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I squint at it. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. What even is this?”

Trace laughs and clicks into another view. “Hold on. I can make it prettier.”

“Please do. My eyes are crossing just looking at that.”

Trace clicks around for another few seconds, then a map fills most of the screen.

Okay. Better.

Ruth is sitting out over the Gulf with a string of little plotted points leading toward her.

I shift a little closer to the edge of the couch. “Those are them?”

“Yeah.” Trace points to the newest one. “That’s the last observation they sent.”

I stare at the tiny dot.

It’s ridiculous how much better that makes me feel. I still can’t see the plane or Sumner, but at least there’s something on the screen telling me where he was a few minutes ago.

That he’s alive and doing okay.

“And it’ll keep updating?”

“As long as the data keeps coming in.”

I nod and settle back into the couch, keeping my eyes on the map.

Okay.

I can work with this.

I know that dot represents the whole plane—Colston and everyone else up there with him included—but the second I look at it, all I see is Sumner.

On the TV, the Weather Channel switches back to footage from Louisiana. A reporter is standing near a line of cars crawling away from the coast while the banner across the bottom of the screen warns about storm surge.

I try to listen, but Trace shifts in the chair beside me and starts clicking through something on his laptop.

My eyes go right back to him.

He leans closer to the screen.

“What?”

“There’s new data.”

I push myself forward again. “From them?”

“Yeah.” He angles the laptop a little more toward me. Another point has appeared at the end of the trail, closer to Ruth than the last one. “They’re still on the way in.”

I stare at the new dot while my fingers curl into the edge of the cushion.

“How much longer?”

“Hard to say.” Trace studies the map for another second. “But they’re getting close.”

I settle back against the couch but I keep my eyes on Trace’s laptop.

Every so often another point appears at the end of the trail, dragging Sumner a little closer to Ruth.