“None of your business.”

Again his eyes drifted toward Rachel, and when they did, a cold realization entered my brain.

“Oh man,” I said.

“What?”

“When did you first see a picture of Ema?”

“What?”

A small seed of anger began to grow in my chest. “When did you first see what Ema looked like, Jared?”

He shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“No?” I said. “So maybe—wild guess here—it was around the time you decided not to talk to her anymore?”

“I told you. We never talked.”

“E-mailed, texted, whatever. You know what I mean. Is that when you first saw her picture?”

But I saw something churning behind his eyes. “Yeah? So what of it?” He grabbed my arm and pulled me away from Rachel. He spoke in a soft voice.

“Dude, do you really blame me? I mean, look at the girl you’re with.”

I was actually cocking my fist when I remembered that his mom was still at the front door.

“Jared?” she called out.

“I’ll be there in a second, Ma.” He leaned close to me and kept his voice low. “Look, okay, maybe I should have told her better. Maybe I should have made it clearer, but really, it wasn’t a big thing.”

“It was to her.”

“That’s not my problem.”

“Yeah, Jared, it is.”

“What? Are you going to hit me, big man? Defend Ema’s honor?”

Man, I wanted to. I wanted to smack him good and hard. “You have no idea what a great person Ema is.”

“Then why don’t you date her?” He grinned. “I’d be happy to take Rachel off your hands.”

Rachel put her hand on my shoulder, her way of telling me to stay calm. “Not worth it,” she whispered.

“Look,” Jared said, “I’ll e-mail her, okay? I’ll let her know. You’re right about that. But, Mickey? You better get out of my face now, because one thing is for sure: This is none of your damned business.”

CHAPTER 30

I called Ema, but it went straight into her voice mail. I sent her a brief text: Found Jared. He’s safe. Call if you have any questions.

“I blew it,” I said to Rachel.

“How?”

“Got too aggressive.”

“You were mad.”

“It’s just . . . when I think of Ema waiting by her computer . . .”

Rachel smiled. “You’re sweet.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t even ask him the important question.”

“That being?”

“Why is Jared home? Why isn’t he still at school?”

“We didn’t come to change his life,” Rachel said. “We were supposed to find him. Mission accomplished.”

I knew that she was speaking the truth. Jared had vanished—and we had found him. Period. The end.

But something felt very wrong about it.

When we arrived back home, I got a text from Brandon Foley: Anything new on Troy’s test?