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.