I had the nervous feeling, that much was true. Emma was lying. She said she was watching some nature show that wasn't even on that night. And I knew how she felt about Jordan. I'd been hearing about him for months.

But the rest of it was just in my head. Me running to Toby's house and he hacked into her e-mail and we found out where she was meeting him and we went and got Snake and Spike to save her. Well, it's obvious that's just wishful thinking. This is what really happened.

I sat home with the nervous feeling, like Emma was lying to me. I called her house a bunch of times and no one answered. And I kept getting more nervous. I bit my nails. I paced. Was she honestly going to meet some stranger from the net? It was so unsafe. Emma was smart, and it seemed like out of the two of us she was the smarter girl, but I'd never do anything like that.

I called J.T.

"Hi, Manny," he said, and even over the phone I could tell he was eating something.

"J.T., I'm worried about Emma," I twirled my hair around my finger. I had a bad feeling. The worst feeling of my life.

"Why? Don't tell me she went to meet that creep from the net?"

"I don't know, but she's not home and she said she would be home. And she said she was watching some nature show that isn't even on tonight!" Okay, I was getting shrill, but I couldn't help it.

"Where do you think she would go?" he said, still chewing on something and maybe licking his fingers.

"I have no idea. It's just, J.T., I'm scared," I said, and I just stared at the T.V. It was background stuff.

"She'll be fine, I'm sure she'll be fine," J.T. said, and it was the most curious lie someone could tell. It was the sort of lie that they thought they believed.

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I slept uneasily that night, tossing and turning all night long. But I woke up with this feeling like all my overwrought nerves and the frayed nervous feeling would all end soon, once I talked to Emma on the phone.

I called her house and it rang and rang and no one answered and I felt my heart in my throat and then someone picked up.

"Hello?" It was Spike. She sounded sleepy. I guessed it was pretty early. It was eight a.m.

"Hi, is Emma there?" I said, and she went to get her, and I held my breath, knowing this awful worry was just seconds from ending.

"Manny?" I heard the beginnings of the frantic worry in Spike's voice, "she's not here. She's not, um, with you?"

I closed my eyes. This was it. I'd have to bring Spike into the worry, and it would be worse. She hasn't been home all night. At least last night there was the hope that she really was meeting some 15 or 16 year old student activist animal lover. Now that hope had tarnished.

"Spike, Emma said she was going to be home last night watching a show on T.V., but I kept calling her and no one answered. And she said she might have been going to meet this kid Jordan that she met on the net. Except what if he's not really a kid but some pervert murderer?"

I was shaking. That's what I was thinking. She thought she was going to meet some kid but it was really a killer, and if that was the case she was probably already gone. There was nothing we could do.

"Manny, I'm going to call the police. You should probably come over here, in case they want to talk to you. Can you come over here?" Spike's voice had this raw desperation in it that was hard to listen to.

"Of course. Of course I can,"