“DR. GEAUX, HONEST, IF I KNEW WHERE CALVIN WENT, I would tell you. I swear. But I don’t.”

She had knocked on their door, pounded really, at six o’clock in the A.M., which was seven minutes ago. Emmet was still trying to come fully awake when she’d started interrogating him about Calvin’s whereabouts. Thus far, his sleep-addled brain could only determine that his friend was missing, and he’d left a note.

“Was it … him?” Emmet asked.

“Him who?” Dr. Geaux asked.

“Do you think Dr. Catalyst …” Emmet let the words hang because it was too frightening to even consider.

“No,” she said. “Dr. Catalyst didn’t kidnap him. He left a note. It’s Calvin’s handwriting.” Dr. Geaux ran nervous hands through her hair and stalked across their living room.

“Rosalita,” Emmet’s dad said, “I know this is hard. But do you think Dr. Catalyst could have forced him to write the note? To cover his tracks?”

She stopped pacing and let out a big sigh of frustration.

“No! I don’t think so. Calvin was acting a little strange when we got home from the police station. Almost like he was on the verge of telling me something. I should have pressed him on it, but I’ve … I’m just so tired.”

Dr. Doyle stood and put his arms around her. She slumped against him and tears rolled down her cheeks. Which really scared Emmet. Dr. Geaux was the most fearless woman he’d ever met. She went after Pterogators! If it wasn’t Dr. Catalyst, Emmet couldn’t imagine why Calvin would do something like this.

“Why would Calvin run off?” Emmet muttered.

“Did you alert the task force?” Dr. Doyle asked.

“Yes,” she said. “They’re coordinating a search right now. Honestly, Emmet, please don’t take offense, but I came straight here. Calvin isn’t — he doesn’t — he’s not as daring as you are and I thought maybe …”

“You thought we were off on another one of my harebrained schemes?” Emmet asked.

Dr. Geaux laughed in spite of herself. “Yes. Forgive me. But yes.”

“It’s okay, Dr. Geaux. If I were you, I would have suspected the same thing. Did you try tracking his cell phone?”

“First thing I would have done, if it hadn’t been sitting on his desk right next to the note,” she said. She started pacing again.

Emmet threw himself backward on the couch and looked up at the ceiling. “We need to think like Calvin.”

Emmet lay there, the ceiling fan turning slowly. Something had changed. Calvin wouldn’t usually do this. Not to his mom. He wouldn’t have just taken off without a reason in the middle of a crisis. In Emmet’s mind, that meant it was connected to Dr. Catalyst somehow. It was the only thing that made sense.

And what had changed regarding their efforts to capture Dr. Catalyst? The Blood Jackets, but that was nothing new. To Emmet, it felt like Dr. Catalyst was releasing at least one souped-up critter a week. And take last night. While Emmet was busy freaking out in the school, Calvin was his normal, cool-as-the-other-side-of-the-pillow self. Seeing a problem, confronting it, solving it, surviving.

He closed his eyes. In his mind, he went back to the police station. The suspect. In coming up with a sketch, they’d all contributed thoughts and comments: Riley, Raeburn, and Emmet. Not Calvin. But Calvin never said much anyway, so that didn’t necessarily point to anything.

Concentrating like Officer Mackey had shown him, he saw Calvin sitting at the conference table, so quiet and still, and remaining there even after everyone else had left the room. The sketch.

“Did you check the Dragonfly One?” Emmet asked Dr. Geaux.

“No? Why would he go there?” she asked.

“Can you call? Have someone check? Please?”

Dr. Geaux called a number on her phone and spoke into it. A few minutes later her phone rang.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s gone?” She stood up. “Patch me through to Manny in Park Ops.” She put the phone on speaker, so Emmet and his dad could hear.

“Manny here, Doc. What’s up?”

“Manny, did you happen to hear from Calvin this morning? Did he file a float plan with you?”

“No, ma’am. Haven’t heard from Little Papi in a while.” Emmet remembered Calvin talking to Manny the first time they went out on the airboat. Manny was always cheerful.

“The Dragonfly One is gone from the dock; can you pull up the GPS locator?”

“Sure thing, hold on.” They could hear the sound of computer keys clicking over the phone. Then again. And again.

“Manny?” Dr. Geaux prodded him.

“I’m checking … I … Did you say it’s gone from the dock?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m gonna have to run a system diagnostic because according to the GPS readings it’s still right there where it should be,” he said. Manny’s voice was genuinely puzzled.

“Don’t bother with the diagnostic, Manny. I know you keep that system in top-notch condition. I think Calvin removed the GPS unit and set it on one of the other boats.”

“What?” Manny asked. “Why would Little Papi do something like that? Did that Catalyst bozo take him? Because if he did, I’ll track down that son of a —”

“No. I don’t think it was Dr. Catalyst, Manny,” Dr. Geaux interrupted. “But can you alert staff at all stations to be on the lookout for him? And get ready to coordinate a grid search; I’m going to be sending out all hands.”

“Copy that, Doc. I’m on it.” Manny disconnected.

Dr. Geaux looked at Emmet and his dad, and her tears started again.

Emmet almost said something but needed to think more first. The worst thing to do would be sending everyone off on a wild-goose chase. It would take time and it would require him to think like Calvin.

“Calvin,” he muttered to himself, “what have you done?”