The shadow of her suitcase was hulking black against the soft white carpet in the other room. She reached down and touched the deep-pile rug. The cushy carpet would certainly be more comfortable than a wood bench. It would probably be safer too. It would only be for a few days, she told herself, just until she could find a place of her own.

She closed and locked the heavy wood door to the corner office and said a little prayer she wasn’t making a terrible mistake. It was too dark in the room to see. She decided to risk turning on the lights. No one in the building would know, and no one on the street would care, she told herself.

The overhead light clicked on brightly, making Beatrice squint. The carpet was dusty, but there were no signs of bugs or rodents. The windows still had their wooden blinds. She walked over and pulled them all shut.

She closed the blinds in the bathroom as well, then flipped on the light over the sink. The face in the mirror nearly made her jump in fright. Her eyes were ringed in red. The makeup around them was smudged, making them look sunken into her head. Her hair was dull and stringy. Her face was thin and gaunt. She’d forgotten to eat dinner again. She would have to plan better tomorrow.

The faucet handle in the shower stall was a little rusted but eventually turned. The water poured out brown and red like dried blood. The sight was sickening against the muted white marble. Beatrice shut her eyes until she was certain that clean, hot water had reached the eleventh floor, and the room was filled with steam.

After the shower, Beatrice felt like a semblance of herself again. She put on her pajamas and laid her winter coat out on the thick carpet like a tiny sleeping bag. She rolled up a sweater for a pillow and curled up on the floor. Within minutes she was out.

CHAPTER 35

The wail of a police siren out on the street below woke Beatrice at dawn. She quickly got dressed and made up for work. The night of sleep had done her some good, but she was starving. She cleaned every trace of her night in the office from the room and returned her suitcase to the broom closet just in case some security person came looking.

As she rode the elevator down to the cafeteria for breakfast, she wondered how long she’d be able to get away with sleeping in the building. She wouldn’t be able to visit her Aunt Doris if she spent her evenings in the ladies’ room waiting for everyone to go home. She wouldn’t be able to get back into the building late at night. They locked the front doors at 7:00 p.m. and didn’t reopen them until 7:00 a.m. the next day.

She thought about her predicament all morning. She grabbed extra food from the corner deli during her lunch break and hid a ham sandwich and fruit cup in her purse.

The Westerly Arms apartment tower caught her eye as she walked back up East Twelfth Street, and she stopped. The lobby of the apartment building was small but clean. She rang the bell at the desk and waited until a short old man appeared. He had thick tortoiseshell glasses perched at the end of his long hooked nose. “Can I help you, miss?”

“Um. I’d like to rent an apartment.”

The man looked at her skeptically over the enormous frames of his glasses as he grabbed some forms from behind the counter. “Are you planning to live alone?”

“Yes.”

“This is downtown Cleveland, you know. It’s not very safe for a young lady . . . You sure you can afford it?”

“I think so. What are the rates?”

“Three hundred per month for a studio,” he said flatly. “Bedrooms are more.”

She nodded. It was only a third of her monthly salary, so she should be able to afford it just fine.

“You’ll need to fill these out. I’m going to need two references verifying your employment. We’ll need a copy of a driver’s license or birth certificate. It will take two weeks to process.” He handed her the forms.

Her heart plummeted as he spoke. Social security number, former address, work information . . . She skimmed through the lines, realizing how many blanks she’d struggle to fill in. She thanked the man and walked out of the lobby and back to her office. Her aunt had helped her fake a job application, but Doris couldn’t help her now. Worse still, Beatrice didn’t have a driver’s license or a copy of the birth certificate Doris had forged for the bank. Beatrice had no proof of who she was pretending to be. She’d never even seen her own birth certificate.

She returned to her desk and tried to focus on her typing. Mr. Halloran had been out for days, but the other middlemen were keeping her busy typing up accounting summaries. She found the endless clacking of the typewriter hypnotic and struggled to stay awake.

The telephone on her desk rang.

“Good afternoon, Auditing Department.”

“Beatrice? Is that you?”

“Tony?”

“I need to see you. Can we meet tonight?” His voice sounded worn out.

“Is everything all right?” she asked, sitting up in her seat. Had he caught her burglar? she wondered hopefully. Could she go home?

“Not on the phone. Can I see you tonight?”

“I . . . I can’t tonight.” She couldn’t explain that she would be spending her evening hiding in a bathroom and then sleeping in an empty office. “How about lunch tomorrow?”

“The Theatrical Grille. Be there at eleven thirty.”

At the end of the day, Beatrice went through the same routine as the night before. She waited patiently in the ladies’ room for the floor to empty. She ate her dinner of ham and fruit in the dark and watched the muted light from the window slowly fade. When the room was nearly pitch black, she scurried to the elevator and up to the eleventh floor. As she settled down on the soft carpet for the night, she pulled Aunt Doris’s key out of her pocket and turned it over in her hand. She still didn’t know why Doris had a safe deposit box. She set the key on top of Max’s files and fell asleep.

Beatrice heard voices. At first she thought she was dreaming and rolled over onto her side. Then an alarm went off in her head as the voices grew louder. She sat up with a jolt. From the corner office where she hid, she could hear two voices in the hall not twenty feet away. She had locked the door and turned off the lights, but she still sat frozen, holding her breath, certain she’d be discovered. She searched the room for a place to hide but soon realized the men weren’t looking for her. They were arguing.

Straining to hear what the angry voices were saying, she crawled silently toward the door. She became more and more certain, as she listened, that neither voice sounded familiar.

“It’s gone too far,” one voice said. “I don’t care what the board says. This can’t go on much longer. The feds are already asking questions.”

“The leak is contained,” a deeper voice said. “The feds don’t have a thing on us. Don’t tell me you’ve lost your nerve.”

“If the feds aren’t a problem, then why the hell are we meeting here again?”

“You can never be too careful.”

“This is exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Even if they are listening, the feds don’t have a thing on us. Where’s your backbone, Jim? Aren’t you the one who taught me making money is a dirty business?”

“All I’m saying is we can’t afford to draw the ire of city hall. All the political favors we’ve counted on will dry up the second we let the city default!”

“You’re afraid of the boy mayor and his band of merry men? Do you think anyone will listen to him once he’s driven this city into the ground? He’s nothing! He’s nobody! This bank, our board, we run this damn town! They’ll run that stupid son of a bitch out of town!”

“You think they’ll stop there? Ever study history, Teddy? Bankers like us don’t fare too well when they start lighting the torches. Someone’s gonna burn for this. The feds will be the least of our problems if there’s a shake-up in the city council. Our friends in high places are going to scramble to save their own asses. All of the bribes in the world won’t keep CPD from banging down our door.”