Lair of Dreams (The Diviners #2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

revelers on her way toward the Overland Room, where she spied Henry and Theta in a corner. As she shimmied sideways through the swells, past a sad-eyed accordion player singing something doleful in Italian, people turned and pressed closer to her.
    “Say, I’ve got to talk with you, sweetheart,” a good-looking boy in a cowboy hat purred. “See, there’s a little interest in an oil speculation out in Oklahoma, and I want to know if it’s going to pay off.…”
    “I can’t see the future, only the past,” Evie demurred, pushing on.
    “Evie, DAAAARLING!” drawled a redhead in a long silver cape trimmed in peacock feathers. Evie had never seen the woman before in her life. “We simply MUST talk! It’s URGENT, my dove.”
    “Why, then, I’d best go put on my urgent shoes,” Evie called back without stopping, bumping headlong into someone. “Pardon me, I…” Evie’s eyes narrowed. “Sam Lloyd.”
    “Hiya, Baby Vamp,” he said, ever-ready smirk in place. “Miss me?”
    Evie put her hands on her hips. “What crime have I committed that has landed you on my doorstep?”
    “Just lucky, I guess.” He stole a canape from a passing waiter’s tray and shoved it in his mouth, rolling his eyes in rapture. “Caviar. Boy, do I love caviar.”
    Evie tried to go around Sam, but he moved with her.
    “Could you step aside, please?” she asked.
    “Aww, doll. Are you still sore because I told the
Daily News
that my sleuthing helped you catch the Pentacle Killer and that the reason you never come to the Creepy Crawly is that you’re so crazy about me you have to stay away?”
    Evie put her hands on her hips. “Yes, Sam. I
am
sore about that.”
    Sam spread his arms wide in a gesture of apology. “It was a charitable act!”
    Evie raised an eyebrow.
    “The museum needed the press, and that story gave us a little razzle-dazzle. It also got me a date with a chorus girl. A blond named Sylvia. You would not believe what that girl can do with—”
    “Good-bye, Sam.” Evie tried to push her way through the crowd but got stuck again. Sam followed her.
    “Aww, c’mon, doll. Let’s let bygones be bygones. Did I get mad when you told them I was… how’d ya put it again?”
    “A liar, a cheat, and the sort of scum the other pond scum try to swim away from?”
    “That was it.” Sam looked at her with big peepers. “Great to see you again, Sheba. Say, why don’t we find some little corner and catch up over a sloe gin fizz?”
    “Holy smokes!” Eyes wide, Evie pointed across the room. “Is that Buster Keaton?”
    Sam whirled around. “Where?”
    Quickly, Evie ducked past him and pressed through the throng. Behind her, she could hear Sam calling: “Was that nice?”
    At last, Evie collapsed into a seat beside Theta, who blew smokefrom a cigarette perched at the end of a long ebony holder. “Well, if it isn’t the Sweetheart Seer herself. Was that Sam?” Theta asked.
    “Yes. Every time I run into him, I have to remind myself that murder is a crime.”
    “I don’t know, Evil. He sure is handsome,” Henry teased.
    Evie glowered. “He’s trouble. And he still owes me twenty clams.”
    “Say,” Henry asked, “how about that party you went to last week at the Egyptian Palace Room? On the level: Do they really have live seals in the lobby fountain?”
    “Occasionally. When the residents don’t steal them for their own bathtubs. Oh,
daaarlings
, next time there’s a party there, you must come!”
    “Daaahlings, you maahhst cahhhme,” Theta mimicked. “Those elocution lessons are turning you into a regular princess, Evil.”
    Evie bristled. “Well, I can’t very well be on the radio sounding like a hick from Ohio.”
    “Don’t get sore, Evil. I’d like you even if it sounded like you’d swallowed a whole bag of marbles. Just don’t forget who your friends are.”
    Evie put her hand on Theta’s. “Never.”
    There was a loud crash as a monkey trailing a leash knocked a vase off a table. It