’d go boating or fishing off the island.”

I stood there. I was gripping the basketball so hard, I thought it might pop.

“Island?” I said.

“Yeah, his mom lives on an island. It’s got a weird name. Like Apollonia or Adonis or something with an A.”

I swallowed. “Adiona?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Brandon said. “Buck’s mom lives on Adiona Island.”

Chapter 38

Ema and I barely talked on the way back up to Adiona Island.

The seas were choppy this morning. We stood at the front of the ferry. The wind ripped at our faces. I watched Ema’s pale complexion redden under the onslaught. She didn’t care. I didn’t care either.

We had stopped trying to piece this together. There comes a time when you need to put all the theories aside. Mrs. Friedman had a poster in her classroom with a saying from Sherlock Holmes. I don’t remember the exact quote, so I’m paraphrasing, but it says that it’s a mistake to theorize before you have all the facts because then you twist facts to suit theories instead of the other way around.

We simply had no theories anymore.

We needed more facts.

The wind picked up. Everyone else had ducked inside to escape. Ema and I did not. We stared out as the island emerged from the fog.

“Mickey?”

The wind snatched away the word, making it hard to hear her.

“What?” I shouted back.

“I’m scared.”

“We’ll be fine,” I said.

“I love when you’re condescending.”

“I’m trying to be comforting.”

“Same thing, Mickey.” Ema looked up at me. “It’s cute that you want to be the hero, but I’d rather you were just honest, okay?”

I put my arm around her. It was just to keep her warm. Nothing else. She moved in closer and rested her head against my chest. We stood like that as the ferry moved closer to the port. I could almost feel something change as we docked. There was something in the air on this island.

A tension. An electricity.

We both felt it.

I moved my arm away. I still hadn’t heard from Troy, but then again, I hadn’t contacted him either. Spoon had tried to find where on the island Buck’s mother lived, but he couldn’t come up with anything. It didn’t matter. The island was small.

We would find the house.

Meanwhile, there was still the other matter. Ema had to go face-to-face with Jared Lowell, this online persona who had, it seemed, captured her heart. We started down the same road I had walked with Rachel. The wind grew less powerful as we moved inland, but it never left.

“Do you remember what Bat Lady said to me?” Ema asked.

“She said a lot of things.”

“At the very end. Right before she got in that car and she drove off with that shaved head guy.”

I did remember. “She asked if you loved the boy.”

“She didn’t ask. She said it. Like she knew.”

I nodded. “Right.”

“Do you remember what she said after that?”

That line I remembered verbatim: “‘It will hurt.’”

“Right.”

“And then you asked what will. And she said the truth.”

We were nearing Jared’s road now. If the island had seemed quiet last time, it seemed completely abandoned now. We had not seen anyone or even a passing car since leaving the dock.

“I think,” Ema said, “we may be coming close to that truth.”

We made the turn onto Jared Lowell’s road. It was completely still, silent. I almost expected one of those ghost-town tumbleweeds to blow across the street. Ema turned to me and said, “Which door?”

I pointed up the block a bit. “That one.”

“Okay, good.”

“Do you want me to wait here?”

Ema thought about it. “No, come with me.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” she said. “If this is going to hurt, I want you to be there for me.”

We started up that same cracked-concrete path. I knocked. Ema and I stood there, adjusting our shoulders and then our heads and doing that dumb stuff you do when you’re waiting for a door to open.

Eventually we heard footsteps heading toward us. I glanced at Ema. She gave me a hesitant smile. The door opened.

But it wasn’t Jared. It was his mother.

She frowned at me. “You were here a few days ago.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“What do you want?”

She said it as though it were an accusation.

“We’re here to see Jared.”

“What do you want with him?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. I looked toward Ema. She said, “We’re his friends.”

“From the Farnsworth School?”

“No, ma’am,” I said.

“Then where are you from?”

“Kasselton, New Jersey,” Ema replied.

A look of horror crossed the woman’s face. She leaned toward us, baring her teeth like a feral dog. Her eyes were wide. “Get out of here!” she screamed. “Get off this island and never come back!”

She slammed the door so hard that we nearly fell off the stoop.

Ema and I stood there, trying unsuccessfully not to look flabbergasted.

After some time had passed, Ema said, “What the heck was that?”

“I have no idea.”

“Did you see how she reacted when she heard where we’re from?”

I nodded.

“What could that have to do with my online relationship with her son?”

“Same answer,” I said.

“You have no idea?”

“Bingo.”

“So now what? Do we start searching for Buck?”

I thought about it. “Did you notice that tennis club on the way in?”

“The snooty-looking one?”

“Right. When Rachel and I were here last time, Jared said something about having to get to his job at the club. I mean, there may be more than one club on this island—”