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Saffron Walden?
    â€œMy guess? They were looking for the Ix Codex.”
    Tyler furrows his brow in scorn. “What?! I thought you’d given up on that. Seemed like you gave up the whole idea after your ‘abduction.’”
    When he says “abduction” it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t believe me.
    â€œListen, Ty, it’s not about the codex anymore. Those people killed my dad. Think about that for a minute.”
    Tyler looks uncomfortable. “I know, man,” he mumbles. “But what can you do?”
    I give a deep sigh. “Maybe I’m kidding myself, you know? Maybe there’s no way I can ever find out who really killed my dad. Or why. But if there’s
any
chance, any clue … Ty—how could I ever forgive myself? Five years from now, ten years from now … Knowing that I just gave up?”
    â€œYeah, man.” Tyler nods slowly. “Yeah. You got a point.”
    â€œI need to know what he was doing the last day he was alive. Now that I know he was here, I can’t just forget it. Could you? I have to know why, what he was doing, to know if there’s any connection …”
    He seems to consider it. “Would you feel this way if he’d died in an actual accident? A real plane crash? Or if he’d fallen off a mountain? He used to climb, didn’t he, your dad?”
    â€œI think I would,” I reply. “If there was anything strange or mysterious about it, yeah. Like mountaineering. Sometimes they don’t find bodies for years. Relatives, friends, they neverforget, never stop wondering. That’s how it is with me. It’s like there’s a hole somewhere inside your chest. No matter what you do, you can’t fill it. People grow old, wondering. Then they find the bodies, the people they lost. Frozen, still young. Yeah, if he’d died like that I’d want to know what happened. I’d want to see the place where he fell.”
    They gave me an urn with my dad’s ashes, but it’s not the same. I need to know the exact sequence of events that led to the end. Mom calls it “closure.” We both need it. And now there’s a chance to know what he was doing on his last day alive.
    Tyler nods a few times. He’s still weighing things. “Why not Ollie too?”
    I don’t want Ollie involved—I want to protect her. “Not Ollie,” I say. “She’s always busy these days … with schoolwork.”
    He shrugs. “What’s the plan?”
    â€œWe go to a house near Saffron Walden that used to belong to a famous Mayan archaeologist. We ask questions.”
    â€œWhat questions?”
    I shrug. “We ask them what my dad was doing there, what he wanted, who the guys in ties claimed to be … that sort of thing.”
    â€œThat’s it?”
    I nod.
    â€œAnd if they tell us to get lost?”
    â€œWell, then … I guess we might have to get into some light breaking and entering.”
    Tyler laughs. He thinks I’m kidding.
    It takes longer than I’d hoped to reach Saffron Walden. There’s no bus to Cambridge for another hour. We talk a little, then stare out of the window. Tyler gets a text and then spends the rest of the time chuckling to himself and texting. He won’t show me the texts. “Private,” he smirks. “From a girl.”
    I try to ignore him and daydream about Ollie.
    The bus takes forever but gets us most of the way, and we have to catch another to Saffron Walden, then another to the little village of Ashdon, where Thompson used to live.
    It’s after four, past sunset this time of year, the village center decorated with blue lights strung over the trees and stores, which are about to close. I walk into the pharmacy, figuring that the pharmacist must know everyone.
    â€œExcuse me, we’re looking for a house called ‘Yale.’ Used to belong to an archaeologist named Sir J. Eric