“What do you mean, you can’t tell me?”

“I promised.”

She pushed past me and headed down the road. I caught up to her.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No.”

“This has to be a joke,” I said, which was dumb because I knew that she wasn’t kidding and that this was the furthest thing from a joke.

“Remember when you couldn’t tell me about who shot Rachel and her mother?”

“You’re still mad about that? I told you. It wasn’t my secret to tell.”

She held up a hand. “You have it wrong.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not mad about it at all. I understand now. I’m using your example so you’ll understand. I can’t tell you. I made a promise.”

I frowned. “To Buck?”

“It doesn’t matter, Mickey. I can’t tell you.”

I jumped in front of her again. “This isn’t the same thing. Buck isn’t Rachel. I came all this way with you. I’m a part of it. I want to know.”

Ema shook her head. “Sometimes you’re better off not knowing.”

“Really? You’re going to pull that line on me?”

She walked away from me.

My hands formed fists and I shouted, “I didn’t come here just for you.”

“I know.”

“I came to find Buck for myself.”

She nodded without slowing her pace. “To help Troy.”

“To find the truth.”

“You’ll find it soon enough,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

But Ema didn’t speak again. Not on the road. Not on the ferry or the bus. Not even a good-bye when we went our separate ways back in Kasselton.

CHAPTER 42

Spoon said, “Let it go.”

Rachel and I were back in his room. I was filling them in on what had happened on Adiona Island.

“How can I let it go?”

“Ema is, like, totally awesome, right?”

“Right.”

“And you trust her one hundred percent, right?”

“Right.”

“So why stop trusting her now?” Spoon asked. “She said it’s best if you don’t know. So guess what? It’s best that you don’t know.”

I looked at Rachel. She shrugged. I looked back at Spoon. He pushed his glasses up his nose and met my eye. Bat Lady had said that he was meant for great things. I started thinking back to the beginning of this, that first day when he introduced himself to me by asking if I wanted to use his spoon. It had been his idea how to get into that computer in the school office, his idea to get into Ashley’s locker, his idea even how to get into school the night he was shot. It was Spoon who had told us to go to the Farnsworth School and to Adiona Island twice.

I had always thought that I was the leader of this group.

But maybe it was Spoon.