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“I don’t know,” Isaiah said tearfully.
Deep in the crowd, Evie locked eyes with Jericho, but there was no way for them to reach each other. “I’m sorry!” she yelled. “I’m sorry for everything.”
He was going to try to come for her, she knew. She shook her head. “Bountiful!” she yelled. “Do you understand?”
He nodded, and the crowd overtook the space between them.
“It’s you. You’re the Sweetheart Seer,” said the girl Evie had pushed aside. For the briefest second, Evie was happy to have been recognized, until the girl’s face went hard and mean. “You killed Sarah Snow.”
“No. No, that isn’t true,” Evie said.
Henry lodged himself between Evie and the angry girl. “Excuse me, miss,” he said. “I’m not from around here, and I’m awfully lost. Can you help me?” With the other hand behind his back, he waved Evie and Theta on.
“C’mon,” Evie said, pulling Isaiah in with them. They ran to Broadway and tried to blend in with the theatergoers rushing to make the curtain. At the corner, Theta glanced over her shoulder. She stopped short. “Wait, where’s Henry?”
“There he is,” Evie said. Talking to the girl had stranded him. He was stuck on the other side of the melee. Citizens-turned-bounty hunters flooded the area between them. Police were on the lookout. Dutch Schultz’s men muscled their way through the crowd. When a man didn’t move fast enough, one of Dutch’s thugs bloodied his nose. It was madness. They were hopelessly separated.
“Henry!” Evie shouted. “Get to Bountiful! Pass it along!”
“Now, wait just a minute—” Henry shouted back.
But already, Evie was moving away. “Sorry—no time to debate it. We meet in Bountiful! Get there any way you can, but go—now!”
“Dammit, Evie,” Henry muttered, watching her go. That was the trouble with wanting somebody else to take on making decisions—sometimes they did, and you ended up going to Nebraska.
“Bountiful,” Henry repeated, and then he was off and running, wishing that he had Sam alongside him to keep them both invisible.
ESCAPE
A frantic Memphis scoured the crowd for his little brother. “Isaiah! Isaiah!” he screamed till his throat hurt.
Bill pulled at Memphis’s arm. “Memphis, we got to move!”
“Not without Isaiah!” Memphis said, shaking the big man off.
Around them, the crowd had gone feral. The night’s earlier grief had been discarded, and in its place was a bloodlust for revenge. Back in Louisiana, Bill Johnson had seen a crowd turn. He’d watched, helpless, as men with torches set fire to a black settlement. And the law? Hell, some of those lawmen were the ones who lit the torches. Bill balled Memphis’s collar in his fist till they were nose to nose. His voice was low and urgent. “Listen to me. This mob is lookin’ for a lynching. Understand?”
Twenty feet away, a man curled up on the ground was taking kicks from Dutch Schultz’s thugs while other men cheered them on. Memphis imagined Isaiah on the ground, Isaiah being taken by these furious people.
“I won’t leave without my brother,” he said again.
“I figured you’d say that,” Bill said and sighed, just before he knocked Memphis out and threw him over his shoulder. Memphis would be furious about this when he woke, but he’d be alive to fight another day. Once Bill got him stashed away someplace safe, he’d come back to look for Isaiah.
“Mr. Johnson! Over here!” Henry DuBois shouted as he maneuvered his way against the tide of people like a skinny garter snake. Bill ducked into a doorway on Fortieth Street. There, hidden by an awning, he waited until Henry caught up.
“Hey. What happened to Memphis?” Henry asked, nearly out of breath.
Bill ignored the question. “You seen Isaiah out there?”
Henry nodded. “He’s with Theta and Evie.”
Bill breathed a little easier. At least the boy was safe. “You see any of the others?”
Henry shook his head and patted the stitch in his side.
“Well, we cain’t stay here. Got to move,” Bill said.
“Evie said to meet in Bountiful.”
