“He’s more pretty-boy. You’re more what the ladies would call rugged. But, yeah, Mickey, there are similarities. Lots of them.”

“So what’s your point, Spoon?”

“No point. I just find it interesting that Ema fell for a guy who could be, well, you.”

I said nothing.

“Mickey?”

“What do you want me to say here, Spoon? We’re both tall and play basketball. I don’t attend a fancy-shmancy private school. I’m only a sophomore, not a senior. I don’t live with my mother—she’s in rehab, remember?”

Spoon nodded. “That’s all true.”

“And this is still feeling like a catfish to me. You were able to independently confirm that Jared Lowell is real?”

“Yes. There are articles on his ball playing, complete with photographs and statistics. He’s real.”

“I’m still thinking this is a catfish,” I said. “All the stuff you said, okay, there are similarities. So someone—maybe Troy or Buck or some other toad—found this guy online and made up a fake Facebook page—”

“No,” Spoon said.

“How’s that?”

“The Facebook page has existed for four years. It’s a little hard to explain, but the original setup ISP originated on Adiona Island—where he lives. He also used it. Not a lot. He isn’t a big Facebook guy. But it was in use and the posts are obviously not fake.”

“So Jared Lowell is real?”

“Yes.”

“And his Facebook page is his?”

“Yes.”

I pointed my palms to the sky. “So where is he now?”

“Normally I would say there is no big mystery.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning there are no articles or indications that he’s missing. I assume he’s at school. If he was hurt or vanished, I think there would be something online, don’t you?”

“I do,” I said.

“All we know for certain is that he’s not currently using his Facebook page and has stopped communicating with Ema. Normally I would say that this doesn’t concern us. For whatever reason, he decided that Ema wasn’t for him and, well, was less than a gentleman about informing her.”

“Normally.”

“Right.”

“So why isn’t this ‘normally’?”

“Because nothing about us is normal, Mickey,” Spoon said. “You know that.”

I did.

“And while many photographs were taken down from his Facebook page, only one has been added since he stopped talking to Ema.”

I nodded. “The Abeona butterfly.”

“Right.”

I sighed. “So we need to see this through.”

“Right again. Unless.”

“Unless what?”

“We have our enemies, don’t we, Mickey?”

I thought about the sandy-haired paramedic with the green eyes. He had taken my father away from the car accident. He had set Bat Lady’s house—Abeona’s headquarters—on fire while I was inside.

“We do,” I said.

“He could be another. Jared Lowell. This could be a setup.”

Spoon could be right. But it gave me another idea. “Do you remember this?”