The Dead Key Part 41

She had to get out of there. As her swollen eyes adjusted to the dark, she realized she was still next to the room where Bill had died. She could just make out the bathroom floor in the dim light filtering through the far window. There was no sign of his body but a dark trail of blood on the floor tiles. Blinking the tears away, she noticed something small on the ground not far from the vent grate. It was a key. It had no markings on its face, but she knew what it was.

The key belonged there, laying in a dark pool of blood. No one would know what it could do. No one would even notice it lying on the floor. If anything, it would become police evidence. It was safe.

Somewhere in the building the bankers were scrambling to find the keys and cover their tracks, but it wouldn't be enough. Ms. Cunningham and the feds were putting a case together. The police would come and raid the vault. Tony would find the records of the robberies in Box 547. He would find the gold. The bankers would be brought to justice. It would be all right, she told herself. It had to be.

Beatrice peered down into the darkness below her. The ladder must lead all the way to the lower level and the tunnels. It was how Max had escaped. Beatrice said a silent prayer that her friend was still down there waiting for her. All of the jewels Doris had stolen were down there too. She had saved it all for Beatrice. Doris had done monstrous things, but maybe she had tried to make it right. Maybe her mother had loved her. Maybe.

As she craned her neck up toward the open louver high overhead, she could just barely see a glimmer of light.

EPILOGUE.

Friday, August 28, 1998 Ramone pushed Iris through the door of the Greyhound station. It was a haze of stale smoke and day-old coffee. Stained yellow ceiling tiles hung overhead. Plastic benches with torn vinyl cushions lined the walls opposite the front desk. Nothing had been updated in the station since the 1970s. It was like stepping back into one of the abandoned rooms of the bank. The cracked linoleum shifted under her feet. Iris staggered to one of the benches and sat down.

Ramone lit a cigarette and studied the schedule posted on the board above the cashier. Names of cities and departure times jumbled together on the wall.

Cincinnati 6:00 p.m.

Charleston 6:30 p.m.

Chicago 8:00 p.m.

They would be on their way to some random place in mere minutes. A lump swelled in her throat. What about her car? Her clothes? Her apartment? The grim look in Ramone's eye told her everything she didn't want to know. It was gone. All of it.

Her purse was sitting in an abandoned police cruiser in the alley behind a hotel. A police officer was dead. Her apartment would be swarming with cops within the next few hours, unless Carmichael and Bruno stepped in. Either way, she was now a missing person. Carmichael hadn't minced words. They had to disappear.

"So, where you think you're headed?" Ramone offered her a filterless cigarette from his crinkled pack. He wasn't coming with her.

She took the smoke with shaking fingers. He lit a paper match, and she sucked the flame through the tobacco until it burned all the way down her throat. She wished it hurt more. At least pain made sense.

He set the heavy duffel bag down on the seat next to her. It jingled like a sack of quarters, but it wasn't. Iris's eyes flew up to the clerk behind the desk reading a magazine. The woman didn't blink at the sound.

Iris took another long drag and picked at the scratches on her knee. Her pant leg was ripped. Her shirt was covered in soot and tiny dark spots. Blood. It was Detective McDonnell's blood. She could barely hear Ramone talking as blood stared back at her.

"Charleston's nice this time a year."

Iris forced a weak smile. "Where will you go?"

"It don't matter. n.o.body's gonna look for me."

"What about this?" Iris motioned to the bag.

"That's gonna be in Charleston or someplace with you."

"Don't you want it?" She figured all of the jewels and cash Randy stole from the deposit boxes were worth a fortune.

"I'll be fine. I've grabbed a few things here or there. I ain't gonna be poor." He winked at her. "Besides, from what I seen of rich people, it don't pay to be one of 'em. Too much money ain't good for you."

Iris nodded. "I can't take it."

"The h.e.l.l you can't. You gonna need to get set up somewhere. That takes money."

"But none of this belongs to me. It's . . . stealing," she whispered with her eye on the clerk.

"Stealing from who? Do you really think anyone is ever going to be able to sort it out now?"

"But shouldn't we turn all of this over to the authorities?" It was what the detective would want, she thought, eyeing the blood. He would want justice.

"And who do you think those authorities are exactly? Did it ever occur to you that the people who stashed all that gold are the same people sitting at city hall right now? Do you really think they are gonna let you walk into a police station, talkin' about what you've seen? Gonna let you testify?" Ramone looked at her dead in the eye, and she knew he was right.

The detective would want her to live, she told herself. Then he shouldn't have dragged her into the vault, she argued back, but that wasn't fair. She was the one who had gone looking for something in that bank. She had stolen keys. She had disturbed the ghosts. She had found the body. What had she really hoped to find? she wondered. It wasn't money. She didn't want Randy's blood money. It was something else. Tears welled up in her eyes. The girl she'd seen peering out a window of the bank tower might still be trapped inside somewhere. Beatrice.

Beatrice had opened safe deposit boxes and left behind keys and odd clues, cryptic notes and candles. Not just candles. Prayers. Maybe she had felt guilty too. Iris looked down at the torn seat next to hers and tried to imagine how it had looked twenty years earlier when it was new. Beatrice might have sat on that very bench. If she'd made it out of the building alive at all.

"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. n.o.body 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 s.p.a.ce. "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 s.h.i.t 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 pa.s.sengers 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 a.s.sumed 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.

"f.u.c.k 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 pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.s. 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 rea.s.sured 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 gra.s.s 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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, 19341979."

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.

I did not magically transform from a structural engineer into an author overnight. Many wonderful people supported me through the trials and errors of this five-year journey. The fabulous ladies of my book club bravely read and critiqued the second draft of The Dead Key. My mother, mother-in-law, sisters, and best friends read drafts and encouraged me to keep writing. Cara Kissling made the first attempt to edit the ma.n.u.script and help me find my way. Adam Katz provided a thorough and insightful critique that put my writing and the book on the right path. Doris Michaels provided sage advice and guidance. My editors at Thomas & Mercer, especially Andrea Hurst, shined a light into every dimly lit corner of my novel and helped bring the fuzzy edges into focus.

The Dead Key would not have been possible without my family. My two little boys gave me the courage to quit my day job. They played together as nicely as two brothers could manage while Mommy holed up in her office, writing. My amazing husband read every draft, every edit, every stinking word I wrote and somehow remained my biggest fan. There are no words to express my grat.i.tude.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Photo 2014 Steven Mastroianni.

D. M. Pulley's first novel, The Dead Key, was inspired by her work as a structural engineer in Cleveland, Ohio. During a survey of an abandoned building, she discovered a bas.e.m.e.nt vault full of unclaimed safe deposit boxes. The mystery behind the vault haunted her for years, until she put down her calculator and started writing. The Dead Key was the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award grand prize winner. Pulley continues to work as a private consultant and forensic engineer, investigating building failures and designing renovations. She lives in northeast Ohio with her husband and two children, and she is currently at work on her second novel. Visit her website at www.dmpulley.com or find her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/thedeadkey.

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