The Cartographers(53)

“All this time, he never told me,” Swann finally said. His voice was caught between disbelief and sadness. “Although I suppose if this Wally is really that dangerous, he was safer not revealing his old affiliation to anyone. Even me.”

“I’m sure he was just trying to protect you,” Nell replied.

Swann sighed. “Still. I could have helped him.”

“You’re helping now,” she said.

He cleared his throat, and Nell heard his chair squeak over the line as he sat up straighter. “I’m with you all the way, my dear. So, this Sanborn map.” His tone became a little brighter, more curious. “A little secret of our own, right under our noses! What are the chances? I never would have guessed the Sanborn line contained any phantom settlements at all.”

“You’re sure there’s not a room there in the library, and never was,” Nell confirmed.

“You’d know just as well as me, but yes,” Swann replied. “There’s definitely nothing there. No secret room, no door, nothing. It’s just the wall where the glass bookcases are. And on the other side is the bank of smaller printers—no space in between for even a broom closet.”

“That’s what I thought,” Nell said. “Now I just have to find the phantom settlement on the gas station map.”

“But why would that be important?”

“I don’t know, but maybe finding it will tell me. Maybe the name of whatever the secret error is will be a clue. Or maybe something is hidden there, where the copyright trap is supposed to be.”

“Hidden?” Swann repeated. “Like buried treasure?”

Nell laughed, mostly to ameliorate the strange looks her driver was giving her through the rearview mirror. “Well, I’m on my way to find out.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, just as the cab stopped. Nell looked out to see that she was at Pell and Bowery, the intersection before Ramona’s shop.

“Thank you for the rush,” she said as she stuffed a bunch of bills through the slot in the window and scrambled out onto the curb before the driver could give her a receipt.

“Are you in a cab?”

“I was,” Nell replied. The midday glare sparkled off everything—car trims, metal shelves inside the dim sum restaurants, food carts, stop signs. She scoured the street for any suspicious cars or people, but nothing seemed out of place—just the usual bustle of Chinatown during lunchtime. “I’m going to Ramona Wu’s again.”

“Ramona Wu,” Swann said, as though she’d invoked a curse. “She wasn’t very helpful the first time.”

“Well, she did give me Francis’s envelope for my father,” Nell said, rather than telling him she’d actually fled the book fair because she’d been running from Lieutenant Cabe. “And if she knows I’ve now also tracked down Francis and Eve and figured out that there’s a trap room on the Sanborn map . . . maybe I can make her tell me where the one on the gas station map is,” Nell said as she hurried to the corner and crossed the intersection as the pedestrian sign flashed.

“Good luck,” Swann said. “And take care. I can’t imagine what going into her lair must be like.”

“Actually, it’s . . .” Nell trailed off. The sensation of twinkling sconces and books upon books upon books piled everywhere, covered in a thin golden layer of dust, just begging to be explored, came to her again. Actually, it’s beautiful—even more beautiful than the library, she wanted to say, but there was no way Swann would believe her. “It’s not as bad as you’d think,” she finally finished. “Call you soon.”

She hung up and turned onto Doyers Street, walking so fast she was almost jogging.

It was his insurance, Ramona had said when she’d asked what the Sanborn map was, Nell recalled as she hurried. She still couldn’t figure out what that meant. How was an inaccurate map any kind of insurance? How did having it help her father?

Nell passed Nom Wah Tea Parlor and looked up, her nerves steeled. She didn’t have all the answers, but at least she had the right questions now. She wouldn’t let the dealer intimidate her into leaving this time. She’d stand her ground and demand that Ramona answer her, no matter what. She would—

At the entrance to Ramona’s shop, Nell froze.

Because there was no shop.

What?

Had she taken a wrong turn? Nell glanced back, but she was definitely on Doyers Street, just past Nom Wah Tea Parlor and across from the post office, exactly where she’d been just two days ago, when she’d come to Ramona’s shop the first time.

But there was definitely no shop here.

“What . . . ,” she murmured, stunned.

It was not just that the shop had closed or moved—the door locked and the window darkened, or boarded up—the shop just wasn’t there. Instead a smooth, old concrete wall abutted Nom Wah Tea Parlor on one side and a Western Union bank on the other.

It was as if Ramona’s shop had never been there at all.

You can’t find a place that doesn’t exist.

That was the last thing Ramona had said to her.

“This can’t be happening,” Nell stammered. “It doesn’t make sense.”

She had just been here. Been inside. She had spoken to Ramona and taken the Sanborn map from her. She still had the photo of her family that had come with it in her bag—proof that it had all been real.