“Well, the burglary to your aunt’s apartment just didn’t fit the profile of a B and E, so I did some checking around. Doris Davis worked at the First Bank of Cleveland a while back, didn’t she?”

Beatrice paused and then nodded miserably. She hadn’t wanted to drag her poor aunt into this sordid business.

“Beatrice, I need you to be up front with me about all of this. I know more than you think.”

He looked at her long and hard with that last statement, and she realized the jig was up. He had checked up on her. She wasn’t sure just how much he had found out, but she couldn’t afford to not have Tony on her side.

“Aunt Doris worked at the bank years ago—I’m not sure how many. When she had her stroke”—Beatrice’s eyes watered, and she worked hard to keep her bottom lip from quivering—“I looked through some of her things and found some letters. I think she’d had an affair with Bill Thompson. I found his love letters. She also had some records—letters about the safe deposit boxes. Max found the letters and read them when I was sleeping. Then she stole a safe deposit box key I’d found in Doris’s purse. That was the last time I saw her.”

“When was that?”

“Last week.” Beatrice wiped a tear. “She never came back to work after that.”

“What did the burglar take from your aunt’s apartment?”

“The letters. I think they were looking for something else too.”

“I think you’re right. I’ve been in the apartment, and I’ve been watching it for a few days now,” he said, making a few more notes on his pad. “Any idea what else they were looking for?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe the key, but no one else knew about it, and Max had already taken it.” It wasn’t until that moment that Beatrice admitted out loud that Max was a suspect for the break-in—at least in her own mind.

Tony rubbed his forehead and looked over his notes. “Max came to me a few years ago with this crazy story. Someone was robbing the safe deposit boxes. She said it was a big conspiracy. She’d been snooping around and ‘gathering evidence.’ ” He paused, and Beatrice could see the guilt wrenching his face.

“She came to me last week and said she had finally found ‘undeniable proof’ about her theory. She was all fired up. I told her what I’d told her over and over before. No one at the department is interested in investigating the First Bank of Cleveland. I tried to open a case when that woman claimed her safe deposit box had been repossessed illegally—Rhonda Whitmore. That was her name. I took her statement after Max told me the story. Rhonda claimed she’d been keeping up with her payments, and one day she went into the bank to change her will and was told the box had been repossessed and to take her complaint up with the state. She did call the state. They had never heard of her or her deposits. They just disappeared into thin air, along with fifty thousand dollars in bond certificates. We were really getting somewhere, you know?”

Beatrice remembered hearing the story from Max. “What happened?”

“Nothing. My chief told me we had nothing but supposition. He refused to insult a businessman like William Thompson without proof. He wouldn’t even let me bring him in for questioning.” He ran a hand over his three-day beard. “Then the poor woman got hit by a car. It was filed as a hit-and-run. Max told me I had no backbone. That I should have investigated anyway. That case nearly got me fired. I couldn’t bring up the bank back at the station after that.”

“Do you think that there really are some bribes going on?” she asked quietly.

Tony frowned and stirred his coffee. “I want to say it’s impossible, but times are tough right now. A lot of guys I’m workin’ with have two mortgages to pay . . . I don’t know.”

“Those men, they mentioned that the feds were asking questions. They also talked about how a leak had been ‘contained.’ ”

“You think they were talking about Max.”

“Do you think Max would have gone to the feds?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her. If she is working with the FBI, they may have her under wraps right now. I’ll have to see what I can find out.” He stopped talking and looked at her like he was unable to decide what to do with her. “You need to be careful, Beatrice. Where have you been staying?”

“What do you mean?” She tried not to look alarmed. Maybe he’d been following her.

“I haven’t been able to track you down outside of work lately.”

He had been following her.

She swallowed hard. “I’ve been working late.”

“So have I.”

He didn’t believe her, she could tell. If he’d been following her, he knew she had slept at the hospital. She squeezed her hands together under the table, waiting for him to announce he was taking her into custody.

After an agonizing pause, he finally said, “You still work at the bank. Do you think you can poke around and find out who this Ted and Jim really are?”

“I . . . I think so,” she said, even though she wasn’t nearly that sure. Teddy and Jim could work anywhere in the building. An image of the personnel office sprung to mind. There had to be a directory in there somewhere.

“I hate asking, but all of my sources have dried up over there. Meet me here next week and we’ll see what we’ve found out. Contact me immediately if you hear from Max or if you need anything.” He stood to leave. His eyes held hers, and she could see a hint of tenderness inside them. “Beatrice?”

“Yes?” she said, shrinking in the booth.

“The minute things get too scary, I want you out of there.”

CHAPTER 37

Tuesday, August 18, 1998

Iris woke up Tuesday morning stiff and sore on the couch. An enthusiastic housewife was holding up her trash like a trophy on the buzzing TV screen. Click.

Piles of Beatrice’s papers covered the coffee table. Somewhere underneath the piles, a key and a manual were hiding. Iris buried her head back in a pillow. Ten minutes later, she hauled her ass up and gathered all the evidence of how stupid and crazy she was, thinking she could solve some twenty-year-old missing-person case with a shorthand manual. She shoved the mess into the kitchen junk drawer. She was late for work. Again.

When she pulled up to the old bank, she was shocked to see Nick standing outside the rolling garage door. He held a camera and clipboard in his hands and was apparently waiting for her. She stopped her car short. She considered running him over and splattering his sleazy carcass across her windshield. Instead, she put her car in park and stepped out.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“I’m here to work.” He held up his clipboard, and a wicked smile spread across his face. “So don’t get any wild ideas.”

That’s right, she remembered. He had no idea she’d caught him with Amanda. Her eyes narrowed angrily. “You have nothing to worry about, believe me.”

She pushed past him and pressed the call button to open the door, then climbed back into her car. She rolled into the loading dock, leaving him in the dust.

“Hey, what’s your problem?” he asked once he caught up with her on the loading dock stairs.

“Problem? Why should I have a problem? I’m here to do a job.”

She pressed the elevator button and waited, glaring at the door.

“I don’t know what I did to piss you off . . . But you’re kinda cute when you’re angry.”

That’s it. She turned to him, eyes blazing. “Save your bullshit flirting for some other sucker, okay? You got what you wanted, right?”

She stepped onto the elevator and turned the key for the eleventh floor. She let the elevator doors close in his scowling face. He could find his own damn way, she thought to herself as the elevator whisked her up the tower.