Something buzzes beside Indy's ear, the vibrations rolling through her mattress, her pillow, into her brain. She stirs, groggily pulling herself out of sleep and blinking the crust from her weary eyes. Blue light, sharp and artificial, slices her vision, making her wince. She has to blink several times before she recognizes it's her cell phone: Jude's name flashing back at her.

Still numb with disbelief, she rolls over and fumbles around until her fingers hit answer.

"Jude?" She squints at the screen. "It's almost four in the morning. Is everything okay?"

A shuffle of loud noise. "I'm doing laundry," he says.

Indy rubs her eyes. "What?"

"Laundry," the tiny, faintly staticky version of Jude's voice in her phone repeats. "At the 24 hour laundromat like five minutes away from your campus. Are you busy right now?"

"Yes, I'm busy, Jude. It's four in the morning. I'm sleeping? Like a normal person?"

A pause, like he's actually thinking it over, like Indy's just presented him with genuinely new information. "Yes. Maybe. But also it doesn't sound like you're sleeping right now. Unless you're sleep-talking. In which case, very impressive."

Indy sits up, tearing her bonnet from her head and massaging her scalp, as if she can release from her mind a good idea to deal with the man on the other side of the phone. She peers into the deep blue dark for a moment, barely making out the silhouette of Sylvia's sleeping form, as motionless as a lump of clothes. The night outside is eerily silent. Jude says again, "Indy?"

She clears her throat. "Is it important?"

Jude's voice sounds different this time, like an actor who's just stepped from the stage. "I wouldn't be calling you if it weren't."

Indy imagines slumping forward and letting her face hit the pillows, returning to her previous peaceful state of unconsciousness. But it's only her imagination.

She says, "I'm on my way."

Jude is the only person in the laundromat. From a distance he nearly looks unreal, a porcelain figure trapped in a snow globe: the dark street surrounding him, and him, alone in the lights behind the glass, sitting cross-legged atop the folding tables with headphones tugged down over his ears.

He looks up at the thwack of the door falling shut behind Indy, and the surprise on his face quickly melts into a smile. He slides his headphones off, lets them plop around his shoulders. "You made it. Sorry to call you out so late."

Indy's nose twitches at the biting, nearly clinical scents of laundry detergent: lime and rose and baking soda, everything natural captured and encased in everything artificial. She hops onto the table beside Jude, listening to the chugging of the laundry machine as it goes around and around. "You're actually doing laundry."

"Of course I am. Would I lie to you?"

She ignores this, pulling her knees into her chest. Jude hasn't turned his headphones off; she can still hear the intermittent beat of a rock song echoing dully, like a pulse. "Why isn't this something you could have texted me?"

Jude swallows, and Indy realizes it's the most tense she's ever seen him, that there is a strain to his jaw, a discoloration to his face, that looks like authentic illness. Indy wonders if this isn't the first time he's been doing laundry at four in the morning—how long it's been, really, since he slept through the night.

"I was visiting my grandma earlier," he starts, his fingers drumming along the top of his knee, "when I saw this car pull up in the driveway. I mean—the driveway that use to be Elizabeth's."

"What?" Indy asks. "What was it doing there?"

"Good fucking question. It just sat there, idling, for like half an hour. Then whoever it was finally left."

Indy says nothing. She can sense the rest of what he's going to say, well before the words leave his lips.

"So I followed."

If she were Percy, she thinks, she would scold him, would sigh and hide her face in her palm like some disappointed parent.

But she is not Percy, so she laughs, boldly. "Of course you did."

Jude gives her a small half-smile in return. "I followed it until it pulled up at the art warehouse. You know, the one we broke into that time?"

"Not broke into," Indy corrects. She thinks about it. "Just—inspected."

"Sure."

"Still. This isn't making any sense. What's the connection here?"

Jude shakes his head, letting out a harsh sigh of genuine frustration. "That's the part I can't figure out. Maybe there is no connection at all. But there was something about it that was just too strange to ignore entirely."

He turns, shifting until he can pull his phone from his pocket. Indy watches him, unsure why her breath is hitching in her chest.

"I got pictures," Jude says at last, his eyes shaded beneath his hair. "Of the license plate, and of him."

"Him?"

Instead of answering, Jude just hands her the phone, warm in her hands. The image is grainy, but it's more than enough. Indy has seen this man before, recognizes him in the slightly lopsided stance, the too-primped silver-gold hair, the silver watch glinting on his wrist. His name escapes her, but he was at the auction—she's sure of it. Which means they're already close, so much closer than they ever have been before.

"Jude," she says, slowly. Her hands are already quivering, the potential of this information both exciting and terrifying to her. "If we find out who this is, this could be our first real person of interest."

"If being the critical word there," Jude says, pocketing his cell phone again. "Even with his plate tagged, it could take some digging to find any real connection."

"Jude, all we've been doing is digging. It's what I'm good at," Indy replies. Suddenly she needs to move, to do something, anything, to work off the frenetic energy buzzing its way through her veins at the moment. She hops off the folding table, almost not hearing the thunk of something hitting the floor, the rustle of pages turning.

Elizabeth's journal rests against the white linoleum where it must have fallen from Indy's bag. Indy and Jude are both silent, watching the pages flip, and flip, until finally it settles, still.

Indy squints at the newly inked words.

"Indy," Jude says.

She doesn't reply. She sweeps the journal up from the floor, and reads aloud: "Do you love me enough to die for me?"

Once she's read them, the words hang in the air, as chilling as a curse. Until now, Elizabeth's messages have been vague, albeit, but all of them some sort of order or request, something clearly meant for Indy. This is the first time Indy's read something she's not sure is meant for her eyes.

"What does this mean?" she asks aloud, as if the ghost of the woman is there, as if she's willing to answer. "Did someone say this to you?"

"Indy." Jude's voice is closer; his hand reaches out, hesitates, brushes her shoulder.

"I don't understand," Indy continues. "What are you trying to tell me? Can't you ever just say what you actually mean?"

"Indy, come on—"

"Why don't you ever just say what you mean?"

The journal drops from Indy's hand, slamming the ground like gravity's just tripled its pull. The cover slaps closed.

"I don't understand," Indy says again. The words are burned into the back of her eyelids, the jagged shape of them the picture of distress. Her own words tremble as they leave her mouth. "I think we're getting somewhere and then I just get more confused. What does that mean, Jude? Do you love me enough to die for me? Why write that? Why now?"

"I don't know, but we have time to figure it out. Nothing has to happen tonight."

"We don't have time," Indy snaps, and Jude flinches at the sharpness to her tone. "If we wait around any longer, they'll kill him, they'll kill Pine, and then it'll all have been for nothing, and we'll have the blood of an innocent man on our hands."

Jude stares at her for a second, the concern in his brown eyes so open, so honest, that it draws Indy to silence. He takes her hands, holds them not tightly enough to hurt, but tightly enough to refocus her attention. "Indy, listen," he starts, his voice low, brittle. "I can't...I can't tell you how I know. I can't explain it. But I think this is going to work out even better than you're expecting. If we just focus and take it one step at a time—which you're already doing—watch. Watch how it'll all unfold."

Jude's hands are calloused, strong. Indy tries to remember the last time someone has held her like this, and she can't. She wonders if anyone ever has before. "You're just as cryptic as the ghost," she tells him. "What do you mean you can't tell me how you know? How am I supposed to believe you, then?"

Jude smiles, but to her the expression looks strangely sad. "I guess you'll just have to trust me."

And perhaps it has been there all along, this strange, humming energy in the inches of space between them, but Indy certainly feels it now, like she could reach out and touch it and feel the spark just beneath her finger. Jude's eyes flick lower, briefly, and his grip on her hand slackens.

He starts, "Indy—"

The laundry machine sings a high and jaunty little tune, signaling that Jude's clothes are done. Indy takes a step back, releasing Jude's hands, her face suddenly flush and feverish.

"I need...to go sleep, I think," she says. "Can you send me those pictures? I have an idea of where to start."

"What? I mean, sure, but Indy—"

"Thanks, Jude," she says, already turning for the door. "I'll see you around."