The Dead Key Part 22

"Did he say they were on this level?"

"Well, he said 'bas.e.m.e.nt.' This is the bas.e.m.e.nt, right?" She said it and realized the vault room looked nothing like a bas.e.m.e.nt. Bas.e.m.e.nts had pipes and boilers and dripping water. She glanced back at the vaults lined in bronze and marble, and it occurred to her that bank customers must have come through there from time to time to access their safe deposit boxes. Rich people with priceless valuables definitely didn't use the spooky service stairs. The service elevator wasn't fancy enough either. How did they get down there?

She pulled out her plans and compared what they had drawn for the bas.e.m.e.nt with the main banking level. She and Brad had surveyed the lower level together, so she hadn't doubted its accuracy until that moment.

Sure enough, they were missing a column bay to the north underneath the main lobby. Her fingers traced the monumental staircase that flanked the east wall. The stairs stepped down from the lobby. Holding the plan like a treasure map, Iris headed east and north, until the giant vault door stopped her in her tracks. It stretched from the ceiling to the floor and was swung open against the wall.

"Brad." There was no response. "Brad?"

"Yeah?" He stepped around the corner from the service elevator.

"We're missing something on our plan. The building keeps going twenty more feet that way." She pointed at the giant metal door. Brad grabbed the plans and looked them over.

"You're right. Good catch!"

"This closes, right?" she asked, pointing to the giant steel circle blocking her way. It was the door to the larger vault where the bank had once stored its cash reserves.

"Well, it is a vault."

Iris tried not to roll her eyes in annoyance. "Let's try to close it. It's not like there's anything in the vault anyway."

She gave it a pull, but it wouldn't budge. Brad walked over and gave it his all. No luck.

"There has to be a trick to it." Brad searched the perimeter of the round door.

Iris scanned the rest of the room and located a small red b.u.t.ton on the far wall. She walked over to it and pushed it as Brad was pulling on the door with all of his might. The door sprung free and sent Brad sprawling on the floor with an oomph. Iris slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing.

"I see you smiling."

Brad stood up and brushed himself off. He grabbed the door and walked it closed. As the circular door swung shut to seal the cash vault, it revealed a round entryway, which led to another room.

"Clever," Brad said, walking through the portal. "They use the vault door to block access to the room when the vault is open."

Iris nodded and stepped through the round doorway. The room beyond the vaults was twenty feet wide and ran the length of the building. It was dark except for the faint light coming from the far end. Iris clicked on her flashlight. There was a small security station and a long reception desk. At the west end of the room were three small booths. Red velvet curtains were drawn to conceal a chair and a small table inside each little chamber.

"What the h.e.l.l are these?" Iris asked, pulling a curtain aside.

"This must be where people went to open their deposit boxes, eh?" Brad pulled out his tape measure and set about correcting their floor plan.

While Brad busied himself, Iris walked across the soft red carpet to the far edges of the room, trying to find access to the tunnels. The walls of the lower lobby were wood and inlaid bronze, just like the main lobby above it. The faint light grew brighter as she made her way past the elevator bank and around the corner. Trapped sunlight streamed down the marble stairs from the lobby above.

Stairs were always stacked one on top of the other in a building. Maybe there were more of them. She searched the dark-wood panels cladding the triangular section of wall under the stairs until she found it. There was a door-sized panel cut into the wood beneath the upper landing. It was perfectly flush with the surrounding wall and the tight seam along its edges was barely visible. She ran her hands along the perimeter and found nothing-no handle, no hinges. When she pushed on it, a latch clicked. The panel swung open to a small service closet.

"Brad! I found something!" she called over her shoulder as she stepped into the hidden pa.s.sageway and saw a metal service door marked "Utilities." She tried the handle. It was locked.

"Hey there, Sherlock! You found it!" Brad said, trotting up to her side.

"It's locked."

"You got the keys."

"Oh, right."

Iris fumbled in her field bag while Brad looked over her shoulder into her tangled mess of pens and fast-food wrappers. She could feel him smirking as she struggled to find them. The keys Brad had given her were buried in a side pocket next to her cigarettes. It took five tries, but she finally managed to wrench the door open.

"After you," he said, swinging his arm to the door with a bow. Brad was a dork.

Iris blindly felt inside the wall until she found a small light switch. A bare bulb at the bottom of the stairs clicked on. The stairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt were steep, with open metal grates for treads. Iris stepped down nervously as they wobbled beneath her. A nest of spiderwebs. .h.i.t her face before she reached the last step, and she struggled not to screech like a girl. At the bottom of the stairs, there was a narrow pa.s.sageway. Pipes and conduit raced overhead down the narrow hallway and out of sight.

"These must be the tunnels," Brad said from behind her.

"Yeah, but how are we supposed to know where they're going?" Iris asked, peering into the dark.

"They left breadcrumbs." He pointed to a small plaque on the wall next to the stair that read "First Bank of Cleveland." He clicked on his flashlight and began heading down the tunnel. "Let's see where this takes us."

Iris nodded reluctantly and followed him down the narrow hall, ducking her head so as not to hit the tangle of pipes and wires overhead. Through puddles, falling insulation, and dangling wires, they walked for what seemed like five city blocks until they came to a larger room. The walls were old brick, and the brick ceiling vaulted over them like a Roman aqueduct.

"Wow!" Iris said, staring up at the ceiling.

"It's a junction," Brad said. "Look at all of the different paths."

Six branches headed out of the cavern. Small plaques were set over each entrance. "Terminal," "Arcade," "East 9th" the signs read.

"Where should we go?" he asked.

"I'm not sure I'm up for any more spelunking." Iris had her fill of cobwebs and dust, and she was certain she could hear mutant sewer rats scurrying in the distance. "I'm exhausted, and I still have a ton of work to do."

"Aw, where's your sense of adventure?" Brad slugged her in the arm.

"Maybe next time." She felt like a pathetic female but was too tired to care. Voices were still whispering in the back of her mind.

"I'll be right behind you. I just have to see a little more."

Iris turned and retraced her steps back to the metal staircase and the naked lightbulb and up to the lower banking level. She swatted at the cobwebs with a squeamish shudder. On her way across the carpet toward the vault, she paused at the deposit clerk's desk. It was where a patron would have requested access to their deposit box.

Ramone had said that when the bank closed they lost all of the keys to the vault. The last person to see them probably worked right there. She leaned over the counter. The drawers had locks, and there was a small safe. Every door was flung open, and everything was picked clean. There was no nameplate on the counter and only one chair behind the desk.

Brad would be returning any moment, and she'd hate for him to catch her snooping. She hurried back to the round entrance that led to the vaults. But it wasn't there. There was a crescent moon of light where the doorway should be, and then it went black with a loud thud. Someone had swung the vault door open, blocking the round portal to the lower lobby where she stood. She was locked out.

"Hey! Ramone! Open up!" she shouted, banging on the steel vault door blocking her way. There was no response. "Seriously?"

The way back into the vault room from the lower lobby where she stood was through the round portal. The only other option was to go up the marble stairs to the main lobby above, walk down the hall to the rear of the building, and take the service stairs back down. Iris ran the entire way, determined to give Ramone a piece of her mind. She'd left half her notes and field bag on the other side of the d.a.m.ned round door.

She slammed through the service stairwell door into the vault room, yelling, "Hey, Ramone!"

A flash of a blue shirt turned a corner at the end of the vault corridor and was gone.

"Ramone!"

She stormed past the vault toward Ramone's little bedroom. "Ramone, why did you . . . ?"

The room was empty. The service elevator was whirring loudly to her right. He must have ducked out again. "What the h.e.l.l?" she asked the empty room.

She staggered back to the vaults to collect her things. "I really need to quit smoking," she panted.

Her lungs felt like two black tea bags after her mad sprint. She bent down to pick up her clipboard when something shiny caught her eye.

A ring of keys was hanging from one of the safe deposit doors.

CHAPTER 44.

Iris stepped into the vault and touched one of the keys hanging from the lock of Box 249. She paused and looked back out into the empty corridor. Someone had been in the vault while she and Brad were down in the tunnels. Someone in a blue shirt. It must have been Ramone. He always wore a blue shirt, and after her freak-out the night before he was probably just avoiding her.

A chill ran through her as she tried to turn the key. It didn't move. She tried harder. It wouldn't budge. She yanked the key to pull it out of the lock, but it was stuck. She twisted the key, then jiggled it. Finally, she simply unwound the ring from the one stuck key to release the others. There were twelve identical bronze keys on the ring. Letters were engraved on the heads. She flipped through them-"D," "E," "O." "First Bank of Cleveland" was etched around the perimeter of each face.

A loud banging came from the lower lobby. It was Brad on the other side of the vault door.

"Iris? Iris, open up! This isn't funny!"

s.h.i.t. She scrambled to open the doorway. She pressed the red b.u.t.ton, and the round steel door began to swing, opening the entrance to the lower lobby. The keys were still in her hand. It was too late to put them back without an explanation. She squeezed them in her fist. Brad would surely confiscate them and turn them over to Mr. Wheeler or the owners. End of story. Or she could ask Ramone about them first and then hand them over herself. It wouldn't make much difference. Besides, what Brad didn't know wouldn't hurt him. The second before he came barreling through the opening she stuffed them into the pocket of her field bag.

"Hey, what gives?"

Iris held up her empty hands. "I have no idea. I had to run up the stairs and back down again to get over here. I just made it back down, and I'm kinda p.i.s.sed. I think I saw Ramone."

Brad grunted and hoisted his field bag back onto his shoulder. "We should go see how your computer's coming along."

Iris gathered up her notes. "So how were the tunnels?"

"Amazing. They go on for blocks. I think that junction is under Euclid Avenue."

"Did you find Jimmy Hoffa?" Iris asked, trying not to let her bag jingle with stolen keys as they walked down the hall.

"No, but I found some strange stuff-clothes and food wrappers. It looks like somebody's living down there or something."

"Ramone said the homeless sometimes get in the building through the tunnels." She tried to sound casual even though the disembodied breathing still rasped in the back of her head. They stepped onto the elevator and headed back up to the personnel office.

"The homeless? Why didn't you say something before?" He glared at her. "Maybe you shouldn't be working here alone."

"I'm a big girl. Ramone's here."

She didn't want it getting back to Mr. Wheeler or anyone else that she was too scared to do the job. They might send her back to the office. A man would never complain about this sort of safety concern, and she knew it.

"I think that you should keep a radio with you from now on in case you need Ramone, okay?"

"Need Ramone for what?" Ramone stepped out of Linda's office on the third floor to greet them.

"In case I need help . . . like opening a door or something. Brad wants me to have a radio," Iris said, avoiding his eyes. She needed to find a way to get him alone to ask about the keys.

Ramone didn't argue. "I think I have a couple sets. I'll bring one up."

"I've been keeping Ramone pretty busy this morning," Arnie chirped from behind a giant monitor. "We've had trouble getting the power to work. We had to patch into the next office."

"You've both been up here all morning?" Iris turned back to the guard, trying not to sound alarmed.

"Yeah." Ramone rolled his eyes in Arnie's direction.

"But . . ." Iris bit her tongue to keep from saying more, especially after all of that big-girl tough talk. She glanced over at Brad, but he was oblivious to everything but installing AutoCAD on the new computer. Someone had been down in the vault, and it wasn't Ramone. Now she had their keys. She swallowed hard. Ramone would get her a radio. She would put the keys back. It would be fine. They were just keys. Someone from the real estate holding company might have had a set. It was their building after all, but it didn't make sense that they had run off when she surprised them in the vault. Iris mentally wrung her hands while Brad explained the CAD layering system.

The lunch hour came and went without mention. Brad, Arnie, and Ramone finally vacated the third floor around 3:00 p.m., leaving Iris alone with a glowing monitor, a two-way radio, and twenty sheets of hand sketches that needed to be digitized by Monday.

The dead calm in the personnel office was only broken by the soft clicking of the keyboard and mouse. Every fifteen minutes she checked in with Ramone. He was starting to get annoyed. After two hours on the edge of her seat, she couldn't take it anymore. She grabbed her field bag and Ramone's radio and headed back down to the vault.

She pressed the call b.u.t.ton and rested her forehead on the service elevator doors. Iris tried to remember what the intruder had looked like. Blue shirt and darkish hair, but she'd only seen him from the back.

This was crazy. The intruder might have come back. She gripped the radio tighter, debating whether or not to buzz Ramone. She had no idea how she would explain what she was doing in the vault. She was lost in thought when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

Iris screamed.

"Jesus, Iris! Take it easy!" It was Nick. He backed away with his arms up to guard his face. He still had a faint black eye from the last time he snuck up on her.

"Nick!" She swatted him in the arm. "You scared the living s.h.i.t out of me! Stop doing that!"

"Sorry! You're right." He laughed. "One of these days you're liable to kill me."

"What are you doing here?"

"What do you think I'm doing here? I came looking for you." He eyed her up and down.

She looked like s.h.i.t. Her hair was falling out of its ponytail. Her shirt was covered in black stuff. She hadn't slept in two days and couldn't even remember if she had on clean underwear.

"I-I thought our date was later," she stammered. "I need to go home and shower."

The word "shower" made his eyebrows lift and his eyes wander over her body as if he were sudsing her up right then and there. She hit him in the arm. "Hey, I thought we were going on a real date!"

"Of course! Do you have beer?"

"Huh?"

"At your house. Do you have beer at your house?"