“What took you so long?” Will asked when Evie came panting into the room. He and Jericho had assembled a stack of books, which they were tucking into Will’s attaché case. “I walked to Jerusalem for the Bible. I knew you’d want an original,” Evie snapped.”

“No one had ever said anything like that to Evie. Her parents always wanted to advise or instruct or command. They were good people, but they needed the world to bend to them, to fit into their order of things. Evie had never really quite fit, and when she tried, she’d just pop back out, like a doll squeezed into a too-small box.”

“With each shimmy, the bugle beads on their scandalously revealing costumes swung and shook. It was the sort of display Evie knew her mother would have found appalling—an example of the moral decay of the young generation. It was sexual and dangerous and thrilling, and Evie wanted more of it.”

“Dead bodies are such trouble,” Evie said with a little sigh, and Mabel had to turn her head away so as not to laugh.”

“If there was one truth Evie had learned in her short life, it was that forgiveness was easier to seek than permission. She didn’t plan to ask for either one.”

“I hear they feed you in Sing Sing,” Evie muttered. “Three squares a day.” “Evangeline,” Will said with a sigh. “Charity begins at home.” “So does mental illness.”

“Evie was so nervous that she downed her cocktail in two stiff swigs, then refilled her glass. Henry arched an eyebrow. “A pro, I see.” “What else is there to do in Ohio?”