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Upper West Side
According to the clock on the bedside table, it was nine fifteen in the morning—an ungodly hour to flapper Evie O’Neill, who never got up before noon if she could help it. She’d been having a nightmare, but she couldn’t remember a thing about it now. Evie stifled an exhausted yawn and looked over at her friend, Theta Knight, who snored lightly. Her sleep mask was slightly askew. Evie nudged Theta twice before giving her a solid shove. Theta startled awake, hands patting at the air until they landed on the sleep mask, which she slid up onto her forehead. She blinked at Evie, then at the clock. “What’s the big idea, Evil?”
“Darling Theta, did anyone ever tell you that you sleep with your mouth open?” Evie impersonated a dead-to-the-world, snoring Theta. “I just didn’t want you to choke.”
With a groan, Theta pushed herself to a sitting position. “That’s called breathing.”
“It’s very loud breathing.” Evie snuggled up next to Theta. For a moment, she remembered all the times she’d done the same with her best friend, Mabel. An awful ache ballooned in Evie’s throat. She refused to start the day with tears. “Theta, did you mean what you said last night?”
Theta arched an eyebrow. “I dunno. What’d I say last night?”
“That you’d help me find Sam.”
“Yeah, I meant it, kid.”
“You’re the berries,” Evie said and kissed Theta’s cheek.
Theta wiped at the spot. “You probably just got a mouthful of cold cream, y’know.”
“Then my lips will be very soft. I want to try his hat again.”
“Evil. You’ve read that hat three times now,” Theta said gently.
“Maybe there’s something I missed! I could sense how afraid he was, Theta. You know Sam—he’s never afraid. I saw those Shadow Men doing something to him, and then I could feel Sam’s body getting cold and slow and numb.”
Theta brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “You don’t suppose he’s…?”
“No! He is pos-i-tutely not dead!” Evie insisted. She couldn’t bear the thought of it. There’d been too much loss already. “Besides, if anybody is going to have the pleasure of murdering Sam Lloyd, it ought to be me.”
Theta chuckled and shook her head. “You two. I don’t know whether to hope you get married or hope you never do.”
“I only want to know that he’s okay,” Evie said, tearing up at last.
“I know, kid. Here,” Theta said, reaching for Sam’s hat from the bedside table. “You might as well get started. I’ll have the aspirin ready for after. Just don’t do a number on yourself.”
Evie sat with Sam’s hat in her lap. The old Greek fisherman’s cap had belonged to him for a long time. With renewed purpose, Evie pressed it between her palms, receiving small glimpses of Sam’s past. These memories played across her mind like brief scenes in a motion picture, but all jumbled up: Sam talking to a redheaded lady who was laying out a spread of tarot cards. Sam lifting valuables from unsuspecting rubes on Forty-second Street. The day she and Sam had met, when he’d kissed her and stolen twenty dollars from her pocket. That one made her smile just a bit. There was even a hint of the countless girls he’d charmed into his arms, and it tempted Evie to unlock even more of those memories. Last, she wandered across a moment of the two of them sharing a perfect kiss. And then that gave way to the Shadow Men dragging Sam toward the brown sedan, his body growing cold. But then the hat fell to the sidewalk, and that’s where Sam’s history with it stopped. If she wanted a deeper read, she was going to need help.
Evie came out of her trance and looked up at Theta with wide eyes. “Theta, darling Theta.”
“Uh-oh. I know that tone.”
“Please? I only need a boost.”
“My power’s pretty unpredictable, Evil. What if I accidentally set you on fire?”
“Then I’m glad I’m wearing your pajamas and not my own.”
“There’s something not right ab
out you, Evil,” Theta clucked. “Now, listen: If this goes badly, don’t you dare come back and haunt me.”
“Your protest is noted.”
“Uh, how do we do this? Do I touch you? The hat? Both?”
“Both, I think.” Evie glanced at Theta’s fingers and thought about them heating up suddenly. “On second thought, the hat.”
“Here goes nothin’,” Theta said and took hold of the brim with a delicate touch.
