The detective’s last words were like bullets. She stood frozen, listening to the dead air of her machine until it beeped off. He knew she was hiding something. Her eyes darted around her apartment. The police could break in while she was at work if they had a warrant. There was evidence of her thieving everywhere. Scrambling, she gathered up all the artifacts from the bank she’d brought into her home. The keys, her notes from talking with Suzanne, the article about the city’s default, her field sketches, Beatrice’s file, the files from the suitcase, even the shorthand book. She threw them all into her field bag and zipped it shut.

CHAPTER 62

Iris was going to throw up. Withholding evidence was a felony. She lit a cigarette with shaking hands and told herself that the detective was giving her another chance.

A car horn beeped behind her and she stepped on the gas.

Somehow she was supposed to meet the detective in the middle of a workday without discussing it with anyone. How would she manage that? Maybe she wouldn’t have to manage shit. Maybe she would just get fired and walk out. Maybe it wasn’t such a big deal. Or maybe the whole meeting was just the detective’s way to get her alone and arrest her privately. She pressed her forehead to the steering wheel and waited for a light to turn green.

When she skulked into the office fifteen minutes early, it was as if nothing had changed. The bank and the dead body were all just a bad dream. She found her way back to her cubicle and wished to be a nameless, faceless engineer again. The desk was barren. The computer was turned off. It was as if she had never existed. She settled into her chair and stared at the keyboard, wondering whether she should even bother to turn the machine on. She had no work to do.

She peered out at the sea of desks, searching for a friendly face. Nick was nowhere in sight. She scanned the windows into the offices surrounding her. Mr. Wheeler was lecturing someone seated in front of his desk. It was a female. She was waving her hands. Iris’s eyes widened a little when she saw Amanda spring up from the chair and storm out of the office. The rest of the doors were closed.

Brad was sitting at his workstation as usual. She could see only his back, but his head was in his hands. Iris scowled at him for a solid minute. He didn’t move. Something was wrong. She walked over to his desk.

“Hey,” she said in a low voice to the top of Brad’s head.

He glared at her. His hair was rumpled, and his eyes were red. Brad, the perfect proto-engineer who never had a hair out of place, was a mess. He said nothing.

“What’s going on?”

“I’ve been let go,” he said, as if he was struggling not to throw his computer across the room.

“You? Are they crazy?” Iris gasped loudly.

He shot her a deadly look.

She lowered her voice. “I don’t understand. You work so hard. You’ve got seniority. What happened?”

Brad stared at his keyboard. “I have no fucking idea.”

“What did they say?”

“Nothing. They asked me some questions about the bank and then told me the project was shutting down and they needed to ‘reallocate resources.’ ” He slammed a drawer shut.

“God, Brad, I’m so sorry. That’s total bullshit.” She kept her eyes on the carpet, not wanting to gawk at him in his agony.

“Iris, we need to have a word,” a voice said behind her.

Iris flinched.

It was Mr. Wheeler. Her stomach dropped to the floor. She knew what was coming, but adrenaline came pounding through her veins anyway. She nodded meekly and followed him to his office. She glanced furtively out into the cubes for any sympathetic faces. No one looked up at her.

Once the office door was closed, Mr. Wheeler sat down behind his desk.

“Iris, I’m sure you’ve heard by now that WRE has been forced to face some harsh realities,” he began.

Iris nodded and stared at his polka-dotted necktie as he explained the recent staffing changes. It was corporate crap about maximizing efficiency. She silently wished he would just cut to the chase and fire her already.

“So I’m sorry to inform you that we have eliminated your position for the time being.”

There it was. She’d never failed at anything in her life until that moment. She struggled to keep her back stiff and straight so she wouldn’t collapse like a dead fish.

“I understand. Thank you for this opportunity,” she managed without crying.

“We still have a few more questions if I may. You were involved in a very sensitive project and considering the way it ended . . .” Mr. Wheeler’s voice trailed off.

“You want me to keep the police investigation confidential, right?”

Mr. Wheeler smiled with his lips but not his eyes. “It would be terribly embarrassing to the company and our client if the details of the crime scene went public.”

Iris nodded. “I understand.” She wasn’t eager to explain to a reporter how she’d found the dead body anyway. She had enough problems.

“We also must insist that you turn over to us your notes and drawings of the building and anything else you may have taken from the premises.” His eyes narrowed. “If we discover that you have retained sensitive materials or any property that rightfully belongs to our client, we will have no choice but to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”

His last words hung in the air. The office seemed to shrink around her. She dropped her eyes to the ground so panic wouldn’t register all over her face. Iris slowly knit her eyebrows together as if confused. Truthfully, she was. How could Mr. Wheeler, the detective, or anyone else possibly know what she had found in the building?

There was a soft knock on the window next to the door. Iris turned to see the creepy gray-haired partner who had once stopped her in the hallway. He looked right at her and grinned. She could have sworn that he winked at her. Before she could react, he was motioning to Mr. Wheeler through the glass, pointing at his watch. Mr. Wheeler nodded back and waved him away.

It took Iris a moment to re-collect her thoughts. Mr. Wheeler wanted her to return anything she’d taken from the bank. Or else.

“Of course,” she said calmly. “I won’t need my notes anymore, and I can’t think of anything else.”

“We’re going to need you to clean your desk out by the end of the day. I’m sorry, but it’s standard procedure.”

“Okay.” Iris bit her lip hard and tried to look depressed rather than scared.

Mr. Wheeler stood and extended his hand for a perfunctory handshake, and she took it obediently.

“Thank you, Iris.”

Mr. Wheeler held her hand in his a bit too long. He stood uncomfortably close and squeezed her palm hard before letting go. “I know you’ll do the right thing.”

Iris instinctively took a step backward as soon as she was released. He held the door, and she felt his eyes follow her all the way back to her desk.

CHAPTER 63

Iris had until the end of the day to turn over all of the items she’d taken from the building. She opened her field bag and peered inside. First, she pulled out her field sketches and arranged them neatly in a pile on her desk. There were the keys Brad had given her. There was the skeleton key and the elevator key from Ramone. Those were easy.

Back down in her field bag, several other keys remained, along with Beatrice’s file and the files from the brown suitcase. She couldn’t give them to both Mr. Wheeler and the detective. She made up her mind then and there to throw the keys and everything else into a random dumpster, where they’d never be traced back to her. Not a random dumpster, she corrected herself, the stinking dumpster in the bank. That was where the keys belonged, and the ghosts wanted them back.