“Doris was different . . .” That’s what Max had said. “She had her key.”

Beatrice was pulling the safe deposit box key from her purse when she heard an elevator bell ring. At the other end of the lobby, shiny metal doors slid open, and a man in a brown suit stepped out. His gray sideburns and thick waist reminded her of Bill Thompson. She hid her face behind her purse. He turned without looking her way and headed out the hospital doors. She watched him leave and tried to guess from his gait if it was Bill. She couldn’t be sure.

Max had said they were watching the room. It then occurred to Beatrice that they might be watching her too. Bill, Teddy, or whoever “they” were could be watching her right then. She was sitting there in the open lobby, surrounded by windows and holding Max’s key.

Beatrice stood up with a jolt. She gathered her things and rushed out the front door of the hospital. A taxicab was parked near the hospital entrance with its light on. She jumped in the backseat and slammed the door.

“Wha—?” the cabbie muttered as he was jerked awake. He cleared his throat and looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Uh, sorry. Where to, miss?”

She stared blankly at the dashboard. Its clock read 12:05 a.m. “Um . . . the Theatrical Grille, Ninth and Vincent,” she blurted without thinking it through. The bar would be closing soon, and then what?

Christmas lights twinkled from the lampposts as the cab headed downtown. She’d almost forgotten it was nearly Christmas. The lights faded as the car turned down Chester and entered the broken-down Hough neighborhood. Its sidewalks and streets were bleak and empty. A shadow of a person trudged across the snow outside her window, then faded away behind a chain-link fence.

When she arrived at the bar, Carmichael sat alone behind the counter, reading the paper. The rest of the place had cleared out on a Monday night. He looked up at the door and smiled under his thick black mustache.

“Beatrice! How nice to see you,” he said, waving her over.

She smiled sheepishly and took a seat at the bar. She was exhausted.

“What in the world is a beautiful girl like you doing down here at this time a night all alone?”

She had no idea. “It’s kind of a long story. Could I get a cup of tea?”

“Of course!” He began searching behind the bar for a mug. “A pretty girl like you needs to be more careful.”

“You’re right. Um . . . I’ll be right back.” She stood up and walked hastily to the ladies’ room in the corner. Once she was alone in a locked stall, she pulled out Max’s key from her change purse. Its blank face rested in the palm of her hand like a question mark. Why didn’t Max just hide it herself? She could have given it to anyone, but for some reason Max wanted her to have it. Her eyes circled the bathroom stall. Where would she even hide it?

Sighing, Beatrice slid the faceless key onto her own key ring right next to her aunt’s bewildering safe deposit box key. Her breath caught as they clinked together. They were nearly identical. Beatrice held them up to the light. They were the same size and shape. Doris’s key had a full inscription for the bank and the box number, while Max’s key was blank. But they matched. They were both from the bank. She frowned at the blank key, more puzzled than before.

She stuffed them back in her purse and tried to focus on the more pressing question of where she was going to sleep that night. There were no good options.

After what must have been a suspiciously long time in a bathroom, she finally headed back to the bar to drink the warm tea Carmichael had made for her. She nodded in gratitude at him but avoided looking him in the eye. He took the hint and went back to his paper.

If only there was a way to get back into the bank, she mused. It was too late to make up a story about having left something behind. The doors were locked. Then it occurred to her that she probably had the key.

Max’s keys were still hiding at the bottom of Beatrice’s purse. There were at least thirty keys on the ring. She gulped her tea and left a pile of coins on the counter for Carmichael.

“Thanks, I needed that.”

He glanced up from the sports section. “You want for me to call you a cab?”

“Oh, no thanks. I’ll be fine.”

He frowned, and his eyes followed her as she left the bar.

Icy winds howled down Euclid Avenue. The street was deserted. Even the homeless had found warmer places to huddle for the night. Traffic lights flashed red as she hurried across the empty road. The bank tower where she worked was just a shadow overhead. Its windows were dark, all of them except two on the top floor. She stared at the lonely lights and wondered who could possibly be working at this hour.

She slinked toward the three revolving doors that led to the main lobby of the bank. The front room was dark. There were no signs of a guard at the security desk, but she kept her distance and her face hidden until she was certain the lobby was empty. She looked down both sides of Euclid Avenue. There wasn’t a soul or a car in sight, only the blinking Christmas lights. She stepped up to the one side door in the storefront and pulled out Max’s keys.

She crouched, trying keys one after the other for what seemed like an eternity. Every rustle of stray newspapers and creak of the streetlights made her heart race faster. Her hot breath fogged the glass door as she struggled with frozen-stiff fingers to find the right one. Glancing up into the lobby, she was terrified someone would hear the rattle of the key ring against the doorframe. It was still deserted.

A key finally slid into the lock. She held her breath and turned it; the dead bolt slid open and the door swung free.

Beatrice gently pushed the door open and waited. Sirens did not sound. Men with guns did not come running. She shut the door behind her and turned the lock. The lobby floor was streaked with long shadows, and she hid in one of them, listening. She slipped out of her boots and ran in stocking feet to the marble stairs behind the elevators. She took them two at a time, carrying her dripping boots in one hand and her jingling purse in the other. She didn’t stop running until she was through the second floor and back to the emergency stair tower.

Beatrice silently closed the emergency exit door and sat down on the landing to catch her breath. Her heart was fluttering like a rabbit’s, and her legs were quaking. She couldn’t believe what she’d just done. She must be crazy. She put her head between her knees to keep from hyperventilating.

Once her head felt steady, she gazed up at the endless spiral of stairs. She took a deep breath and got back on her feet. It was a long way up.

After five flights of climbing, she still had quite a way to go. Her legs burned. She gripped the railing and took a rest.

A door slammed several stories up, sending a shock wave down the stairwell. Beatrice sucked in a yelp and backed against a wall. She could hear faint voices overhead.

“I don’t care what Teddy says. We have to think about relocating the accounts now. The boxes aren’t secure.”

“It’s a temporary glitch. Let’s not overreact.”

“Keys are missing. The mole hunt is a bust, and we’ve lost our inside man. This is not a glitch. We have got to move the accounts now before the shit hits the fan.”

“What shit exactly?”

“The board isn’t ruling out dissolution . . .”

The voices faded, and Beatrice heard another door close. She stared up after them, still frozen to the wall. Mr. Halloran had mentioned something about a mole. When he asked her to spy on Max, he said he was looking for “someone who’s trying to sabotage the company from within.” But the mole hunt was a bust. The inside man had been lost. What did that mean? She slowly counted to twenty before having the stomach to keep climbing.

She stayed close to the wall as she tiptoed up the rest of the stairs, rushing past every doorway. The winding stairs spun over her head around and around, until she was dizzy. She grabbed the doorknob to the eleventh floor to steady herself. Pulling it open, she poked her head out into the corridor. It was perfectly dark and still. She exhaled a sigh and staggered back to the corner office where she slept, wobbly from the climb. She pushed the door to her hiding place open, ready to collapse.