CHAPTER 19

Suzanne’s voice rasped in the back of her ears all night. Maybe Suzanne didn’t know anything about the key. Then again, she sounded like a paranoid nutcase the minute Iris had asked about it. Iris tossed and turned in her bed, mulling it all over in her head, until only one thought was left—who was Beatrice Baker?

Iris arrived at the back door of 1010 Euclid Avenue almost on time the next day. She pressed the button and rested her sleep-deprived head against the stone wall. In the morning light, all of the midnight drama over flashlights, keys, and lockboxes seemed ridiculous. The door, the sidewalk, the street—everything looked completely ordinary.

As usual, Ramone opened the door without showing his face. Iris parked and sat with her cigarette, debating what to do first. She wanted to run up to the fifteenth floor and see where the flashlight had been darting around the night before, but she wasn’t sure she had the guts. Then there was the missing bay on the third floor. She tried to focus on that, but Ramone’s comment about the basement tunnels was more intriguing. Ramone was more intriguing for that matter. She still didn’t know where the security guard spent his days and nights in the empty building.

It was the voice of her father in her head that made the decision for her. No matter how interesting Ramone and the building might be, she still had a job to do. With a defeated sigh, she fished out the third-floor plan from the old gym bag she’d been using for her pathetic collection of tools and set it on her clipboard. Brad needed the schematics for the first seven floors by Monday. She marched up the loading dock stairs and down the service corridor.

Iris yanked open the door to the third floor and retraced her steps. She slowly counted the columns, starting at the east wall and working her way west. The columns matched. The window count matched.

Everything fell apart in the library. The long and narrow library that ran the length of the third floor on the west side of the building was only twenty-five feet wide. She measured the room again. To match the floor below, it should really be thirty-five feet wide. The library didn’t have any windows, because the bank tower abutted the old Cleveland rotunda building to the west; it was a party wall. Iris rifled through her purse to find the second-floor plan. According to her sketch, the exterior wall for the floor below was ten feet farther west than the wall she was leaning on.

She tapped the wall with her pencil as she read the drawings; it sounded hollow. She pounded it hard with her fist. It was definitely not old lath and plaster. It sounded like drywall on studs. Her eyes traced the wall up and down the room. It was seamless. The wall was painted tan and lined with large portraits of old white men. Mr. Wackerly, Mr. Brodinger, Mr. Mathias—every ten feet there was a portrait with a name on a little gold plaque. Their eyes followed her as she went up and down the west wall. Aisle after aisle of books, and she still could not find a door, a window, or an access panel.

Iris gave up on the library and headed to the northwest corner office at the front of the building, where Linda Halloran’s desk sat empty. She counted the windows and checked her plans. One window was missing. She counted again to be sure. She walked to the west wall of the office and pounded it. It sounded just like the wall in the library. It was covered in ugly wood panels, but there were no seams. There was a large bookcase in the corner. It was eight feet tall and four feet wide.

Iris walked over to it and nudged it with her foot. It barely shuddered. Solid oak, she thought. She peeked into the tiny gap between the bookcase and the wall panel and saw nothing but a shadow. Iris looked down at the green shag carpeting and then back up at the bookshelf. There was no way she’d be able to slide it. She inspected the empty wood shelves and did some quick mental calculations. There was the heavy wood desk and a couple leather chairs in front of the bookcase. They all looked pretty expensive. She hesitated, then walked around the desk and slid the chairs out of the way.

The huge bookcase stood bare and defenseless against the wall. No one will miss you, she thought. With her eyes squinted nearly shut, she reached up as high as she could reach, put one foot on the wall, and pulled. The hulking wood creaked off its bearings and began to tip. It teetered on its edge, then the monstrous piece of furniture came crashing down. Wood splintered and cracked. Iris felt the floor vibrate as the bookcase crashed into the corner of the desk and careened to the floor. She stayed crouched with her arms up in front of her face to block shrapnel. She half expected Ramone to burst in with his gun drawn. When nothing happened, she let out a nervous giggle and brushed the dust off her clothes.

She turned and saw exactly what she had hoped to find behind the bookcase. It was a door. Its dark wood matched the surrounding paneling. She tried the small bronze handle, but it was locked. She fished the skeleton key Brad had given her a few days earlier out of her pocket and slid it into the lock. It wouldn’t budge. She tried again to be sure.

There had to be a key somewhere. She decided to try Linda’s drawers one more time. She felt inside each drawer, corner to corner, for the key. All she found were two paper clips and a thumbtack. She slammed the drawers closed and sat back in Linda’s chair, dejected. She glared at the broken shelves, then back at the desk. The wood top was scarred where the bookcase had crashed, but something else about it bothered her. It looked just like it did the day before—big, heavy, and empty. She ran her hand across the writing surface and froze as she realized what was wrong. There wasn’t a speck of dust. She stared at the spot where she had written “Wash me.” Her words had been completely erased. The wood was pristine. Her eyes darted around the room. The desk was the only thing in the room not caked with grime.

She jumped out of the chair. Someone else had been there. Someone had seen her words in the dust. She ran out of the office into the hallway as if the perpetrator might still be standing there with a dust rag. She stood still and listened carefully to the quiet. The wandering flashlight up on fifteen taunted her.

It was probably just Ramone, she told herself. She forced herself to inhale and exhale slowly three times. It was his job to wander around the building, and if he wanted to clean random things, it was his prerogative. Maybe he was obsessive-compulsive. Maybe he was crazy.

“Hello?” she called out into the hall. “Ramone?”

There was no response. She listened hard again for footsteps or the panting of a madman. If anyone was on the floor with her, she would hear them. The thick silence blanketed everything.

Iris turned back toward Linda’s office and the hidden door. At least she’d found the missing space. She drew a blank room ten feet wide and fifty feet long on the third-floor plan and marked the location of the door and missing window behind Linda’s bookcase. The room ran the length of the library and backed up to the emergency stairs. She stared at the plan. The bookcase hiding the door made no sense. It weighed a ton even empty. She wondered if Linda had even known the door was there at all. Iris narrowed her eyes and focused on the place the secret room met up with the stairs. Maybe she’d missed something.

Ramone probably had the key to the mystery door. She also needed to ask about his dusting habits, but she had no idea how to find him. There was a phone out on Suzanne’s desk. She lifted the receiver but wasn’t surprised it was dead.