The Dead Key Part 19

She quickly measured the room and clicked off the light. She was turning to close the door when her boot clunked into something on the floor. Clicking the light back on, she saw a brown leather suitcase leaning against the wall. It was covered in dust and cobwebs. The handle was worn smooth.

"What are you doing in there?" she asked it.

Iris pulled it out of the closet and laid it on the hall floor. It was filled with clothes. Women's clothes, but much smaller than what Iris could wear. She was a tall size 8, and these were pet.i.te size 4. She held up a blouse, and it looked like it might fit a twelve-year-old. Whoever owned the suitcase was tiny. She thought of Beatrice. Suzanne had called her an "itty-bitty thing." Iris laid the blouse down next to a pencil skirt and could almost picture the young woman wearing them. Iris turned back to the broom closet and frowned. The suitcase had been hiding there for years. Alone.

Underneath the clothes there were two paper files. One was filled with the same chicken-scratch hieroglyphics she'd found in Beatrice's personnel file. The other held a pile of letters written on First Bank of Cleveland letterhead.

Iris picked one up. It was a notice that the bank planned to turn the contents of a safe deposit box over to the state.

Iris tried to force the image of a young woman hiding in the closet from her mind. Something terrible must have happened. No one leaves their suitcase behind. Maybe she had packed up her clothes and those files and tried to run away. Maybe someone had stopped her. According to Suzanne, Beatrice had just up and disappeared one day.

It was none of her business, Iris told herself. That was twenty years ago, and Beatrice, or whoever the suitcase belonged to, was long gone by now. Her eyes wandered back to the blouse. It was covered in little paisleys. It was probably her favorite.

"Beatrice," she whispered. "Why were you running?"

Judging from the conservative cut of the clothes, she'd been the quiet type. Did she live alone like me? Iris wondered. Did anyone even come looking for her? The suitcase hadn't been disturbed since Beatrice or whoever she was left it behind.

Iris grabbed the folders and shoved them in her field bag. She couldn't just lock all traces of this woman back in the closet. She might be dead, and whatever was in those files might explain why. Maybe n.o.body cared now. Maybe n.o.body cared then, but it still mattered. She zipped the suitcase shut and shoved it back where she found it.

As she gazed down at the bag in the closet, a morbid thought played in the back of Iris's mind. If she were to disappear one day, who would come looking for her?

CHAPTER 39.

There was no time to think about the lost suitcase after being so late to work. There was no time for dinner even. Iris had to keep going if she was going to finish the survey by morning. She climbed the stairs to the twelfth floor and found herself in an empty cavern. Each footstep echoed off the bare concrete. There was nothing but exposed columns; even the drop ceiling was gone. Air ducts, wiring, and the crumbling plaster of a 1918 ceiling hung precariously overhead. It was an engineering autopsy. The floor was gutted.

The steel columns were studded with big, round rivets the size of half dollars. She reached out and touched one. It felt like painted bone. She excitedly pulled out her clipboard and began to sketch extensive notes about the structure and even drew diagrams of the column splice plates just to be thorough. Brad would have been proud.

An hour later she peered out one of the rotting wood windows. The city street below was clogged with pedestrians and cars. The workday was winding down for everyone else, but she still had a long way to go.

The sun was low in the sky, and long shadows stretched across the concrete by the time she headed back to the emergency stairs. She realized as she climbed the steps to the next floor the door was labeled "14" and not "13." She checked her notes and counted her plans, then climbed back down to the landing below and confirmed it. There was no 13. Bizarre.

Fortunately, the fourteenth floor was identical to the one below it, and she zipped through it in fifteen minutes.

When she reached the very top of the tower, her stomach tightened. The fifteenth floor was where she'd spotted a rogue flashlight from the street below the week before. She considered turning back. The number "15" was stenciled onto the beige metal fire door. Sweat dripped down her top lip. It must have been over one hundred degrees at the top of the stairwell.

She sighted down the deep spiral of stairs to the very bottom. The railings and steps curled down, down, down, until she felt like she might fall. She grabbed the railing and breathed. The stairwell was a chimney drawing cool air up from the bas.e.m.e.nt to the lower floors and sending brain-frying heat to the top.

The suffocating temperature finally trumped her fear. Iris slowly opened the door. It was too dark to see. The sun had gone down, and the glow of the streetlights hovered too far below to reach the top floor. She pulled out her police-grade Magnum flashlight and clutched it like a club.

The dust on the linoleum floor had been recently scuffed up at her feet. She could see muddled footprints, but nothing clear. The intruder might have been standing right there. She shuddered.

Stepping out of the stairwell, she let the door close quietly behind her. She inched her way down the hall, following the beam of the flashlight. It led her past the freight elevator toward the lobby. There was no relief from the heat away from the stair tower, and soon her s.h.i.+rt was drenched with sweat. When she finally reached the entrance lobby, she was greeted by a giant portrait of President Alistair Mercer. Large bronze letters spelled out "First Bank of Cleveland Executive Offices" over his head.

The letters were bolted to a huge slab of marble that stretched floor to ceiling. Behind it she found a large reception desk and waiting room. An enormous crystal chandelier hung overhead, but the bulbs were burned out. Iris tried two different wall panels, and all the lights were dead. Crystal and bra.s.s twinkled in the flashlight beam as she continued across the floor.

The heavy French doors adorned with inlaid bra.s.s and ebony had no nameplate, but she figured the office must belong to the president of the bank-either that or the Wizard of Oz. Behind them she found an office as big as entire departments on the lower levels. The sheer size of the room swallowed the beam of her flashlight as she concentrated on not tripping over gla.s.s end tables and bronze floor lamps. Her eyes got away from her and wandered from the handwoven rugs to the soaring painted murals of the heavens on the ceiling. She banged her s.h.i.+n on an antique coffee table and stumbled into a long leather sofa. Her flashlight rolled under it. s.h.i.+t.

Down on her knees, she spotted the light behind some wadded-up papers. As she pulled it back out from under the couch, she could see that they weren't papers. They were wrappers. Food wrappers and crumpled cigarette packs and other garbage. She leapt off the ground and trained the flashlight at the sofa. There was a makes.h.i.+ft rag pillow at one end. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth. Someone had slept there.

Between the heat and her heart pounding double time, spots began to float in front of her. She was going to faint.

Far away from the sofa she found a seat at a desk the size of a large bed. Her flashlight darted around the room until she was certain she was still alone-at least for the moment. She looked back at the couch with its pillow. A few more wrappers and what looked like a s.h.i.+rt were strewn on the coffee table. Fear churned in her stomach.

That was it. She was getting the h.e.l.l out of there and going home for the night. Wandering around in the dark with a homeless person loose somewhere in the building was not part of the job description. Brad would just have to understand.

She stood up and waded back through the giant office toward the service elevator. She paused behind the marble-slab wall and listened for footsteps in the hallway. It was silent.

As she stepped out into the hall, the sound of a door clicking shut made her freeze. It was coming from the direction of the emergency stairs. And her way out.

The sound of approaching footsteps roused her into action. She dropped to her knees and fumbled with the flashlight until it clicked off. The footsteps were getting closer. She crawled blindly across the marble tiles, scrambling between pieces of furniture until she came to a wall. She followed it away from the footsteps and into the first open door she found.

Feeling her way across the office floor over couch cus.h.i.+ons, loose pillow stuffing, and a rolled-up rug, she realized the room had been trashed. She crawled over what felt like a large picture frame. Her hands fell through a rip in what must have been a huge painting. Through the door behind her, she could see the beam of a flashlight moving on the other side of the reception room. There had to be a place to hide. She could barely see two feet in front of her as she picked her way over the debris. The desk had been overturned. One of its curvy legs lay splintered on the ground. She squinted into the dark until she found what she was looking for-the shadow of another door. She climbed around a fallen chair and into the executive washroom.

Broken gla.s.s sc.r.a.ped across the floor under her hands as she slipped into the room. She squeaked in surprise and pulled herself to her feet. The flashlight behind her was moving farther away. She silently swung the bathroom door closed and backed away from it. The room went black.

Trembling in the dark, she struggled not to hyperventilate. She had abandoned her field bag and flashlight and car keys and everything out by the reception desk.

s.h.i.+t. f.u.c.k. d.a.m.n it. She grimaced and carefully felt her hands for broken gla.s.s and blood. She strained to hear the footsteps of whoever it was out there in the office. Maybe they didn't know she was there. Maybe whoever it was just wanted to go back to sleep on the cushy sofa in Alistair's office. If she waited long enough, she should be able to sneak out.

The orange halo that hung over Cleveland at night seeped in through the bathroom window as her eyes adjusted to the dark. She could just make out the sink and the shower. The hot air moved in and out of her lungs like sludge. There was no oxygen in the room. Purple spots danced in her eyes. She collapsed onto the toilet and put her head between her knees.

You're going to be fine, Iris, she told herself. Just breathe.

A cool wisp of air fell on her arm. Iris put her hand up toward it. She felt it again. There was a breeze. She stretched out her hand until she felt where it was coming from. There was a large vent grate on the wall next to the toilet. The cold-air return, she thought to herself. The air shaft must lead up to the roof. She pressed her face to the grille and strained to see a piece of the night sky. There was nothing but black. Still, the fresh air was a G.o.dsend, and she rested the side of her sweat-soaked head against the grate.

She strained to hear the intruder on the other side of the door. With all the debris on the floor outside, she'd surely hear it if anyone was coming closer. Maybe the vagrant had pa.s.sed out and she could make a run for it. f.u.c.k the field bag and the plans. She just wanted to get home in one piece. She listened again.

She heard breathing.

She held her own breath but could still hear it. She lifted her head off the vent. The breathing sounded louder. It was coming from the vent itself. She jumped off the toilet, recoiling from the sound. Broken gla.s.s tinkled under her feet.

A voice whispered from behind the grate.

Her heart seized.

Then she heard it again. "Iris . . ."

Screaming, Iris crashed through the bathroom door and went careening across the room. She tripped and fell hard but scrambled back up. She flew blindly out of the office and down the corridor.

All she could hear was the whispering voice saying her name over and over. It wasn't until she'd almost reached the elevators that it registered in her head that Ramone was calling her. She stopped.

"Iris!" he bellowed again.

"Ramone?" she whimpered.

"What the h.e.l.l you doin'?" A flashlight came barreling toward her, and behind it was Ramone.

"Was that you? The whole time with the flashlight? Was that you?"

"Who else would it be? You gone crazy?"

"I . . . I don't . . ." Her face crumpled into tears. "I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy! I must be going f.u.c.king crazy!"

"Hey, hey. Take it easy now. It's all right." Ramone took her under his arm and led her back down the hall.

A giant lump had swelled up on her knee where she fell. He sat her down in the receptionist's chair, then picked her field bag off the ground and handed it to her.

"Thanks," she managed, and wiped her tear-soaked face on her s.h.i.+rt. Her head swayed on her neck.

"Sorry I snuck up on you. I saw your car down in the dock, and I got worried."

"Sorry. I guess I should have checked in with you. I'm trying to make my deadline tomorrow, so I'm working late."

"Maybe you should let me know next time," he said with tired eyes.

"Yeah. I just thought I could squeeze in one more floor, but then it was hot, and the lights didn't work, and then I found that bed . . ."

"Bed?"

"Not a bed bed, but someone's been sleeping on the couch in the big office." Iris pointed toward it from the reception desk. "Then I heard footsteps and-I don't know-I guess I freaked out."

"Don't be too hard on yourself. This place can get under your skin. Believe me, I know." His asphalt voice was soothing.

Still, she knew she'd really sound like a freak if she mentioned hearing voices in the air shaft. Her imagination had probably conjured the whole thing anyway. It was just the heat . . . and the hangover.

He pointed his light toward the hall. "Let's get you home, huh?"

"Yeah. Just give me a minute to make sure I've got everything." She decided to make small talk to cover up her hysterics. "Say, what happened in that office down the hall?"

"What do you mean?"

"That office that's all messed up." She stood up and put her bag on her shoulder. "Here, let me show you."

She led him down the hall to the office where she'd been hiding, hoping that seeing the place again in the light might erase the whisper from her head. She clicked on her flashlight and pointed it into the room.

It was worse than William S. Thompson's office down on the ninth floor. Every stick of furniture had been destroyed. A steel wall-safe stood open on the far wall. The outline of a picture frame was sunburned into the wallpaper. The safe was empty. Her flashlight fell on the bathroom door and stayed there. She listened for more whispers.

"d.a.m.ned junkies!" Ramone muttered behind her. "They come up here sometimes looking for stuff they can sell, you know. I guess somebody got frustrated."

"I guess so," Iris murmured, not really listening through the pounding in her ears as she inched closer to the bathroom door.

Iris stepped through it and brandished her light at who, or whatever, might still be in there. The bathroom was empty. She checked again and exhaled the breath she'd been holding. There was no one. She stepped inside and s.h.i.+ned the beam into the vent grate where she had heard someone breathing. All she could see were the sides of a dull sheet-metal box that stretched beyond the reach of her light. There was a shadow pattern on the far wall. It looked like a ladder.

"You lookin' for something?" Ramone's voice rasped behind her.

"Is there a way for . . . ?" Iris searched for words that didn't sound insane. "For a person to get in there?"

"I'm not sure. Why?"

"It's just that . . . wouldn't maintenance personnel need to get in there for, I don't know, maintenance?"

"Maybe. But not since I've been here. Say, it's getting late, and I don't know 'bout you, but I'm tired."

Iris nodded and followed Ramone out into the hall. She stopped and made a note of the name on the door of the ransacked office. She had to trot to catch back up to Ramone.

"Uh, thanks for finding me. So what do you do at night around here?"

"I read," he said, and pressed the call b.u.t.ton for the service elevator.

It was not as interesting of an answer as she'd hoped. She wanted to ask about him trying to pick locks in the vault the other day, but instead she decided to play it safe. They stepped into the elevator car, and she stared at the b.u.t.tons.

"Hey, why isn't there a thirteenth floor in the building?"

"I asked that same thing years ago. Know what they told me?"

"What?"

"It's bad luck. Thirteen's bad luck. I've heard that there's a mess of buildings around town without a thirteenth floor. Ain't that somethin'? Don't know if it ever really helped this place, though."

"Huh. I'm as superst.i.tious as the next person, but erasing an entire floor seems a bit crazy."

"It ain't half as crazy as the stuff I've seen."

Iris was pretty sure her little performance that evening had made it onto the crazy list.

"I've seen some weird stuff too," she said. "Say, Ramone?"

"Yeah?"

"I found something strange on the eleventh floor today. It was a suitcase. Someone had left it in a broom closet. Do you know anything about it?"

A small light flickered in his eyes, then went out. "I've learned not to go lookin' in closets around here. You'd do best to leave that stuff alone."

It was a strange warning that didn't really answer her question. She opened her mouth to ask again but thought better of it.

Five minutes later, Iris collapsed into her front seat and lit a cigarette. After three long drags, she glanced back at her clipboard and then cranked the ignition.

The words scrawled in the corner in her shaky hand read "R. Theodore Halloran, Vice President of Finance."