The bookstore owner had been so excited, he hadn’t waited until after he’d gotten the map from me to sell it. He’d started calling around looking for the Cartographers the minute he’d hung up with me yesterday, until he’d found Wally somehow. And Wally was as eager as always at the prospect of yet another Agloe map, and incredibly curious. The amateur collectors’ network had been quiet for weeks, their own search on Wally’s behalf exhausted. From where had this mysterious copy suddenly appeared?
He finally got the man to admit he hadn’t found it himself, but rather was about to buy it from someone else. He wouldn’t reveal his source, terrified Wally was going to scoop him, until Wally agreed to pay him in advance. Wally did, of course. He wrote a check for whatever amount the man had named without protest.
And in return, the man had given him the address where he was supposed to meet me.
The address to our very house.
Tam hung back, unable to believe it was true. Wally came closer to me, until he was standing just inches away. My heart was hammering in my chest. I had never seen him so angry, ever. I was sure, in that moment, that he was going to kill me.
I had thought he might demand to know why I did it, or how I could betray him. But he didn’t say any of those things. He didn’t even ask me to apologize.
“Give it to me” was all he said.
Wally drove us to Agloe using the stolen map. We raced down County Road 206 and lurched into the town at a dangerous speed, the gas pedal practically against the floor. The car skidded into the main square, where Wally threw on the parking brake and then fought his way out of his seat belt. Everyone else—save Romi, who was at the motel—was running toward us, drawn by the squeal of our tires.
Wally snapped the Agloe map closed, and the dirt road disappeared behind us. Then, without another word, he climbed out of the car.
“What’s wrong?” Daniel demanded as Wally slammed his door shut. But Wally just walked away from him, too, as if he wasn’t there either. As he passed, he was so furious his anger radiated off him in waves, almost physically. Even as confused as they all were, it was impossible not to see how angry he was. Even you, at a safe distance in Eve’s arms, shrunk back from Wally.
“What happened?” Francis repeated, prying open the back door and pulling me out as Wally continued walking away. “What the hell is going on?”
“It’s bad,” Tam said, still shaken.
“I’m so sorry,” I finally managed, as I started to cry. I couldn’t help it. “I’m so sorry.”
“Wally!” Daniel shouted after him. “Where are you going?”
Wally didn’t stop. He was already halfway across the park in the town square, so far I’m not sure he even heard. He kept walking.
“Wally!” Tam cried.
But he still didn’t stop—even for Tam.
Francis turned back to us. “He’s going to the vault,” he said.
Tam looked at him. “The vault?”
“It’s where he’s keeping all the maps he’s . . . found.”
Daniel studied Wally’s fading form for a moment and then looked back to me. “Bear,” he said. “Did something happen with a map?”
But I couldn’t answer. I was too ashamed.
“Wally said we’ve been doing this all wrong,” Tam said for me. Even after I’d betrayed her—the whole group—she still was so kind. “He said that we’ve been letting the map control us, and it should be the other way around.”
But Daniel could tell anyway. He knew Tam too well. “You tried to take one, didn’t you?” he asked me.