Finally, I confessed everything, in halting, shuddering gasps. I swore to them that I wasn’t really trying to steal a map—I was just trying to save myself from financial ruin and protect the town from becoming evidence in an eviction case. Even if I’d given the map to that man, who else was he going to sell it to but Wally? Who else would ever want it or pay so much?
“First me, then Francis and Eve, then Romi, and now Bear,” Daniel mused.
Eve had come up to us, still holding you. “Wally thinks we’ve all betrayed him, and threatened the town, in our own way,” she said, quietly. “Even Tam.”
“How have I threatened the town?” Tam objected. “I’m the one who discovered it!”
“But you’re the one who made him share that discovery with the rest of us in the first place.”
Tam fell silent at that. She stared after where Wally had disappeared around a corner of silent, empty buildings. “You think he’s going to do something drastic?” she asked.
Francis looked at her. I could see the shame of the robberies he’d helped commit on his face, the same way my own theft was etched onto mine. “Hasn’t he already?”
That sent a chill through all of us.
“Come on,” Tam said. “Show us the way.”
We followed Francis, walking far apart from each other, as if we were all going there alone rather than together. Maybe we were. We’d all been alone for a long time. At the door to the vault, Tam knocked once, but Wally didn’t answer.
“Wally, we’re coming in,” Tam said. She opened the door and disappeared inside.
We all waited a moment, but she didn’t come out. You squirmed in Eve’s arms, and she let you slide to the ground, so you could stand on your own.
“Tam?” I called as we came in but as soon as we did, I saw why she hadn’t answered.
I stood next to her, looking around as the rest of the group murmured in surprise.
“It’s . . . empty,” I finally said.
Wally had been driving around for months on his feverish quest to collect every single copy of the map still in existence—and yet now every table, every shelf was completely bare.
Tam glanced at Francis. “I thought you and Eve said he had thousands.”
“He does,” Francis replied, confused.
“Where are all of them, then?” I asked.
There was a sound from deeper in the vault, something heavy being set down. Tam took another step forward. “Wally?” she called.
Following her, we moved deeper, going around the empty shelves.
“Wally, what are you doing?” Tam asked.
Wally looked up from where he was crouched, a cornered animal. In his arms was a huge pile of maps—the Agloe maps. Quickly, he dumped them into the open cardboard box in front of him, one of the boxes we’d used to help move our things here from Wisconsin.
It was full again now, though. Hundreds of his maps were already inside of the box, stacked to bursting, and even more waiting in haphazard piles around him.
“I’m going to fix this once and for all,” Wally said, his voice high and tight. He stood and picked up the box, which nearly buckled under the weight of all the densely packed paper. “I’ve been going about this all wrong. We’re never going to be able to protect this place unless we have better control over it. Today made me realize that.”
“Please,” I begged. “Just let me explain.”
But Wally ignored me—or perhaps he was too worried about making his escape before we could stop him. He edged toward the door carrying the box, grimacing with effort.