Dani shook herself out and focused on the shop instead. “I don’t think there are any here.”
Lynn scrutinized the floor plan. Had she missed an aisle? Any of the racks?
“Maybe we should just go? Flint said to cross the bridges and then take the exit east. We could figure out how to go from there from the signs.” Dani walked over to the counter and lifted up a magazine, which crumpled under her touch. She wiped the flakes from her hand.
Lynn glanced into the back room again. “I’m going to have a look in there, then I’ll be right out.”
Dani’s fingers twitched. “Do you need help?” Her voice was light. Deceptively light, perhaps.
“Nah.” Casual, casual. “Go another round through the shop, see if you can find anything useful. I’ll be right back.”
Dani hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.” Whatever swirled in the depth of her eyes was undefinable to Lynn.
Thankfully, the desk drawers weren’t locked. She took a deep breath and started pulling them out. The top drawer was full of small items such as pens and paperclips. Her five-year-old self would have loved to stumble upon this hoard of treasures. Anything Old World had mesmerized her. Now she pulled the entire drawer out and scattered its contents over the desk for easier access. I’m so fucking jaded. The thought brought on a wry smile, but no feelings of guilt or sadness.
The second drawer was disappointingly empty, a single key and a plastic box with small, weird-looking lightbulbs its only contents. She closed the drawer and pulled out another.
It was filled with papers, and her heart rate spiked. She steadied the container on her thigh and slipped it from its rail. Instead of tipping it over, she balanced it on the precarious pile of office supplies from drawer number one and took the contents out one at a time. Her hands trembled a little. She shook them to get them to steady and winced at the stab of pain that coursed up her arm. “Dammit. Idiot.” She rolled her eyes, then focused back on the trove.
Even paper kept in a dark drawer, in a protected space, suffered decay. It wasn’t as abused as the magazines in the shop, but some of the flimsier scraps crumbled under her careful touch. The ink had faded on most of the papers. She scanned barely legible receipts, folders with pages full of numbers, and a magazine with images of naked women that she flipped through without much hope for a map. Then, almost at the bottom, she found a colorful booklet. It took some time for her to sound out the bold, white letters on a faded, blue field and to form them into words that spelled: The Ultimate New York City Bike Guide.
Lynn licked her lips with a tongue that had suddenly gone dry. She lifted the thin book out and cracked it open. The pages held a lot of very small text, intercut with pictures of happy people with helmets on, rushing down roads with backdrops of bridges, pristine architecture, and well-kept parks. She didn’t bother with the words but found herself holding her breath as she studied the pictures for details on the verge of fading forever. Was this what it was like? This… ideal? Perfect families in a perfect world? Something seemed to settle on her chest, making it almost impossible to breathe. For the first time in her life, she felt truly jealous of the Old Worlders.
“Lynn?” Dani hadn’t snuck up on her this time; she’d spoken softly from the doorway.
Lynn turned. “Hey.”
“Did you find anything?”
Lynn hesitated, but the evidence was in her hands, in plain view. “Maybe.”
Careful not to disturb the bones, Dani came over. Despite what she might think about the possibility of a map, she soaked up the pictures as well.
Her closeness made Lynn’s skin crawl, but she resisted the urge to create distance.
Pressed against Lynn’s side, Dani slid her gaze over the pages as Lynn flipped them oh-so-carefully. She didn’t comment.
There were only fourteen pages, and their numbers dwindled down fast. Lynn started out only interested in locating a map, but every page sucked her in more. The pictures were mesmerizing. Clean, happy people, doing things just because they could. All the cars were shiny and new. When Lynn could make out the facial details of the drivers, they were always smiling—waving sometimes. The office fell away as she thumbed through the aged booklet.
She had almost forgotten about the quest for a map when she turned the page and it was suddenly there. It had been printed on pages ten and eleven, with whitish shapes for land, blue strokes for water. Very little of it was labeled. It was a deadly simple map. Hudson River marked the left edge, and something called Eastchester Bay capped the top. Six colored lines ran across a section of the white shape labeled Manhattan. The map would have been useless were it not for the lines marked with little red and blue shields Lynn knew from her journey over many of America’s interstates: the map provided an overview of the major roads. More importantly, dead in the center was the road marked 278, and it led over water, then curved up north—exactly as Flint had told Dani. She swallowed down her nerves. “There.” She pointed. “We’re somewhere there.”
Dani frowned. “You might be right.”
“I am. Look.” She traced the road down south, making sure not to touch the fragile paper. “That’s the fork. I must have come into New York over this bridge.” She pointed at a stretch of white over the field of blue marked Whitestone Bridge. “And we went through this part called Queens to get here.”
Dani nodded. “So where do we go, exactly?”
Lynn gestured vaguely above the map. “Somewhere there. It’s not on the map, I think. It took two days to get to the bridge, and we walked from here…” She pointed out their starting point east of Queens. “…to here…” She circled an area to indicate their former camp. “In a day.”
“Okay, makes sense. So, which road did you come down on?”
Lynn glanced at Dani and hesitated. Could it harm her to tell Dani? She couldn’t think of a reason—she wasn’t going that way again; telling Dani might even show some sort of trust, and yet… “The 95.” It stung like an alcohol-soaked wound.
Dani leaned forward a bit more and found the road. “It’s in Bronx. That seems to match with what Flint told me.”
“Yeah.” It snaked up past the Eastchester Bay before disappearing off the map. “If we go up to the 278, it’ll take us to the 95.” She followed the line that said 278 with her finger, drifting to the west for a couple of miles before swinging northeast. Even as she did that, she was already searching the map for something else entirely: her escape route. Her best way out was the 95 in the opposite direction to where Dani thought they were going. The road came down from the north and then curved west to a crossing over Hudson River called George Washington Bridge before eventually turning south.
If she took the 87 exit west, right after an unmarked bridge, instead of following the 278 as Dani thought they would, it would take her to the 95. Even if she missed that exit for some reason or couldn’t manage to shake Dani, there would be three others along their route that would take her to the same point.
“We really went the long way ’round.” Dani straightened and sighed.
“Yep.” Lynn still studied the map. She needed to imprint it, just in case Dani took it away or it fell apart completely. “So let’s get going, hm? We should be able to get here tonight.” The hairs on her arms stood on end as she tempted fate by pointing at a spot just before the split toward the 89, the exit she was going to take.
“Yeah, let’s.” Dani swallowed and searched her face.
Lynn casually closed the booklet, knelt down, and very carefully stored it in her bag. A tingle of excitement buzzed through her as she closed her backpack and hoisted it onto her shoulders. She felt as if she was getting away with something. For a horrible moment, she thought she would giggle, but of course she didn’t. “Okay, ready.” As she stepped outside, reality settled heavily upon her again. Yes, she had a plan now, but she would still have to execute it.