The Cartographers(7)

“Which is it?” Lieutenant Cabe asked.

Swann sighed. “I’m sorry, my dear. I don’t mean to contradict you. He really was much tidier, back when you were here,” he said to her, and then looked at Lieutenant Cabe. “But these last few years, he became less and less so. He was working on something lately that took all of his time.” He turned to Nell again. “You remember how he used to get with his big projects. Distracted, secretive. Obsessive.”

“Consumed,” she replied, disdainful. At least that hadn’t changed about him, even if his organizational habits had.

“We think it’s unlikely there was foul play,” Lieutenant Cabe continued, apparently mollified. “He wasn’t that young, and other than the mess here, which it sounds like he may have created himself, there’s no suspicious evidence. And he was clearly alone last night. The guard said he was the only employee still in the building after eleven p.m. Everyone else had checked out, and the front doors were locked. We just have to cover every possibility, even if it’s a formality. Part of the job.”

“Dr. Young was outspoken,” Swann offered diplomatically. “He was very passionate about his work, and that sometimes got him into arguments with other researchers, or even the board. But these arguments, they were academic. Theory and dissection of sources, debates over paper types and ink composition and salt levels from various oceans. Reputation means a lot in this field, but I can’t imagine someone would actually hurt him over it.”

Nell couldn’t really either, even given what he’d done to her career. If anyone had a reason to murder him, it would have been her, and her father had still been blustering around the department and hogging the archives until just last night. The whole thing was unbelievable.

But then seeing his office like this, his things, even if Swann had said he’d become less tidy . . .

“Ma’am?”

“I just . . .” Nell sighed. Despite everything—the chasm between them, the damage they’d both done to each other—tears were threatening. She pinched the bridge of her nose to stop them from falling.

“Why don’t we give her a minute?” Swann asked Lieutenant Cabe, who said he’d go check with his partner and circle back. “Are you all right, my dear?” he asked once they were alone.

“Yes,” she said. She didn’t know.

Swann scooted closer to her, using his slim frame to block her view of the rest of the room, to give her a little privacy.

“I’m sorry, Swann,” she said, looking down. “It was wrong of me to avoid you for so long. And especially after everything you did to try to help, in the beginning.” She put a hand up to stop his protests. “I know about all the calls you made, the interviews you tried to get me at smaller branches, the old colleagues you begged—”

“Please,” he replied. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t have done more.”

“You did far more than anyone else.” She sighed. “I was just so angry, I needed to block it all out. But later, I didn’t want to put you in that position. Having to choose between me or him.”

“I wouldn’t have chosen,” Swann said. “I loved you both.”

“My father would have made you choose. We both know that.”

Swann sighed sadly. Nell knew that he knew she was right, although it didn’t make all the years she’d shunned him along with Dr. Young and the rest of the library any better.

“All that is in the past,” he said. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and nodded.

“Let me get you a tissue.” He patted her shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

Nell smiled gratefully. “Thank you.”

The library’s back offices swirled quietly around her as she sat huddled on the edge of her father’s desk, next to the mess strewn across it. Researchers were finally getting to work in their cubicles, turning on their computers and shuffling through their mail. And past the staff door, patrons were browsing the stacks and choosing seats at reading tables, clicking on lamps and pulling out notebooks and flipping pages. Children were running through aisles and sneaking around the lobby. Taxis were pulling up and dropping off passengers outside. Nell tried to think about all of it out there, and nothing in here.

Gradually, she realized her hand was resting on the corner of the desk where the hidden lock was.

Ever dramatic, her father long ago had a secret compartment built into his desk that only he, she, and perhaps Swann knew about. He kept especially valuable maps inside while working on them for security’s sake, he’d said, even though the NYPL had never been robbed in the history of its existence. But when Nell was young, and he’d been a slightly gentler version of himself, he had hidden little notes to her there as well, and she would reply with childish drawings of maps she’d copied or created herself.

All she had to do was push her index finger forward a little bit. The dullest, quietest thud told her the compartment had opened.

Slowly, without moving anything but her hand, she reached inside.

There was just one thing there this time: a slim, leather-bound shape. Not a book, but a leather portfolio, for carrying around important documents or maps. She moved her fingers another subtle inch, feeling the familiar texture.