“I think he’s been in here,” I said, bending to pick it up. The roll was dusty, as if it had been forgotten there for some time. “A lot.”
We looked up slowly. Like most of the structures in Agloe, the building was a simple, modest commercial construction. A single story, a basic roof, with a few small windows along the walls and one main door.
As Eve and I were surveyors, our domain within the town was always changing, different every day, but the others all needed more fixed workstations. I had suspected for a while that—the same way Tam and Romi had taken over the ice cream parlor and the printing factory, and Daniel and Bear had taken over their experimental neighborhood block—Wally had adopted a small place for himself, too. Somewhere he could store his research and think in peace. He’d always needed quiet when conducting his final reviews of our projects, to ensure every single number and measurement was exact.
Maybe that was why none of us had tried very hard to seek him out on the days that he was with us in Agloe—we knew he needed his space and silence. Or maybe that was an excuse. Maybe each of us were so caught up in our little parts that we didn’t want to be distracted by the others’ troubles so clearly brewing around us, and so we left it until it was too late.
We hesitated, studying the door.
“Are you sure?” Eve asked. “It feels . . . wrong, somehow.”
I knew what she meant. I felt the same way.
But that was all the more reason to go in.
“If he’s got nothing to hide, then he’s got no reason to be angry,” I said. “We could even do our survey of his building now, when we won’t be interrupting him while he’s inside, trying to work,” I added, to seem more optimistic about Wally’s innocence than I felt.
Eve didn’t look convinced either, but she nodded.
Slowly, I eased the door open.
From the outside, the place had reminded me of a small-town library at first—but as I looked at what Wally had done with the interior, and the way the silence hung oppressively around us, the building didn’t really look like a library at all.
It looked more like a vault.
There, organized and labeled and catalogued on what had once been bare shelves, were copies of the same map Wally and Tam had found by accident, the very first day we came to Rockland.
Not just a handful, but hundreds of them. Thousands, even.
Thousands of maps of Agloe.
“Oh my God,” Eve finally said.
What had it cost him to do this? How much money? Or how many sins?
“We have to tell them,” I said. “How far this has gone. What he’s doing.”
“How did we miss this?” Eve asked. “How did we not see?”
“Maybe we would have, if we hadn’t been so caught up in us,” I replied.
Eve grimaced, ashamed.
My gut twisted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just as much to blame. More, even. I’m the one betraying someone.”
“No, you aren’t,” Eve said. “I’m just as guilty.” She took a breath and let it out shakily. “I’m trying, Francis. I really am.”
“Me too,” I sighed.
The silence lingered a moment too long.
“Let’s go get the others,” Eve said, looking away from me. “Before Wally comes back.”
“He’s been gone three days.” I shrugged. “It gets longer and longer every time.”
“Still,” she replied. “We’ve seen enough to share our concerns with everyone. Better sooner rather than later.”