Vee goes to stand in front of the largest map, which takes up most of the farthest wall.
“I guess I’ve been playing a bit of detective these last few years,” she says.
I move next to her. It’s a map of the city. Pushpins mark certain locations, while others have wide circles drawn around them in red.
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
“Indigo.”
I choke, her answer unexpected.
“I’ve always known he didn’t die the night when F—” She has to clear her throat as well. “When Farah was killed. The fact that you’ve seen him proves it, but I’ve been looking for signs of him every day for the last two years.”
I stare at the map. Familiar places, marked in blue and red.
“What are you going to do when you find him?” I ask. Not if. Vee and I are speaking again, and together, we’re going to find him.
My heartbeat quickens when she says, in a flat, matter-of-fact voice. “I’m going to rip his heart out, like he ripped out mine.”
CHAPTER 17
Vee’s face is determined as she stares at the map. I’m sorry for the space I’ve forced between us, because the suffering is evident in the way her mouth is pinched and how she keeps curling and uncurling her fists.
“There was some evidence that Indigo could use a form of teleportation,” she says. “He’d show up in different places almost simultaneously. Or he’d be halfway across the world in a day. A few times, it seemed like we had him cornered, and then he’d vanish.”
“So the marks on the map are where he’s been spotted?” I ask.
Vee shakes her head. “No one has actually seen him since that night. Except you. But I’ve been looking into whether something like teleportation would even be possible.”
“And?”
“He’d need to power it. You can’t tear a hole in the fabric of time and space and walk through it like a door. Before Farah was killed, he seemed to be moving around the city a lot, so I built a heat map.” She flips a switch on the side of the bulletin board where the map is posted, then turns out the light overhead. Theboard isn’t quite so simple as a corkboard after all, because now it’s illuminated, and the city glows behind the paper.
“What’s that?” I ask, moving closer.
“It measures low-frequency energy fluctuations across the city.” She taps the paper. “Took me a while. There’s so much heat and noise. But once you weed it out, you find these other bursts that can’t be explained by machinery and people.” She points at the pushpins on the map.
“You think that’s Indigo moving around? That he’s been here for a while?”
She laughs. “They could be someone turning on the coffee grinder, except the locations are always weird. At the edges of the city. In parts of town where your average hipster and her cappuccino machine wouldn’t show up.”
I trace around one of the big red circles. “What are these?”
Vee blows out a breath. “I don’t know what those are.” She points at another. “But two nights ago, suddenly the whole board started lighting up like Christmas. Like tiny bombs going off all over the city.”
“What are they?”
“I can’t even begin to guess. They went on all night, and they were completely unpredictable. Sometimes they’d repeat in the same place over and over, then it would move around. A bunch of them were even right here, and I can guarantee Indigo didn’t make an appearance. I think it must have been some kind of interference. Something’s wrong.”
My heart stops, and I drag my finger from the location of the diner down the familiar streets.
“This is my house,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says. “I was actually really relieved when you came in earlier. I was trying to figure out a way to call you without it being awkward.”
But I’m already moving on to the next location.
“Kicks. Max’s bar.”
