And then he was melting, like all the others.
Evie woke shaking. She sat up and pulled her knees to her chest and waited for her breathing to return to normal. She knew there’d be no more sleep tonight. Exhausted, she took herself to the kitchen for a glass of water, then settled into Will’s office chair and tried to comfort herself by straightening the mess that was his desk. She picked up a crystal paperweight. A letter opener. A framed picture of the woman she’d seen when she held Will’s glove. If she wanted to, she could press any of these things between her palms, concentrate, and draw out Will’s secrets. Jericho’s, too. And Sam’s and Mabel’s and Theta’s. The list was endless. But it was a form of stealing, knowing people’s secrets without their consent. And she wasn’t sure she wanted the responsibility of knowing.
She put the photograph back in its protected place and let her palm rest against the half-dollar pendant at her neck, feeling warmed by its presence. She’d never been able to read it; the coin was too imbued with her own memories. But she liked the weight of it against her neck. It was her last connection to James, and James had been her connection to everything good. She remembered the birthday note that had accompanied the gift:
Happy birthday, old girl.
Are you seven already? Before I know it, you’ll be pinning gardenias to your frocks and sitting with gentlemen callers on the front porch—under the watchful eye of your dear brother, of course. France is miserably muddy, I’m afraid. You’d have a grand time of it, making mud pies and throwing them at the Germans. Big day tomorrow, so I won’t write again for a while. Here is a little something to remember your old brother by. Don’t spend it all at Hale’s Candy Store.
Fondly, James
A week later, they’d received the horrible telegram that James was dead, and her family had broken and been taped back together, a posed photograph kept behind fractured glass.
On Will’s desk, the Daily News lay folded open to T. S. Woodhouse’s latest article on the Pentacle Killer. Her brother was long dead, and somewhere in this city a murderer was breaking hearts. Evie twirled her pendant and thought about the grieving families of Ruta Badowski, Tommy Duffy, and Eugene Meriwether. She knew what it was to wait for someone who would never come home. She knew that grief, like a scar, faded but never really went away. Uncle Will hadn’t wanted her to use her talents to help catch the killer; he thought it too dangerous. He was wrong. It was dangerous not to use them. Not that it mattered, now that Jacob Call had confessed. Why couldn’t she feel better about that?
Jericho had forgotten to draw the shade before bed, and now the weary neon of the night-owl city woke him. He crossed to the mirror and stood shirtless before it, examining himself. He was tall, six-foot-two, with the broad shoulders of a farmer, which he would have been if he hadn’t gotten sick. Silently, he slid his bureau drawer open and took the leather kit from its hiding place under a stack of folded undershirts, unrolled it, and ran a finger along the dark blue vials. He wanted to bring a fist down and crush them all. Instead, he brought his hands out in front of his body and held them there for a few long seconds, watching, before dropping them to his sides again. His hands were steady, his skin smooth, his eyes clear. His heart kept a steady, comforting rhythm. To look at him, you’d never know. Only someone who was very close to him would ever know the truth. And he didn’t intend to let anyone get that close.
He sensed movement in the apartment and opened his door a crack to see Evie leaving Will’s office, on her way back to her room. The bluish light cutting through the windows silhouetted the shape of her body beneath her nightgown and Jericho felt a stirring deep in his belly. He admonished himself for looking, but didn’t stop. When she disappeared from view, he shut the door quietly and dropped into a push-up position, driving himself through a punishing routine of exercises, counting them off in his head: Thirty… fifty… one hundred. When he’d finished, his body glistened with a fine sheen of sweat that gave Jericho a sense of relief. Sweat was good. It was healthy. Normal. He held out his hands again. Steady as a rock. He buried the leather kit under his shirts and closed the drawer.
In a garden apartment in Harlem, Alma’s rent party was in full swing. Gabe’s trumpet wailed and growled like a man on the prowl. The small flat was packed with bodies dancing and drinking, singing and shouting into the night. When Memphis had first stepped into the packed apartment with Theta on his arm, he’d gotten some raised eyebrows, and one or two stares. That ended when Alma’s girlfriend, Rita, walked straight up to Theta and said, in a loud voice, “Got a cigarette?” Theta answered, “I’ve got ten. Which one do you want?” To which Rita laughed and said, “She’s all right,” and it was all fine after that. Soon enough, everybody was lost to the good times. Or almost everyone was.
