And then someone pried the comb from her stiff fingers, severing the connection. Evie came to with a great, heaving inhalation, as if her lungs had stopped working for a moment and were now desperate for air. Her head lolled from side to side. The bright white lights hurt her eyes. Evie’s knees buckled as she tried to stand. The studio audience gasped. One of the Sweetheart Singers rushed over to prop her up. The back of Evie’s tongue tasted of blood. The inside of her cheek was raw where she must’ve bitten it. Mr. Forman provided a glass of water, and Evie gulped it down greedily, not caring that she spilled it down the front of her dress. Pushing off from the Sweetheart Singer’s embrace, she lunged toward Bateman on unsteady legs.
“Where… where did you get this?” Evie choked out when she could speak again. The studio lights were daggers. Her eyes watered and her nose ran. She was afraid she might vomit.
“I told you, it was my buddy Ralphie’s.…”
“That’s not true!” Evie half yelled, half cried.
The audience was uncomfortable with this unseemly display. They’d come for a good time and answers about lost pets or family treasures whose secret histories might connect them to royalty or millionaires. Mr. Forman tried to intervene, but Evie’s voice rose over his. “Where did you get my brother’s comb?”
“Say, now—I came on for a little help,” Bateman snapped, but he seemed more unsettled than angry. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to this.”
In the booth, the engineer gestured wildly to Mr. Forman, who practically shoved the Sweetheart Singers up to the microphone, where they launched into an upbeat tune to drown out the drama unfolding in front of them. Bob Bateman grabbed the comb from Mr. Forman and started down the middle aisle toward the doors in the back even though the ON AIR sign glowed red. Evie stumbled after him, eliciting further murmurs of disapproval and shock from the audience, but she didn’t stop, careening like a rolled marble down the hallway of the radio station after Bob Bateman.
“Mr. Bateman! Mr. Bateman!”
The man hurried his steps. She burst through the doors and out into the madness of the street. Cold rain fell in fat drops that stuck to her eyelashes. Bob Bateman was halfway down the street. Evie chased after him and grabbed hold of his arm.
“Where did you get that comb?” she demanded through clenched teeth.
“Look, I already told you—”
“You’re lying. You’re lying, you’re lying!” She was crying now. Big hiccuping gulps. Making a scene right there on Broadway, with everyone looking on. But she was beyond caring. She only wanted the truth. “How did you know my brother?”
“What?”
“My brother, James! He was on that train. The vision—I saw him!”
Bob Bateman’s face showed panic. He gave the street a quick glance and leaned in close to Evie, lowering his voice. “Listen, sweetheart, it’s not even my comb.”
“What?”
“It’s not mine, okay?”
“B-but you s-said—”
“They paid me to say that. It’s not even my comb,” he said again.
“Who? Who paid you?”
“I don’t know. Some fellas in dark suits… Adams! His partner called him Mr. Adams.”
“Why would they do that?”
“How should I know?”
“Take me to them.”
“You’re crazy,” the man said. Evie latched on to his arm with both hands. “Let go!”
“Not until you take me to them.” Evie dug her nails into the man’s arm to keep him there.
“Ow! I said let go!” The man stepped down on Evie’s instep. She howled more in shock and anger than in real pain, and he yanked his arm free. A crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle.
“Crazy,” Bob Bateman groused to everyone watching. “She’s crazy! Those Diviners are all crazy!” he yelled and ran off.
By the time the wet, bedraggled Evie returned to the radio station, the Pears Soap Hour had ended. She hid behind the thick, fanned leaves of a potted plant, watching a group of men smoking in the lobby, and listened to Mr. Forman’s voice piped through the loudspeakers as he explained to the audience sitting by their radios that “Miss O’Neill has taken ill, overcome by the spirits from beyond.”
“Overcome by spirits, all right,” one of the smoking men quipped.
Mr. Forman reminded listeners that Sarah Snow’s Mission Hour was coming up next. The Wireless Wonders Orchestra played the Sweetheart Singers on, and they sang an inoffensive tune to make housewives happy.