The clock on the wall ticked loudly. Beatrice still had work to do. If she wanted to stop Bill and the bank for good, she had to get to the files and find out where Teddy’s encrypted records were kept.

She was just sliding Suzanne’s drawer closed when voices came echoing down the hall. Beatrice sucked in a breath. They were approaching fast as she ran to Linda’s corner office. The department door flung open.

“I cannot fucking believe you let her get away,” a man’s voice boomed.

It was Randy Halloran. Beatrice scurried around the desk in the dark and into the washroom. She eased the bathroom door shut.

“What makes you think she’ll be in here?” The other voice was Bill’s.

“The phone bank lit up on this floor, and look. Someone’s been in the filing room. Get your fat ass in there and see if anything’s missing.”

“That’s enough, Randy. I’m still your superior.”

“All evidence to the contrary, Bill. Don’t you realize what’s happening here? The bank is finished! There is no Auditing Department anymore! Now move!”

Beatrice backed up farther. She bumped into something sharp, and stifled a grunt.

“Jesus! Are you out of your mind?”

“Out of my mind? Out of my mind! Yes, a little bit,” Randy barked. “The city’s going to default in less than an hour, the feds are launching a raid, and you’ve managed to lose all the fucking keys to the vault. If we don’t come up with something quick, we’re both going to end up fish food. Now check the fucking files!”

Feeling along the wall, she found the metal point she’d backed into was a corner of the vent grille. It was sticking out of the wall. The smell of fresh air drew her closer, and she realized the large grate was loose. Max had said something about an air shaft, Beatrice realized, as she reached out and pulled on the edge.

“There are hundreds of files, Randy. Nothing seems out of place in here. Besides, Bethany gave me the master key.”

“What?”

Beatrice wiggled the grate gently. It inched away from the wall with a faint squeak that made her wince, but she kept willing it open, until it clanked softly against the toilet.

“She said she got it from you,” Bill said accusingly.

“Bethany? I don’t know anyone named Bethany, and I certainly didn’t give her a fucking key. Give me that thing!”

“You know that little blond that works for you? She said you gave it to her.”

The door to Linda’s office slammed open, shaking the wall.

“And you believed her? What are you, some sort of idiot? The key’s worthless. There isn’t a mark on it. It probably just opens her gym locker or her goddamn diary.”

A metallic clink rang out as a key hit the door to the bathroom where she was hiding. Beatrice let out a tiny gasp, then reached into the air shaft. Feeling blindly, she inched her body into the darkness until she grasped a cold steel rung. She pulled herself onto a ladder, carefully balancing her heavy bag on her arm. Then it struck her. She’d left the ring of keys on Suzanne’s desk right where the two men were arguing. Her heart dropped. She almost crawled back into the bathroom. Another office door slammed open. Then another.

“Now that’s enough,” Bill said, clearly shaken. “I’m sure that girl is in here somewhere.”

His voice grew louder. Reaching out from the ladder with a shaking hand, Beatrice pulled the grate closed. The door to the bathroom burst open, and the air shaft flooded with light. Beatrice shrank into a shadow.

“Well, where is she?” Randy demanded, ripping back the shower curtain.

“Don’t worry. She couldn’t have gone far. We’ll find her.” Bill picked the blank key up off the ground where it had landed and studied it again.

“We’ll find her? What if we don’t, huh?” Randy yelled, and whacked Bill hard across the face. The unexpected blow knocked Bill to his knees. “Who’s going to find us? I saw Carmichael Covelli waltz in here an hour ago. We’re fucked, Bill!”

“Hey, goddammit!” Bill bellowed into the floor. “I thought we had a deal.”

“Yeah, it was a nice little scam while it lasted, Bill. But everyone knows you’ve been talking to the feds. Who you gonna sell out? Huh? Not me!” Randy kicked him in the ribs. “I’m not letting you drag me down with you. Fifteen percent isn’t fucking worth it!”

Bill lunged at Randy, knocking him into the sink with a growl. “Everybody’s looking to cut a deal, Randy. I’ve had it with your fucking blackmail and your bullshit! You fucking parasite!”

“I’m the parasite?” Randy shouted, pushing Bill off of him. He punched Bill squarely in the gut and hit the back of his neck as the older man doubled over. On his way to the ground, Bill knocked his head against the toilet with a loud clank and then fell limply to the floor.

Beatrice gaped at Bill’s motionless body lying not four feet from where she hid in the air shaft. Blood was pooling onto the marble tiles.

Randy nudged the body with his foot and muttered, “Fuck.”

He stood next to Bill’s still body for twenty heartbeats, occasionally rubbing his face with his hand. Finally, he turned on his heel and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

The bang of it vibrated in the air shaft, and Beatrice scrambled up the ladder away from the sight of Bill on the ground. The sound of the door crashing back open made her foot slip. The rusted steel scraped her palm as she caught herself with a gasp.

“Sorry this couldn’t have ended better, old friend,” Randy grunted five feet below her, and there was a faint dragging sound. “Don’t worry. They’ll all understand. Investments go bad. Deals go bad. Sometimes there just isn’t any other way out.”

Beatrice covered her mouth and willed herself to not imagine what was happening below her as labored breathing and scraping sounds filtered up to where her feet teetered on a thin steel rail.

“Hang in there, okay?” Randy chuckled uneasily. “It’s all going to work out now. You’ll see. I’ll find a way to get our investment back . . . and then some.”

The rattling sound of a ring of keys being waved in the air dragged Beatrice’s eyes back down to the square of light below her. Randy had found the key ring.

A second later, the light under her feet went out. Then silence. Beatrice let out a tiny wail and hugged the ladder in the blackness of the air shaft. Her arms trembled against the cold steel as she fought the urge to just let go.

She didn’t want to feel anything or hear anything or know anything anymore. There was nothing below her but dead black. Outside the building she had no name, no home, no mother, no father, no life. The heavy bag dug into her shoulder as the weight of it pulled her downward. Randy had found the keys. She’d failed. She’d failed Max and Doris and herself. Her fingers began to slip.

Beatrice clamped her arm around the ladder rung and squeezed her eyes shut. She pictured Randy with the keys, heading into the vault. No. She couldn’t let him get away with it. She couldn’t let the money men have the keys to everything. There was still time.

Slowly, she climbed back down the ladder, balancing everything Doris had taken from the vault on her shoulder. A burr in the steel dug into her palm, and she jerked her hand away. The sudden movement sent her careening to one side of the ladder, with the heavy bag swinging from her arm. In an instant, it dropped to her wrist, and her feet slipped from the rail.

She cried out, dangling from one hand. The bag fell away from her arm as she reached for the ladder. It plummeted four stories, sending a shock wave through the air shaft, and landed with a faint crash far below her.

“What the hell was that?” a distant voice demanded.

Beatrice found her footing and bit her lip to keep from making another sound. A flashlight slashed through the air shaft twenty feet above her.

“It was probably just the wind. We shouldn’t even be in here, Cunningham. We don’t have the proper warrants.”