I hear the elevator doors slowly slide shut.

“C’mon…” Charlie insists as he motions to my cup of coffee. “Let’s go get some coffee.”

Leaving my coffee cup on his desk, I follow him out of the cubicle and straight to the coffee machine – which just happens to be next to the stairs. Charlie plows forward. I check over my shoulder.

“Are you sure it’s-?”

“Stop hesitating, Ollie – it’s only gonna rot your brain.”

Without looking back, he takes a swan dive into the abyss. But as he ducks into the stairwell, it’s completely empty. Over the banisters, he looks up and down. No one’s-

“Not exactly what we had in mind, now is it?” a deep voice asks as the door slams with a thunderclap. We spin around. Behind us is Shep.

“Not a bad day’s work,” Charlie whispers, extending the high-five.

Shep doesn’t take him up on it. He’s too focused on me. “So it’s all in the account?”

“Forget the account. Why’d you call in the Service?” I insist.

“They were here when I got here,” Shep snaps back. “I’m guessing it was Quincy or Lapidus – but believe me, when it comes to law enforcement, the Service is better than the FBI. At least we’re dealing with friends.”

“See…” Charlie interrupts. “Nothing to worry about.”

We both shoot him looks that’re meant to knock him on his ass. Me, he can handle. Shep’s another story. Time to get serious.

“We’ll catch the people and get the money back as quick as we can,” Shep announces, leaning over the banister and eyeing the floors above us. He lowers his voice and mouths two words: “Not here.” He’s not taking any chances.

“So where do you want to go for lunch?” Charlie quickly adds. Smart. We need a place to talk. Someplace private. Simultaneously staring at the floor, the three of us fall silent. We’re all on the same page, churning through the mental atlas.

“How about the Yale Club?” I suggest, going with Lapidus’s favorite hideaway.

“I like it,” Charlie says. “Quiet, secluded, and just snotty and repressed enough to know how to keep its mouth shut.”

Shep shakes his head. Reading our confused looks, he pulls out his wallet and gives us a quick flash of his driver’s license. Good point. To get in there, we’ll have to show ID.

“I got it,” Charlie says. “How about Track 117?”

I smirk. Shep’s lost. A quick whisper in his ear fills him in.

“You sure we can-?”

“Trust me,” Charlie says. “No one even knows it exists.” Watching us carefully, Shep doesn’t have much of a choice.

“So I’ll see you at noon?” Shep asks. The two of us nod our heads, and he takes off up the stairs. He disappears quickly, but we still hear his shoes clicking against the concrete steps.

The door slams above us, and I hit the stairs like Stallone in the first Rocky.

“Where’re you going?” Charlie calls out.

I don’t answer, but he already knows. I’m not waiting till lunch – I want the rest of the picture now.

Tearing up the corkscrewed stairs, I look back just enough to see Charlie trailing right behind me.

“They’ll never let you in,” he calls out.

“We’ll see…”

Fifth floor… sixth floor… seventh floor… I shoot out into the hallway, heading straight for Lapidus’s secretary. Charlie waits back, watching the rest through a crack in the stairwell door. That was his floor; this one’s mine.

“They still in there?” I ask, blowing past her desk as if they’re expecting me.

“Oliver, don’t…”

She’s not even close to being fast enough. I fling the door open and disappear.

Inside, the noisy chatter falls dead silent. Every single head turns my way. Lapidus, Quincy, Shep, Mary… even the two Secret Service agents who’re crowded around Lapidus’s antique desk. They look at me like I crashed their funeral.

“Who the hell is this?” Mr. Squat barks.

I look to Lapidus for the save, but by now, I should know better.

“I’ll take care of it,” Lapidus says, rushing toward me. He reaches out for my elbow, and with the gracefulness of a ballroom dancer, glides past me, spins me around, and escorts me back to the door. It’s so smooth, I barely realize what’s happening. “We just need to take care of a few things first. You understand…” he adds as if it’s no big deal. There’s a loud creak and the door opens. Three seconds later, I’m out on my ass.

Across the hall, I catch Charlie watching from the stairwell. My eyes drop to the carpet. Behind me, Lapidus gives me the standard boss back-pat and sends me on my way.

“I’ll call you when we have some news,” Lapidus adds, his voice suddenly waning. At three hundred million, it’s too big even for him. As I glance over my shoulder, he looks more ragged than both me and my brother – and the way he’s clutching the doorknob, it’s almost like he needs it to stand. Watching me leave, Lapidus slowly shuts the door. But in the last second… just as he turns away… just as he brushes his hand across his top lip… I swear, he’s fighting back the slightest of grins.

“So he wouldn’t give you anything?” Charlie asks as we race up Park Avenue, zigzagging in tandem through the lunchtime crowd.

“Can we please not talk about it?” I snap.

“What abou-”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it!”

Charlie steps back, his palms facing me. “Listen, you don’t have to tell me twenty times – I got better stuff to do anyway. Now what d’you wanna buy first? I’m thinking something small, but easy to hide – like Delaware.”

This time, I don’t answer.

“What? You don’t like Delaware? Fine – how ’bout a Carolina?”

I continue to stay quiet.

“Oh, c’mon, Ollie – throw me some love – a shrug… a yell… something.” He knows I’m too opinionated to bite my lip – which means he also knows that when silence steps in, my mind’s on something else.

“Helloooooo – Earth to Oliver! You speaka de Spanish?”

I step off the curb and cross 41st Street. Only one more block to go. “Do you think Shep would turn on us?” I blurt.

Charlie laughs out loud. That little-brother laugh. “Is that what’s got you crapping your pants?”

“I’m serious, Charlie – for all we know, that’s why he agreed to meet us. He’ll tape our entire conversation, and then all he’ll have to do is turn us over to the-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa… it’s time to jump on the trolley and get out of the Land of Make-Believe. This is Shep we’re talking about. He’s not in it to screw us over. He wants this money just as bad as we do.”

“Speak for yourself,” I shoot back. “I’m done with the money. I’m just worried that when push comes to shove, we’re going to be knee-deep in he said/we said.”

“Well, let me tell you something, if we were, he’d be a moron. I mean, the way everything’s set up, we couldn’t have done this on our own. Even Shep knows that. So if he starts pointing the finger at us, it’s clear we have plenty of his own fingerprints to point at him. Besides, it’s not like we have a choice – he’s our only man on the inside.”

Once again, I fall silent. He’s on the money with that one. When it comes to the big picture, there’s still a ton of information we’re missing. And right now, as we cross 42nd Street and quickly approach the brass-and-glass doors of Grand Central Station, there’s only one place we can get it.

“You ready?” Charlie asks, pulling open the door and bowing butler-style. He’s watching me closely, checking to see if I’ll hesitate.

I stop at the threshold, but only for a second. Before he can issue the challenge, I step inside without looking back.

“Now we’re talking,” he croons.

“C’mon,” I call out, daring him to keep up. From the silence alone, I know what he’s thinking. He can’t tell if the bravery’s real, or I’m just anxious to get some answers. Either way, as I turn around to check the look on his face, it’s clear he’s thrilled.

For the first few steps, we’re running through a low-ceiling, claustrophobic subway tunnel. Then – like that moment when your car pulls out of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and all of Manhattan stands wide-open in front of you – we take our first step into the light… the ceiling rises up, up, up… and the enormous, marble-covered Main Concourse of Grand Central Station appears. Craning his neck up, Charlie can’t help but stare at the seventy-five-foot arched windows along the left wall, and the blue-and-white zodiac mural that decorates the vaulted ceiling.