The Diviners (The Diviners #1) 96

Evie felt slapped. She’d just wanted Mabel to get out from under her mother’s control and kick up her heels. To live it up like a real swell. Hadn’t she?

“I’ve had enough, Evie. I’m tired, and I’m going back to bed.”

Evie took in a shaky breath. “Mabesie, I… I didn’t think….”

“You never do. That’s the trouble.”

On the other side of the door, Mrs. Rose’s voice rang out. “Mabel, darling? Where are you?”

“Coming,” Mabel called. She went back inside and shut the door.

Evie stared at the door for a moment longer. She used her secret knock again, but Mabel still didn’t answer, so she left to meet with Will. On the walk to the museum, Evie tried to shrug off her fight with Mabel, but doing so proved impossible. She and Mabel had never had a fight. And Mabel’s words stung. That was what other people, the dim-witted Normas of the world, said about her. But not Mabel. Not her best friend.

In the museum, Evie heard voices. Jericho was showing a rare couple of visitors the collection in his quiet, scholarly way, a twin of Will. The couple looked bored. “Can these doodads haunt you if you touch them?” the woman asked.

“Oh, no. They’re quite harmless,” she heard Jericho answer. It was a missed opportunity. If Evie had been giving the tour, she’d have made up a story they’d never forget, something to keep them coming back.

Sam breezed past her in the long hallway, on his way to the collections room. He smiled brightly. “Hey, sister, glad to see your uncle sprang you from the clink.”

Evie scowled. “You left me there in that club, you fink. Very unchivalrous of you.”

“You weren’t thinking of me when you shimmied into that dumbwaiter by yourself. Don’t pretend you’re better than I am, Sheba. You got a little thief in you, too.”

Evie slammed the door on Sam and sat in Will’s office awaiting her fate. What if Will really did decide to send her home? She hadn’t allowed herself to really think about it; she just assumed she’d win him over. Now that thought crawled under her skin and left her feeling unsettled.

At precisely one minute before three o’clock, Will marched in. He hung his hat and coat on the coatrack and took his time taking off his gloves while Evie squirmed in the silence. At last he settled into his wingback chair behind the desk, templed his fingers, and fixed her with a pensive stare. Evie swallowed. The saliva caught in her throat and she suppressed a cough.

“Your mother was at a luncheon at her club when I telephoned earlier. I’ve left a message that she should ring me back. There’s a train to Zenith tomorrow evening. You will be on it.”

Evie gasped. “Oh, Unc, please. You can’t send me home. Not yet.” She could feel the tears burning at the corners of her eyes.

“What’s done is done.” Will rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It was foolish of me to think that I could take this on. I’m an old bachelor, set in my ways.”

“No, you’re not,” Evie said, sniffling. “I’m sorry. Everything will be the berries. You’ll see. Just give me another chance. Please,” Evie’s voice thinned to a whispery pleading.

“My decision is final, Evangeline,” Will said gently, and his sympathy was worse than his anger. “You’ll be better off back at home with your friends.”

“No, I won’t.” Evie wiped the backs of her hands across her cheeks, but the tears kept falling.

Will was making a speech, something about having been young and careless once, the sort of thing old-timers said when they issued a deathblow, as if they thought their sanctimonious ramblings disguised as empathy would be welcomed, but Evie was only half listening. She’d never told him about the object reading, she realized. He didn’t know. He didn’t know what she could do—that she might be able to use her skills to help him find the Pentacle Killer. After all, she’d gotten a glimpse from Ruta Badowski’s shoe buckle. Maybe what she’d heard wasn’t so irrelevant after all.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Evie blurted out, interrupting Will’s soliloquy on responsibility. “I never told you what happened back in Zenith. The trouble I got into.”

“Something about a party game and slander,” Will said. “Your mother told—”

“It wasn’t a party game.”

“Really, Evie, there’s no need—”

“Yes, there is. Please.”

Will relented and Evie summoned her courage.