“Yeah,” Felix confirmed. “It was how her mother died.”
Priya was no longer in the Haberson server but logged into some kind of public records database. Overhead, the Haberson Map was following her, mirroring her search within one of its myriad frames, making guesses at additional sources from there. “If she died, there would have been a police report, and probably some local news stories . . .”
“They wouldn’t list the address of the house, though,” Naomi said. “For privacy reasons.”
Felix knew Naomi was right. He’d looked up the obituary himself years ago, when he’d first gotten together with Nell and she’d told him the sad history. There hadn’t been much, just a few mentions in local papers, but he didn’t recall ever seeing an exact address.
He glanced up and saw that the Haberson Map was no longer looking for articles on Dr. Tamara Jasper-Young—it was combing through property tax records, for some reason.
“What about real estate listing archives for the area?” he asked, suddenly realizing.
Naomi looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“The news never gave out the address, but if the house burned all the way down, the property wouldn’t really be classified as a residence anymore, would it? It would revert to being a vacant lot, or land tract, tax-wise. There must be records for that. If we look for sale listings for empty lots anytime after that summer, for addresses that went from residence to land . . .”
“I got it,” Priya said.
Felix rushed over. “Show me.”
Priya turned the screen toward him. “There are plenty of houses that went up for sale in Rockland, and even more tracts of available land, but there’s only one that changes classification—from house to land—in that entire year.” She pointed. “One sixty Spring Rain Road, Rockland, New York.”
His eyes jumped across the screen as she talked, double-checking everything.
Priya was right. That was it.
“That’s got to be the one,” Naomi breathed.
As if to agree, the Haberson Map chimed. They all looked up to see it had accepted the same data point—a slim glowing line from their office in Manhattan snaked its way across lower New York State, toward the destination.
He was halfway there. If the Haberson Map could find the house, maybe if he took it with him, something there could lead it to Agloe, too.
Felix grabbed his phone from the desk and hugged Priya over the back of her chair. “You’re a genius.”
“I know,” she laughed, but as he pulled away, she caught his arm, so he had to look at her. “Be careful, Felix,” she said. “We don’t even know who this Wally is, and he could be out there after her, too.”
“I will,” he promised. “Thank you both.”
As he turned to leave, Naomi called out to him one more time. “This can’t really be real, right?” she asked, looking over again at the impossible room in the NYPL still on his screen. “I mean, an entire town? How can it be real?”
“I don’t know,” Felix said. “But I’ll tell you when I get there.”
Even though he’d been awake all night, Felix never once felt his eyelids start to droop on the drive. The closer he drew to Rockland, the more nervous he became. In the east, dawn was threatening, the horizon already beginning to brighten. As he drove, winding along the quiet country roads through square after square of pastel-green-and-yellow farmland, Felix couldn’t help imagining a tiny image of his car cruising along one of the thin black lines on Nell’s highway map, and himself watching from above.
His phone, the Haberson Map’s route on its little screen, dinged politely—he was getting close to the house’s address they had found.