Pin inspected the wooden disk. One side was stamped with Hell Gate’s winged devil. The other read GOOD FOR ONE TRIP TO HADES. Pin flipped it into the air and caught it. “Thanks,” she said, though Clyde was long gone.

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

LARRY HAD ALREADY left for the day, and the skinny, pock-faced white man named Rubbery Moe had taken over the ticket booth. Screams and nervous laughter echoed from inside the Hell Gate pavilion, along with recorded groans and shrieks from hidden phonographs. Pin craned her neck to see if Horace was still on duty in back. He was. She swore and got in line, keeping an eye out for any sign of the man she’d seen that afternoon.

Clyde had seemed to remember him, too. So that made three of them: her, Henry, Clyde. Yet Clyde hadn’t seen the girl in yellow. She must have scrambled from the boat once the trip was under way and tried to run off. But why would she have run? She’d gone with the man willingly, sat on his lap like she knew him.

Unbidden, the image of her sister came to Pin, Abriana smiling as the German baker handed her a cruller, Abriana who trusted everyone who smiled at her or offered her a treat. Pin dug her fingernails into her palm until the pain drove the picture from her mind and she was back in the sticky warm night outside Hell Gate.

The line moved quickly with Rubbery Moe behind the ticket booth. He used to work the Derby Racer coaster, with its motto Sixty Miles an Hour in Sixty Seconds.

“Ten cents, one thin dime, watch’er heads, ladies, might want to remove your hats. No refunds, the management is not responsible for medical emergencies.”

In front of Pin stood two girls, arms linked. One wore a sailor cap, the other a hat with a white froth of willow plumes.

“You might want to keep that on your lap, miss.” Rubbery Moe jabbed a thumb at the mass of ostrich feathers. “That’s a real nice hat, shame to ruin it.”

The girl looked at her friend. “What you think? I should take it off?”

Her friend nodded. “Better safe than sorry.”

The two stepped over to the waiting boat, a four-seater. Rubbery Moe turned to Pin. She held out her token. He took it with a grunt, pointing to the plank seat behind the girls. Pin started toward the boat, then asked, “Hey, Moe—did you see a man here today? He was with a girl in a yellow dress, she was maybe twelve.”

“I seen a thousand men.” He gestured at the line behind her. “I got paying customers. Get in or skedaddle.”

Pin hopped into the back of the boat. The two girls turned to stare at her.