Iris rolled over and grabbed the sides of her head. Acid was rising in her throat, but she fought it back down. Ellie’s harsh observation still bothered her. She strained to remember the rest of the conversation, but it was scattered.

After another drink or two or three, she finally admitted to having sex on the bathroom floor with him. This little tidbit piqued everyone’s interest.

“I know! I’m such a slu-ut!” She had cackled, and almost fell off her bar stool. A few drinks later, she was staring at the table, muttering on and on about Beatrice Baker’s ghost. “It’s haunting me. In that building, it’s following me. I just know it. Strange things keep happening. The desk, the file, my bag . . . I never should have taken . . . that key . . .”

“Let’s get you home.” Ellie’s voice had sounded far away.

Iris cringed and rolled onto her side. She hated herself for saying stupid shit, getting sloppy drunk, and being such an idiot. She had a job, for fuck’s sake. She was supposed to be a grown-up now.

“Uh, make it stop,” she whimpered into her pillow.

It was late morning when she woke up again. She had no concept of time, but the sunlight was beating through her naked windows. She managed to sit up without getting dizzy. She rubbed her eyes; then a panic tore through her. She was late—really late. It was Thursday, and she had a ton of work to finish before the next morning. Brad was expecting results.

Iris was still in her clothes from the day before and didn’t care. She staggered out the door after finding her keys and purse and got in the car. She didn’t bother to brush her teeth or her hair. She didn’t have time. The clock on the dashboard glared “11:15.”

She sped toward Euclid Avenue like she’d just robbed a liquor store. Halfway downtown, she decided that passing out from dehydration wasn’t going to help her meet the deadline. She stopped to grab french fries and Hi-C in a drive-through and shoved the food in her mouth at traffic lights. She almost felt human as she pulled up to the garage door that led into the bank.

The elevator jostled her mercilessly up all eleven floors to where she’d clocked Nick in the head two days earlier. Her stomach slammed into the top of her rib cage and threatened to spill out all over the floor as the elevator slowed to a stop. She felt her way out of the sadistic metal box and took several shaky breaths before looking around. The homeless pile was still sitting in the corner office. She had to get started and finish as quickly as possible.

She unloaded her equipment and hobbled straight to where she’d seen evidence of some vagrant living in the building. It didn’t look any different than it had Tuesday. Ramone had probably chased the squatter out ages ago. He must do patrols, she reasoned. Still, she took the room dimensions as fast as she could. She stepped over the makeshift bed and held her breath as she worked. She stepped into the bathroom, holding her nose. The toilet was relatively clean, but there was a man’s razor on the ledge of the sink. She snapped two dimensions with her measuring tape and got the hell out of there.

Her hands were clammy as she hurried out of the room. It was ludicrous she was all by herself on this assignment—maybe even dangerous. If she were in any kind of shape to go talk to Ramone, she probably would have. Cold sweat beaded up on her forehead. The hangover was going to be an all-day affair, she could tell. She caught a glimpse of herself in a hall mirror. Her face looked green. It was a good thing there wasn’t a chaperone with her—she might’ve gotten fired. She could hear Ellie in the back of her head asking, “So, you’d rather be hacked to bits instead?”

She wasn’t going to get hacked to bits, she argued. Brad seemed to think she could handle it by herself. She moved on to the next office. She didn’t want to prove him wrong. She couldn’t run screaming from the building like a girl. A hungover girl at that.

The rest of the eleventh floor was unremarkable. She came to a blank door near the elevators. She knew from her work on the lower floors what was probably behind it. A slop sink, cleaning supplies, and possibly a Playboy pinup for the janitorial staff to enjoy. Yep, it was a closet.

She quickly measured the room and clicked off the light. She was turning to close the door when her boot clunked into something on the floor. Clicking the light back on, she saw a brown leather suitcase leaning against the wall. It was covered in dust and cobwebs. The handle was worn smooth.

“What are you doing in there?” she asked it.

Iris pulled it out of the closet and laid it on the hall floor. It was filled with clothes. Women’s clothes, but much smaller than what Iris could wear. She was a tall size 8, and these were petite size 4. She held up a blouse, and it looked like it might fit a twelve-year-old. Whoever owned the suitcase was tiny. She thought of Beatrice. Suzanne had called her an “itty-bitty thing.” Iris laid the blouse down next to a pencil skirt and could almost picture the young woman wearing them. Iris turned back to the broom closet and frowned. The suitcase had been hiding there for years. Alone.

Underneath the clothes there were two paper files. One was filled with the same chicken-scratch hieroglyphics she’d found in Beatrice’s personnel file. The other held a pile of letters written on First Bank of Cleveland letterhead.

Iris picked one up. It was a notice that the bank planned to turn the contents of a safe deposit box over to the state.

Iris tried to force the image of a young woman hiding in the closet from her mind. Something terrible must have happened. No one leaves their suitcase behind. Maybe she had packed up her clothes and those files and tried to run away. Maybe someone had stopped her. According to Suzanne, Beatrice had just up and disappeared one day.

It was none of her business, Iris told herself. That was twenty years ago, and Beatrice, or whoever the suitcase belonged to, was long gone by now. Her eyes wandered back to the blouse. It was covered in little paisleys. It was probably her favorite.

“Beatrice,” she whispered. “Why were you running?”

Judging from the conservative cut of the clothes, she’d been the quiet type. Did she live alone like me? Iris wondered. Did anyone even come looking for her? The suitcase hadn’t been disturbed since Beatrice or whoever she was left it behind.

Iris grabbed the folders and shoved them in her field bag. She couldn’t just lock all traces of this woman back in the closet. She might be dead, and whatever was in those files might explain why. Maybe nobody cared now. Maybe nobody cared then, but it still mattered. She zipped the suitcase shut and shoved it back where she found it.

As she gazed down at the bag in the closet, a morbid thought played in the back of Iris’s mind. If she were to disappear one day, who would come looking for her?

CHAPTER 39

There was no time to think about the lost suitcase after being so late to work. There was no time for dinner even. Iris had to keep going if she was going to finish the survey by morning. She climbed the stairs to the twelfth floor and found herself in an empty cavern. Each footstep echoed off the bare concrete. There was nothing but exposed columns; even the drop ceiling was gone. Air ducts, wiring, and the crumbling plaster of a 1918 ceiling hung precariously overhead. It was an engineering autopsy. The floor was gutted.

The steel columns were studded with big, round rivets the size of half dollars. She reached out and touched one. It felt like painted bone. She excitedly pulled out her clipboard and began to sketch extensive notes about the structure and even drew diagrams of the column splice plates just to be thorough. Brad would have been proud.