“Wow!” Iris said, staring up at the ceiling.

“It’s a junction,” Brad said. “Look at all of the different paths.”

Six branches headed out of the cavern. Small plaques were set over each entrance. “Terminal,” “Arcade,” “East 9th” the signs read.

“Where should we go?” he asked.

“I’m not sure I’m up for any more spelunking.” Iris had her fill of cobwebs and dust, and she was certain she could hear mutant sewer rats scurrying in the distance. “I’m exhausted, and I still have a ton of work to do.”

“Aw, where’s your sense of adventure?” Brad slugged her in the arm.

“Maybe next time.” She felt like a pathetic female but was too tired to care. Voices were still whispering in the back of her mind.

“I’ll be right behind you. I just have to see a little more.”

Iris turned and retraced her steps back to the metal staircase and the naked lightbulb and up to the lower banking level. She swatted at the cobwebs with a squeamish shudder. On her way across the carpet toward the vault, she paused at the deposit clerk’s desk. It was where a patron would have requested access to their deposit box.

Ramone had said that when the bank closed they lost all of the keys to the vault. The last person to see them probably worked right there. She leaned over the counter. The drawers had locks, and there was a small safe. Every door was flung open, and everything was picked clean. There was no nameplate on the counter and only one chair behind the desk.

Brad would be returning any moment, and she’d hate for him to catch her snooping. She hurried back to the round entrance that led to the vaults. But it wasn’t there. There was a crescent moon of light where the doorway should be, and then it went black with a loud thud. Someone had swung the vault door open, blocking the round portal to the lower lobby where she stood. She was locked out.

“Hey! Ramone! Open up!” she shouted, banging on the steel vault door blocking her way. There was no response. “Seriously?”

The way back into the vault room from the lower lobby where she stood was through the round portal. The only other option was to go up the marble stairs to the main lobby above, walk down the hall to the rear of the building, and take the service stairs back down. Iris ran the entire way, determined to give Ramone a piece of her mind. She’d left half her notes and field bag on the other side of the damned round door.

She slammed through the service stairwell door into the vault room, yelling, “Hey, Ramone!”

A flash of a blue shirt turned a corner at the end of the vault corridor and was gone.

“Ramone!”

She stormed past the vault toward Ramone’s little bedroom. “Ramone, why did you . . . ?”

The room was empty. The service elevator was whirring loudly to her right. He must have ducked out again. “What the hell?” she asked the empty room.

She staggered back to the vaults to collect her things. “I really need to quit smoking,” she panted.

Her lungs felt like two black tea bags after her mad sprint. She bent down to pick up her clipboard when something shiny caught her eye.

A ring of keys was hanging from one of the safe deposit doors.

CHAPTER 44

Iris stepped into the vault and touched one of the keys hanging from the lock of Box 249. She paused and looked back out into the empty corridor. Someone had been in the vault while she and Brad were down in the tunnels. Someone in a blue shirt. It must have been Ramone. He always wore a blue shirt, and after her freak-out the night before he was probably just avoiding her.

A chill ran through her as she tried to turn the key. It didn’t move. She tried harder. It wouldn’t budge. She yanked the key to pull it out of the lock, but it was stuck. She twisted the key, then jiggled it. Finally, she simply unwound the ring from the one stuck key to release the others. There were twelve identical bronze keys on the ring. Letters were engraved on the heads. She flipped through them—“D,” “E,” “O.” “First Bank of Cleveland” was etched around the perimeter of each face.

A loud banging came from the lower lobby. It was Brad on the other side of the vault door.

“Iris? Iris, open up! This isn’t funny!”

Shit. She scrambled to open the doorway. She pressed the red button, and the round steel door began to swing, opening the entrance to the lower lobby. The keys were still in her hand. It was too late to put them back without an explanation. She squeezed them in her fist. Brad would surely confiscate them and turn them over to Mr. Wheeler or the owners. End of story. Or she could ask Ramone about them first and then hand them over herself. It wouldn’t make much difference. Besides, what Brad didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. The second before he came barreling through the opening she stuffed them into the pocket of her field bag.

“Hey, what gives?”

Iris held up her empty hands. “I have no idea. I had to run up the stairs and back down again to get over here. I just made it back down, and I’m kinda pissed. I think I saw Ramone.”

Brad grunted and hoisted his field bag back onto his shoulder. “We should go see how your computer’s coming along.”

Iris gathered up her notes. “So how were the tunnels?”

“Amazing. They go on for blocks. I think that junction is under Euclid Avenue.”

“Did you find Jimmy Hoffa?” Iris asked, trying not to let her bag jingle with stolen keys as they walked down the hall.

“No, but I found some strange stuff—clothes and food wrappers. It looks like somebody’s living down there or something.”

“Ramone said the homeless sometimes get in the building through the tunnels.” She tried to sound casual even though the disembodied breathing still rasped in the back of her head. They stepped onto the elevator and headed back up to the personnel office.

“The homeless? Why didn’t you say something before?” He glared at her. “Maybe you shouldn’t be working here alone.”

“I’m a big girl. Ramone’s here.”

She didn’t want it getting back to Mr. Wheeler or anyone else that she was too scared to do the job. They might send her back to the office. A man would never complain about this sort of safety concern, and she knew it.

“I think that you should keep a radio with you from now on in case you need Ramone, okay?”

“Need Ramone for what?” Ramone stepped out of Linda’s office on the third floor to greet them.

“In case I need help . . . like opening a door or something. Brad wants me to have a radio,” Iris said, avoiding his eyes. She needed to find a way to get him alone to ask about the keys.

Ramone didn’t argue. “I think I have a couple sets. I’ll bring one up.”

“I’ve been keeping Ramone pretty busy this morning,” Arnie chirped from behind a giant monitor. “We’ve had trouble getting the power to work. We had to patch into the next office.”

“You’ve both been up here all morning?” Iris turned back to the guard, trying not to sound alarmed.

“Yeah.” Ramone rolled his eyes in Arnie’s direction.

“But . . .” Iris bit her tongue to keep from saying more, especially after all of that big-girl tough talk. She glanced over at Brad, but he was oblivious to everything but installing AutoCAD on the new computer. Someone had been down in the vault, and it wasn’t Ramone. Now she had their keys. She swallowed hard. Ramone would get her a radio. She would put the keys back. It would be fine. They were just keys. Someone from the real estate holding company might have had a set. It was their building after all, but it didn’t make sense that they had run off when she surprised them in the vault. Iris mentally wrung her hands while Brad explained the CAD layering system.