The taxi dropped her off under the heat lamps of the hotel awning. A bellman in a gold-studded uniform tipped his hat and opened the door. Inside the vestibule a winding stone staircase led up to the lobby. Its plush red carpet was worn thin at the treads. Dusty crystal chandeliers hung over her head as she climbed the monumental stairs up to the check-in desk. A marble fountain was spraying dyed-blue water at the far end of the giant corridor. Beatrice stepped to the counter and asked for a room.

The tall, thin brunette behind the counter handed Beatrice a card. “These are the rates.”

She scanned the list and her heart sank. She was ten dollars short.

“Um, you don’t have anything more affordable, do you?” Beatrice remembered the ugly view from the back of the hotel. “Is there anything facing the alley?”

Before the receptionist could answer, the doors to the smoky hotel bar opened across the lobby, and a rather drunk couple stumbled up to the reception desk.

“We need a room pronto!” the man bellowed, slamming his palm on the counter.

Iris glanced over at them and immediately shielded her face with her hand. She recognized the man. She’d seen him before at the bank.

“Get me my usual suite.”

“Yes, Mr. Halloran.” The receptionist nodded and shot Beatrice an apologetic smile. “Just sign here.”

Beatrice kept her hand at her face to hide her stunned expression at the name “Halloran.” She snuck a glance at him through her fingertips. His hand was fondling the backside of his companion. She immediately looked away, but not before she caught sight of a shiny, gold hem.

“Teddy Bear, you’re insatiable.” The woman chuckled in a low, husky voice.

Beatrice was certain she’d heard it before. It was the woman who had a warning for Max. The familiar voice drew Beatrice’s eyes back across the floor to where the couple was standing. The woman was wearing six-inch platform heels that laced up her bare, dark legs to her thighs. Her lamé dress barely covered her bottom, and Mr. Halloran’s hand had slithered under the fabric.

“There you are, sir. Enjoy your stay,” the receptionist said brightly.

With that, Mr. Halloran and the woman in gold stumbled toward the elevators. Beatrice lowered her hand from her temple to her lips when they stepped out of the lobby. The man’s familiar steely-gray hair and suit left no doubt. He was the one who had yelled at Randy in his office. He was Randy’s father. Teddy Halloran had been standing three feet away with a woman who knew Max.

“I’m so sorry about that. Some of our guests . . .” The pretty receptionist waved toward the elevators with her hand, at a loss for an explanation. “Well, I’m not supposed to do this, but it’s late. That’ll be thirty-five dollars. Okay?” The woman winked at Beatrice and handed her a key.

“Oh gosh. Thanks.” Beatrice clutched it in her palm as relief washed over her. “I . . . I can’t tell you what this means to me.”

Head bowed, Beatrice rushed into the elevator. Three floors up, she scurried down the hallway until she reached the room. She threw the dead bolt and pressed her forehead to the door. The economy room was hardly bigger than a closet and featured a view of a trash bin, but there was a bed. Beatrice fell onto it and shut her eyes. It had been months since she’d slept on an actual bed. The soft sheets and the plump pillows cradled her. As she sank deeper and deeper into the tufted mattress, she felt the strangling tension in her neck and shoulders recede bit by bit. The tight knots in her stomach loosened one by one as her body slowly went limp.

Inexplicably, her eyes began to water. She blinked furiously, but there was no stopping the tears. She’d spent too many nights lying scared and alone on a cold, hard floor. She finally gave in and just let herself cry. She cried for her aunt, betrayed by the man she loved. She cried for Max and her lost baby. She cried for Tony and his defeated scowl. But mostly she cried for herself. She’d been searching for a new home and a new life, and it almost happened for her. She had teetered on the brink of happiness, until it all went wrong.

Beatrice sobbed until she was wrung dry and her mind was blissfully empty. With swollen eyes, she watched the long, flowing shadows from the window sheers wave across the ceiling for what could have been hours. Her hair, her skin, her bones were worn thin from the grating stress of sneaking around, trying to find answers to impossible questions. She was finally safe, if only for one night, in a place where no one could find her. She’d left her mother’s name with the woman at the desk. For one peaceful moment, she dreamt of never leaving the room and staying hidden forever. The thought made her smile. She stretched and sat up in the bed. She would leave town, she decided; as soon as she found Max and returned the key, she would leave.

Leaving town would mean leaving her dying aunt behind. The thought of Doris being lowered into the ground without a witness, without a tear, hollowed out her heart. Doris had no one else. Before Beatrice came along, her aunt’s days were consumed by the diner and memories of Bill—that and weekly trips to the bank’s vault to deposit her tips into Box 547.

Beatrice eyed her purse. She had taken only one thing from the box. It was the one thing that didn’t belong. She pulled it out and looked at it again. It was a book. Back at the bank in the velvet booth, she’d struggled to make sense of the markings before giving up and putting it in her purse. She cracked open the leather binding again and studied the first page.

It was a list with dates and strange symbols and numbers. The first date was September 5, 1962. Two numbers were written next to the date: 545 and 10,000. Beatrice skimmed the rows of figures. The dates ticked by one after the other. At first the entries were sporadic and sparse, as 1962 turned into 1963, then 1964. On the next page something new caught her eye. It was a note that read “15 diamonds.” More objects followed—“gold necklace, Tiffany watch, diamond ring.” Beatrice flipped faster, looking for something else, something to explain the ledger. As the dates grew more recent, Beatrice noticed the entries were more frequent.

Then something odd in the margins caught her eye. It was a note and a large star in red ink. It was written in a different hand. The note read “Rhonda Whitmore!” The writing looked familiar.

Beatrice scanned across to the date—May 22, 1974—and realized she knew the name. It belonged to the woman who had filed a complaint with the bank over a lost safe deposit box. It was the woman Max demanded her brother Tony investigate. It was the woman who’d been hit by a car days after confronting Bill Thompson. She read the line again.

“5/22/74, 855, 50,000 (b).”

Mrs. Whitmore had lost $50,000 in bond certificates, according to the detective.

Beatrice slammed the book closed and threw it across the bed. Her hands covered her mouth. She’d just been reading a complete record of the safe deposit box robberies. The journal belonged to the thief. It belonged to Bill.

Max had told Tony she’d found some new evidence. It must be the journal. Max had found this book detailing the safe deposit box robberies. Beatrice looked at the note in the margin again. The red ink looked like Max’s handwriting. Beatrice had seen it plenty of times, transcribing handwritten notes. Max must have taken the book from Bill somehow. Then she deposited it in Doris’s box. Why? It was a risk. What if Bill had checked there? He knew Doris.

Max’s voice came back to her: “Doris was different. She had her key.”

Bill didn’t have the key to Box 547. Max asked Tony to return the key to Beatrice. It could only mean one thing—Max had wanted her to find the book.

Beatrice paced the room, trying to make sense of it all. Max had put all of the incriminating evidence in Beatrice’s hands. Then there was the blank key. Why would Max trust her and not her own brother? Surely Tony would know better what to do with it. Her only instructions were to keep the key hidden and safe, and that Max would find her when it was all over. But it would never be over. Tony made that clear. No one was going to believe Max, and no one was going to allow the bank to be searched. It was a dead end.