“It’s been a very long day,” Jericho said gently. “I wouldn’t be surprised if your eyes played tricks on you.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Evie said, but she had the nagging feeling she’d seen Sam Lloyd, of all people. She had a vague impression of him leaning against a tree in that overconfident posture that annoyed her so. But Jericho was right—there was no one there now, only the lamppost and the park.
Sam stayed hidden behind a jagged slope of rock until they were gone. She’d seen him. Just for a second, but it was enough. What was it about that girl that made him lose his street smarts? He’d come to the museum hoping to sweet-talk her into giving him back his jacket, but then he’d seen the detective and decided to return when the museum was empty to steal the jacket—and anything else he might need.
Sam had bided his time in the hustle and bustle of Times Square. He’d spotted his mark in a sailor idling uncertainly on the corner of Broadway and Forty-third Street. The streets had been crowded with people heading home from work. Most pickpockets considered this a good time to ply their trade, when folks were distracted. But Sam had a little something extra on his side: an eerie ability to move among people unnoticed. It wasn’t that he was invisible; more that he could redirect people’s thoughts elsewhere so that their eyes simply didn’t register him. He had only to think, Don’t see me, and the person wouldn’t. He was quick, too, moving with catlike speed. In those moments, all he heard was his own rhythmic breathing as he extricated a wallet from a pocket, snatched a purse from a restaurant table, or stole bread from a store shelf. He didn’t know why it worked, or how—only that it did. It was how he had survived on his own for the past two years.
He had a clear memory of the first time it had happened. He’d been young—ten or eleven, maybe; it was sometime after his mother had left. His father had a watch, which had belonged to Sam’s grandfather. Sam had been told not to touch it, and it was precisely that edict that made the watch so appealing. One day he’d sneaked it out of his father’s drawer and smuggled the treasure in his coat to show the other boys in the schoolyard in the hope that they would understand its value and stop teasing him for his accent, his clothes, his smallness. Instead, they’d ridiculed him. “This? It’s just a cheap watch,” the leader said, and he smashed it on the ground. Sam had been afraid to go home and face his father. As he sat on the sofa waiting, he wished for a place to hide. When his father came home, Sam’s fear was so great that he felt like a small child again, imagining that he could simply close his eyes in a game of hide-and-seek and the other person wouldn’t see him. He heard his father’s footsteps coming closer, heard him calling Sam’s name. Don’t see me, Sam thought. “Don’t see me,” he whispered over and over, like a prayer. And then, oddly, his father looked right at him and kept walking, calling his name as if he were a ghost.
Sam was at a loss to explain it. He remembered something strange his mother had said to him once. They were in the bathroom, and she was cleaning the scrapes he’d gotten after the school bullies chased him home and pushed him down on the street. “Don’t worry, lyubimiy. You have gifts they do not.” “What do you mean?” he’d asked, wincing as she pressed a damp cloth to his scraped chin. “In time, you will see.” In time, he did see, but he wondered if that was what she had meant after all and, if so, how she could have known.
Trying to keep warm in the slight chill, Sam had watched the sailor carefully and thought of his jacket. It wasn’t the wool peacoat itself but the postcard hidden inside his pocket that mattered. It wouldn’t seem like much to anyone else—just a worn drawing of majestic, snow-capped mountains and tall trees. No helpful postmark accompanied it. On the back were three words scrawled in Russian. That postcard was the only thing Sam had brought with him from his father’s house in Chicago when he ran away, taking refuge in a traveling circus heading east. In the six months since he’d arrived in New York, he’d barely been able to survive. But fortunes could change quickly. The papers were full of stories of self-made men, like Henry Ford and Jake Marlowe. Sam, too, would make his fortune, and then he’d find the place in the postcard. He’d find her.
Evie, her uncle, and the Teutonic giant had obviously left for good, so Sam flicked open his Swiss Army knife and easily picked the lock on the museum’s door. For an egghead, that professor was pretty dumb about safeguarding his treasures. Street light pressed against the museum’s stained-glass windows. It gave the gloom inside a warm amber glow. Sam waited for his eyes to adjust, then slipped through the quiet old mansion looking for his jacket. This whole affair could’ve been avoided if he’d used his skill on Evie O’Neill back at Penn Station. But for some reason, he’d wanted her to see him. He’d wanted to talk to her. And when the time came, he’d wanted to kiss her as much as he’d wanted her money. That had been his undoing. Now here he was in the Museum of the Creepy Crawlies, searching in the dim light for his jacket.
It had been so much simpler with the sailor. The man had idled on the corner, confused about whether to go forward or turn right or left, and in that moment, Sam had read the poor chump perfectly. When the sailor had finally crossed the street, Sam had come from the other direction. Don’t see me, he’d thought, and even when someone looked in his direction, it was with a hazy, unfocused glance. Sam moved seamlessly through the crowd and lifted the sailor’s wallet from his pants pocket with ease, then walked away without being noticed.
Where was his jacket? Sam chanced turning on a desk lamp. The light fell onto a stack of newspaper clippings a good two inches thick. He riffled through the stories, dismissing them with a smirk. Ghost stories. Spooky tales invented by folks who were afraid of living. Or who wanted attention. He knew the type. Then Sam’s smirk faded as his eyes fell on a small article from a Kansas paper that told of a fifteen-year-old girl who fell ill with the sleeping sickness. Just before she died, she repeated a phrase that baffled her family. It was only the same two words, over and over: Project Buffalo.
Sam returned the article to the stack with suddenly shaking hands. If this Professor Fitzgerald knew something about it, then he needed to find a way to stick close to him, maybe by staying cozy with his niece, which sounded like a pretty swell proposition. Unless she killed him in a fit of pique. She certainly seemed like the sort of doll who could do it. Sam smiled at the thought; he liked a challenge. And that one was definitely a challenge. All he needed was a way in.
He spied it hanging on the wall in the collections room: CEREMONIAL MASONIC KNIGHTS TEMPLAR DAGGER AND SCABBARD OWNED BY CORNELIUS T. RATHBONE, D. 1855. That ought to do it, Sam thought, tucking it into his shirt. He left the museum as he’d found it. By this time tomorrow, he’d have his jacket, and maybe a little reward money, too.
THINGS NOT SAID
Evie went straight to Mabel’s apartment and the girls scooted past the cigarette smoke–filled parlor, where Mabel’s parents were hosting a political meeting. As they shut the door to Mabel’s bedroom, they could hear the adults arguing about workers’ rights over cups of coffee.
“What’s the matter? You look terrible,” Mabel said.
“It’s been a real lulu of a day, old girl.” Evie told Mabel about Ruta Badowski’s grisly murder, leaving out the part about the shoe buckle. She knew Mabel—she was as much of a crusader as her parents. She’d probably march Evie down to the police station and make her confess. But Evie didn’t want to relive a minute of the terrible things she’d seen.
“How awful! Do you think your uncle Will can help them find the killer?”
“If anyone can, it’s Unc. He’s a genius.”
“Are you going to help?”