“What happened to Beatrice, Ramone? Did she manage to get out?”

“We’re runnin’ out of time, Iris.” He motioned to the clock over the clerk’s head.

“Tell me. I need to know.”

“Why you chasin’ ghosts? Haven’t you had enough of this?”

“Please. I need to know she’s okay.” Iris wiped a stray tear from her cheek.

“Why?” He glared at her, then gave up. “Truth is, I don’t know. Nobody kicked up much fuss when she went missing, except me and Max’s brother, Tony. Guess he thought if he found Beatrice, he’d find Max. We checked all the places we could figure and then some. The detective even sat up in Lakeview Cemetery every day for a month.”

“Cemetery? But if Beatrice was dead, shouldn’t he have been checking the . . . ?” Iris’s voice trailed off before she uttered the word “morgue.”

Ramone nodded, catching her meaning. “We checked there too. No, the cemetery was a long shot, but Tony seemed to think the girls would show up there. I think he still checks there from time to time . . . At least, he did.”

“Why?”

“Someone they knew died a few weeks after the bank shut down. Family or something. It didn’t pan out.”

“They never came?”

“Tony said he might’ve seen one of ’em hiding in the woods during the funeral. Chased after ’em for a while. I thought he might’ve lost his mind. He was really on the edge back then. Every girl on the street looked like Max.” Ramone paused, staring off into space. “I like to think he was right, though.”

Iris realized the photograph of the detective’s sister was probably still tucked in the corner of Ramone’s picture frame. “Did you ever find out what happened to her? To Max? Is she . . . dead?”

“I thought so for a long time. Some days I even wished she was, runnin’ out on me like that. But then a couple years back I got this thing in the mail. No note, no return address, just this. The postmark was Mexico City.” Ramone pulled a small photograph out of his wallet. It was a picture of a teenage girl with brown skin and blue eyes.

“Who’s that?”

“Never met her. But I know that smile.”

He stared at it for a few moments before tucking the photo away and standing up. Iris let him pull her to her feet.

“I gotta go, Iris. You do too. You got your whole life to figure this shit out. Take care of yourself.”

He was really going to just leave her there. She bit her lip to keep from crying. “You too.”

He patted her shoulder, then headed toward the door.

“Hey, Ramone?”

He turned to look at her.

“Who was it? The one buried in the cemetery.”

“Don’t go lookin’, Iris. That way’s a dead end.”

“I won’t. I just . . . need to know.”

He hesitated for a few moments, but finally just shook his head. “Doris . . . Doris Davis.”

Ten minutes later, Iris was chewing her fingernail at the back of a bus behind the station. The Greyhound to Charleston sat idling with its doors open as passengers trickled on board. Iris watched the cars go by out the open door, her entire life flashing by with the traffic. It was all over.

Ramone was gone. Ellie, Nick, Brad—she’d never see them again. Her mother would get a phone call that day or the next. Have you heard from your daughter? Your daughter is missing. Contact so-and-so the minute you hear anything. The poor woman would have a stroke. She would go running to her father. Iris is gone! What should we do? As if the man had the answers. For some reason, both Iris and her mother had always assumed that he did. He wouldn’t say a word, and for the first time Iris wouldn’t blame him. What could he possibly say or do about any of it? He would just sit in his brown leather chair and be a sad, old man who had lost his only daughter. It wouldn’t matter if she had been a successful engineer or not. She was gone. Iris stifled a sob. She had lost him too. She’d lost everything.

The bus wouldn’t leave for five more minutes. She stepped off with her bag and lit a cigarette. Iris Latch was dead. Maybe she’d wanted to die. She’d been bored, aimless . . . miserable. Maybe that’s why she went looking for ghosts in the old bank. Beatrice was forever trapped somewhere in the building, and now so was Iris.

“Fuck it,” she whispered. She had to know if Beatrice escaped.

She hoisted the bag on her shoulder and walked away from the bus. Ramone would say she’d gone crazy. He was probably right.

Iris left the taxi at Euclid and East 123rd Street and followed the entrance drive into Lakeview Cemetery. It was a labyrinth of statues, mausoleums, and winding roads that went on for several square miles.

She followed the main road deep into the graveyard. A statue of a warrior woman on horseback brandished her sword over the trail as Iris passed underneath it. It was oddly fitting to be there, walking alone among the dead. Her eyes circled the carved angels and praying mothers streaked with soot and acid rain.

Most of the crypts and obelisks were nearly a century old, but Iris could tell where the newer plots were laid out. The graves dug in the last twenty years were easy to spot. Soaring monuments had shrunk down over the years to tiny slabs laid flat on the ground.

Iris walked along the narrow paths between the grave markers, looking for the right date. The bank closed in December 1978. If Doris died a few weeks later, it would have been 1979. There were no cars trolling or buildings looming or eyes watching as Iris walked through the soft grass. The warm sun filtered through the trees, and for the first time in days she could breathe. The tension in her back and shoulders began to melt. Somehow, despite everything that had happened, the world hadn’t ended. The sun on her shoulders reassured her that life would go on with or without her, regardless of the heavy bag in her hand.

Beatrice wouldn’t be at the cemetery that day, she told herself. The grave was twenty years old. But Iris kept walking. There were so many questions she needed to ask that only Beatrice could answer. Where did you go? What did you do? Did you ever find Max? Did you escape with a stolen fortune? Did you try to give it back? Did the ghosts of the bank ever stop haunting you? Will they ever stop haunting me?

The dates on the graves had reached 1979. Iris slowed her pace and began reading each name. As she walked, Iris felt more and more foolish. Even if Beatrice were there to answer her questions, would it even matter? The answers wouldn’t bring back Detective McDonnell, or overthrow corrupt governments, or return stolen treasures to their rightful owners. Finding Beatrice wouldn’t really solve anything.

Turning down another row, Iris stopped dead. Something small and red sat between the blades of grass under a large oak tree. Her heart leapt in her chest. Iris dropped the bag and ran over to it.

A red votive candle sat on top of a granite slab. Iris snatched it from the stone. The engraving beneath was marred with several layers of melted wax, but Iris could make out the words “Doris Estelle Davis, 1934–1979.”

Turning the candle over and over in her trembling hands, Iris could tell by its bruised surface it had been out in the rain and sun for weeks. Maybe longer. But it was there. Tears spilled down her face. Beatrice had been there. She’d found a way out. Iris fell to her knees. Beatrice was okay. Maybe she would be too.

On the bottom of the candle, a faded label read:

 Guide and protect us, O Lord, from our setting out until our journey’s end. Guide us to our heavenly home.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Dead Key might have gotten lost among the thousands of books written each year if it weren’t for the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Thank you to Amazon for giving an unpublished author a chance. Thank you to everyone that took the time to review the novel and vote for it during the contest. Thank you to all of the other contestants for having the audacity to dream big and enter.