“You’ve gone soft. Anyone that tries to come through here won’t find a damn thing but a paper trail that leads nowhere. I don’t care how mad people get. This is a matter of principle. Fuck the mayor!” Teddy shouted.

“Fuck the mayor? That’s your plan?”

Beatrice bit her fingernail and strained to hear more. Cigar smoke was finding its way under the door as she pressed her ear to the jamb.

“Ah, the mayor fucked himself when he refused to play ball. No one is going to take him seriously.”

“I’m not so sure about that. I think you’re forgetting about our other little problem.”

“Bill? He’s harmless. Besides, we’ve got all the leverage we’ll ever need on him.”

“What if he decides to make a plea? A federal witness can certainly beat jail time. Shit, he may even get off scot-free.”

“We’re watching him. Besides, he knows his little scam is over the second the bank goes belly-up. He won’t shoot the golden goose.” Teddy chuckled. A long pause followed, and then he added, “He’ll make a fantastic patsy when the time comes, don’t you think?”

“I’m just not convinced he’s that stupid.”

“Ha! Have lunch with him. It’ll set your mind at ease. Are you done with that goddamned thing?”

The voices grew fainter, then disappeared altogether.

Beatrice stared into the dark long after the men left the floor. The bank was being investigated by the feds, just as Mr. Halloran had suggested. The men had spoken of bribes. They had friends on the city council. They were arguing over something to do with the mayor. She’d learned far too much, but she had no idea who they were or what they were actually doing. Her thoughts kept returning to Bill—Bill, who was running some sort of scam. She at least had a suspicion of who that might be.

Eventually, the morning light trickled in from under the blinds.

CHAPTER 36

The hands of the clock moved at a glacial pace that morning. Beatrice sat at her desk trying to busy herself with her filing. In between pages, she decided to make some notes about the midnight meeting. She pulled out her steno pad and began to jot down a few details. She looked at the four words she had written in her girlish penmanship and paused. After the break-in at her aunt’s house, she couldn’t afford to be so careless. She crumpled the notes and shoved them into the bottom of her purse. Looking at her steno pad again, she thought of Max.

Beatrice scribbled her notes in shorthand. Over three pages filled up fast as she described the conversation she had overheard in little ticks and swirls indecipherable to anyone outside the secretarial pool.

The clock finally struck 11:20 a.m. It was time to meet Tony. Beatrice stood up quietly and hurried to the elevator with her overstuffed purse hanging at her side.

The Theatrical Grille was empty for lunch. The jukebox was playing the blues as Beatrice walked through the door into the dark room. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Carmichael was sitting behind the bar, reading the paper.

He perked up at the sound of the door and leapt off his stool to greet her. “Welcome! Bella! How are you today?”

“I’m fine.” Then she thought to ask, “Say, Carmichael, have you seen Max around?”

“Maxie? No. It’s been too long! You are meeting her here?” He raised his eyebrows hopefully.

“Actually, I’m meeting someone else.” She looked down the empty bar and then the row of red booths. There was no sign of the detective. She checked the Old Style clock on the wall and saw that she was five minutes late. “Was there a man here waiting for someone?”

Carmichael raised his eyebrows. “A man? No, but no man would leave if they were waiting for you.” He winked at her. “He’ll be here soon. I guarantee it. Can I get you something to drink in the meantime?”

“Coffee?”

Carmichael looked disappointed but nodded and headed behind the bar to start a pot. Beatrice picked a booth in the middle and faced the door. A few long minutes later, Carmichael brought a mug over to her. “So where’s Maxie been lately? It’s not like her to stay away so long.”

Beatrice wasn’t sure what to say and sipped her coffee to buy time. It tasted like tar, but she forced a smile. “Still on vacation, I guess.”

“Tell my sweet Maxie I said hello, all right?”

Beatrice was just about to give up and leave when Tony plowed through the door. “I’m sorry I’m running late,” he said, shoving himself into the seat across from her.

Carmichael immediately poured another cup of coffee and brought the mug and a full bowl of sugar to their table. Apparently, Carmichael and Tony had been introduced. The detective began dumping spoonfuls of sugar into his cup, and Beatrice waited patiently for some sort of explanation.

When he finally looked up from the mug, she was startled by his face. He hadn’t slept in days from the looks of it. The boyish crinkle around his eyes had been replaced by the heavy bags of an older man. His jaw was peppered with stubble.

“Max is missing.” He glared at Beatrice as if she might know where his sister had gone.

“What?” Beatrice gasped. “I thought she went on a vacation.”

“So did I. I went to her room at Mom and Dad’s, looking for something she’d borrowed, and something just didn’t seem right. She had packed hardly any clothes, and all of her summer stuff was still in boxes. So I did some checking at the airport. She wasn’t on any flight to Mexico that I could find. We haven’t heard from her in over a week.”

“They said she quit her job at the office,” Beatrice blurted out.

“What?” His eyes flashed angrily. “When?”

“Last Tuesday.” Beatrice lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before. I didn’t want to get Max in trouble.”

Tony stared at her sharply until his focus dulled into a pained frown.

“It was all so sudden. She didn’t clean out her desk or anything. Her things were still there.”

The minute she said it she regretted it. Now she’d have to explain how she knew that, and possibly more. She bit her tongue and looked at the table, unsure of what to do next. There was so much more to tell. The conversation she’d overheard the previous night replayed in her head. Teddy had said something about a leak being contained. Her heart stopped beating for a moment as she considered what that could mean. Max was gone.

“Beatrice,” Tony said in a carefully controlled voice. “I need you to tell me everything.” The thin line of his lips pressed together. The cop in him was keeping him focused, but she could see the protective older brother raging in his eyes.

Beatrice still wasn’t sure she could trust him, but at this point she really didn’t have a choice. “Something is happening at the bank. Something illegal, and I think Max is somehow involved.”

Tony nodded grimly, then took out his notepad and began jotting things down. She told him about the safe deposits that had gone missing, Max’s special assignment, and the conversation she’d overheard. She altered a few details, like the fact that she’d overheard the conversation in the middle of the night while she was sleeping on an office floor. She also left out that she now had a full ring of keys that seemed to unlock every door at the First Bank of Cleveland, and that she’d stolen those keys from Max’s hiding spot in the ladies’ room. She did admit to having found Max’s files and reading them.

When she had finished telling her version of the truth, he looked at her with those detective eyes, and she knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. “What did your Aunt Doris have to do with all of this?”

Beatrice hadn’t said a word about her aunt, the key, or the love letters. Her eyes widened in alarm. “Wha— . . . what do you mean?”