The Cartographers(37)

“Literally any other American map from the same era!” she cried. “In the early 1900s, Rand McNally was still producing beautiful collector’s atlases and giant murals, before the whole industry became obsessed with convenience and affordability.”

“Blame that on the automobile,” Nozomi replied. “The Model T was invented then, wasn’t it? Suddenly, everyone could travel much farther than ever before in a single day. They would have needed a new kind of map for that.”

“That was exactly General Drafting’s business plan,” Pete said, pleased at the chance to show off. “They didn’t have the resources the bigger companies did, but they knew that lugging an expensive tabletop atlas everywhere wasn’t going to satisfy drivers. They were the ones who invented the concept of the cheap, folding driving maps we all used for decades. I still even have some in my glove compartment, even though we all just use our phones now.” He smirked at Wolff. “Don’t worry, I don’t have the General Drafting edition in question in there. I looked.”

“Good to know,” Wolff replied. “Now I won’t have to break in to your car to check.”

They laughed, but there was a mercenary undercurrent to the joke that made Nell shiver. She glanced around the circle nervously as they all toasted again. Now, everyone looked a lot less friendly. And a lot more suspicious.

Suddenly, Nell realized that Francis was no longer standing with their group. He’d disappeared as soon as the gas station map had come up.

“This sounds like an intense game,” she finally said.

“It is,” Pete agreed. “Some players can be quite obsessed. A little frightening. I’m honestly not even sure why the map has become such a valued specimen. I just like to win.”

“I’m actually not sure either,” Wolff admitted. “I just know that it’s worth a lot of money, and is very, very rare. Whoever finds one will have bragging rights for life—and a target on their back from the Cartographers.”

Nell managed to strangle a gasp. If her stomach had already fallen through the floor, it was in the basement now.

That name, again.

And Wolff had not said it like he believed they were just an industry rumor.

He’d said it like they were real—very real.

“Who are the Cartographers?” she asked.

“No one knows,” Julian answered. “But out of everyone playing the game, they seem to be the richest by far. And the most dedicated. Too dedicated.”

“You can’t mean an actual target, though,” Nozomi said to Wolff.

“Well.” Wolff paused, suddenly uncomfortable. “I have friends who say they’ve been threatened. And sometimes, other collectors just . . . vanish. Quit the game all at once, drop off the face of the earth. Even—”

“It’s gossip,” Pete interrupted. “Just other players trying to spook the rest of us.”

The others laughed. Nell joined in weakly.

“Actually, I heard from a curator at Sterling House that part of the reason the map’s become so rare is that years ago, when the game must have started, someone went around destroying every copy of it they found,” Julian added.

“Destroying?” Nell cried. Immediately, images from the interinstitution database, with all the vanished copies, and the scorched remains of the old General Drafting building that had burned down, flashed into her mind.

“It’s an old map, and so cheaply made,” Claire replied. “It seems more likely most of the copies were lost to the elements over time or tossed into the trash in favor of an updated edition, and someone’s trying to romanticize it.”

“Then it should hold true for all copies, but if you search for any other year, they turn up in droves. It’s only the 1930 edition that’s become so rare,” Julian replied.

“Maybe it had something to do with the lawsuit,” Wolff said. “I looked into it once, when I thought I was on a hot trail—we have some great paralegals who can chase anything down. There was a court case around the same time as the edition we’re all after was published, about copyright infringement. General Drafting lost, or settled, or something. The suit just disappeared. After that, their fortunes declined.”

“Copyright infringement,” Nell repeated. Had General Drafting been stealing data? she wondered. Or had data been stolen from them?

“Perhaps someone was trying to force scarcity?” Nozomi offered. “Remove a bunch of the remaining copies to increase the value?”

“That was my initial assumption, but the pruning appears to have been so extreme that not a single map has been seen for decades, by even the most dedicated hunters,” Wolff said. “Almost like whoever did it wasn’t attempting to drive up the price, but rather trying to completely eradicate the map.”

Julian sighed. “I’ve mostly given up. But a die-hard few are holding out hope there might be a single one left somewhere.”

Mine, Nell thought with a chill.

She needed to tell Swann what she’d just heard. That some of the wealthiest figures in the amateur collecting field were playing a secret game for millionaires with the very map that someone had robbed the NYPL for. The map that they might have . . . done something to her father for.

The map they might now do something to her for.