by Angie Fox
Breathing heavy, and keeping his weapon in reach, he knocked on the glass door of the bank.
Jeb’s face appeared on the other side. “Ellis,” he said, relieved. He pulled out a key and unlocked the door. “I heard sirens and almost wished they were for me,” he said, opening the door a crack. A thin sheen of sweat coated his upper lip and his hands shook. “We’re getting even more paranormal activity since Reggie died, and it’s not my imagination.” He winced, his lower lip trembling. “Did you hear that?”
“No.” I hadn’t, but I was sure he had Handsome Henry in there.
Jeb directed his attention to me. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re on a date,” Ellis assured him.
Jeb gave a quick nod. “It’s happening right now,” he said to Ellis, as if pleading for the officer to believe him.
Ellis took a look inside, past the guard. “Did you call anyone?”
“And tell the police I think I hear a ghost?” Jeb scoffed. “The interim president would sack me good. He’s a real hard-ass.”
A metallic crash echoed from behind him and Jeb dropped his keys.
“Right there,” he demanded. “I didn’t make that up. I’m not crazy.”
“I’ll check it out,” Ellis told him. “And Verity, she’ll stick with me.”
I was glad Ellis carried himself like the law officer he was. Jeb didn’t even question him as we entered the bank.
“Be careful,” the guard warned. “Try to get a picture or nobody’s gonna believe you, either. I think I saw mist once.” A low unearthly creaking echoed throughout the marble lobby, stopping us just inside the door. I froze in place and Jeb grabbed my arm. “You hear that, too?”
I cleared my throat. “Yes.”
The trick would be to calm him down.
“You stay here,” Ellis assured him. “Keep watch.”
“All right,” he said, frozen with fear. I gently extricated myself from the guard’s grip. “I’m not allowed to leave my post,” he said, as if talking himself into staying. “It’s not like this is any kind of an intruder I can stop.”
True. This was most likely an angry hit man in his underwear. I didn’t think they covered that in security class.
Jeb retrieved his keys from the floor and practically clung to the locked exit. Ellis and I ventured closer to the sealed vault.
“Hold it,” Ellis said, pausing near the thick round door. “You hear that?”
I did—a faint scratching sound. “It’s coming from inside the vault.”
Jeb swore and made a sign of the cross.
“I need you to let us in,” Ellis told him.
He hesitated, then gave a sharp nod. “The scratching, it’s the same as I heard the morning Reggie died.” Sweat stains pooled under the arms of Jeb’s uniform. “I let him in just like this.”
Lucky us.
Jeb inserted two sets of keys in two separate locks and twisted them both. Then he turned the heavy vault wheel until it clicked open. Ellis helped him drag the door away from the entrance.
I paused at the threshold. Flickering streaks of white and yellow light shone from the spot where Reggie had met his end. I’d experienced soul traces once before. It marked the place of a recent death.
“Looks empty to me,” Jeb said, coldly surveying the space.
A low chuckle echoed through the vault. We stood frozen at the entrance. It ended almost as soon as it began.
“I gotta watch the door,” Jeb said, backing away.
Silence descended over the vault and I sincerely hoped that creepy laugh wasn’t the last thing Reggie heard before he died.
Ellis stood at the entrance, making sure I had my privacy, while I took one step inside, then another.
“Hey, Henry,” I said lightly. Show no fear. I kept my voice even and opted for his first name as if I belonged there talking to him. “I know revenge is great, but whoever did this is long gone.”
The hit man appeared, walking straight through the wall of safety-deposit boxes. He stood, murderous, in the middle of Reggie’s death spot, glaring down into the shards of energy as if he could see the body. “My box is empty!” he raged. “Rosie’s jewelry is gone. My mamma’s wedding ring is gone.” He had the red glow around him that warned of a possible descent into poltergeist. “Some poser thinks he can act like me.”
I cleared my throat. “Think of it this way. It’s good that people want to imitate you. You set the standard.”
He snarled. “I promised my mamma I wouldn’t kill no more so she could go to the light. She ain’t gonna like this.”
“You didn’t do anything,” I reassured him, hoping I was right.
He swallowed hard. “She don’t know that.” He hurled his ghostly gun straight through the floor. “What if she comes back? She worked hard her whole life, and she couldn’t even rest after she died until I promised I wouldn’t kill no more,” he shouted. The gangster scrubbed a hand over his ugly mug. “What if she thinks I screwed up? She might never be happy again.”
“Calm down,” I told him. “Please, just…work with me. I feel like we’re close to an answer here.” The more I talked with him, the more sure I was that Henry hadn’t killed Reggie. A man like Handsome Henry was proud of his work. If Reggie’s murder was his doing, he’d want everybody to know. And he seemed really serious about upsetting his mother. “Can you tell me more about your safety-deposit box?” I pressed. It made sense that someone had cleaned it out in the years since Henry died. “Do you have any idea who could have taken everything?”
“I don’t know, lady. I ain’t no security guard. Good thing, too. They sure scare easy.” He chuckled low in his throat. “I coulda given that guard a heart attack, but that ain’t my style.” He pointed at me. “You’re gonna find the creep who’s trashing my reputation, and you’re gonna stop him.”
“Absolutely,” I vowed. “Bringing Reggie’s murderer to justice is our top priority. We’re going to solve this.”
“We will,” Ellis promised, stepping into the vault. “We want this murderer as much as you do.”
The ghost grew three feet as he stared past Ellis. “Hey! What do you got there?” Henry demanded.
Henry zoomed through the wall, cursing, as the door slammed closed.
We listened in horror as someone on the outside spun the wheel, and something inside me died a little when the massive lock clanged into place.
Chapter 20
Ellis shoved against the door. He cursed under his breath. It didn’t budge.
“That did not just happen.” I desperately searched for a handle or an inside latch, the gravity of our situation slamming down on me. The vault was airtight. And we were trapped.
“Henry?” I hollered. I couldn’t hear him anymore.
I dug in my bag for my cell phone, knowing it probably wouldn’t catch a signal, but I had to try. It scrolled, searching…and finding nothing.
“Frankie!” I called.
“You don’t need to take that tone,” the ghost said, rising from the floor, obviously not recognizing that we were in a desperate situation. “Suds and I weren’t up to anything.”
Yeah, right. “Go outside,” I told him. “Find Jeb, and get him to let us out. And for the love of God, don’t scare him away.”
The gangster nodded and slipped through the front of the vault without so much as a complaint. Now I knew for sure this was bad.
Ellis examined the vault door. “I’m pretty sure Jeb’s the one who locked us in.”
It made sense. Jeb was the only one who knew we were in here.
And now he wanted to get rid of us.
“He was also familiar with the security here. It’s an older system. He could have shorted out the camera over the vault door,” Ellis said grimly.
“Any chance it’s working now?” I asked, letting myself hope.
He shook his head. “Marshall took it with the rest of the evidence. They were supposed to install a new one right away, but I didn’t see it
up there.”
I nodded, preserving my oxygen. I didn’t get it. What could we have discovered at this point that would make someone want to kill us? We didn’t have all the pieces yet…or did we?
“Jeb lost everything in the housing crisis,” I said, trying to put it together. “Reggie might have written him those bad loans. The two were old friends.”
Ellis glanced at me. “It would explain a lot.” He kept working on the door. “Especially with Reggie getting on with his own life, and Jeb still paying the price.”
We had to get out of here.
“Henry?” I called. I didn’t see him anymore, but maybe he was still within earshot. He was a criminal. Maybe he knew how to bust out.
Frankie reappeared. “Henry split. I don’t see the guard, neither.”
Sweet Jesus. Was it me or was it getting warmer in here? “How much air do we have?”
Ellis strained against the vault door. “Don’t go there yet,” he warned, out of breath as he tried another tactic. He moved to a half dozen bronze administrative storage boxes to the right of the opening. They stood out from the wall and were all different shapes and sizes. None of them were locked, which was a very good thing. “People who designed banks—even years ago—were well aware of the danger of getting locked in a vault. They always have a telephone or hidden key to get out.”
“Good,” I said, joining him, searching the wall for a phone box or an emergency key. “Here,” I said, popping open a square enclosure marked Bank Personnel Only.
An age-scarred key holder thrust out, empty. Behind it, in black paint, I found the outline of a key, as if to taunt us. My heart sank. “It’s gone.”
“Okay,” Ellis said, as if this were somehow routine. He opened a larger square box above it.
Empty.
I checked the signal on my phone again. Still nothing.
Frankie paced next to me. “This is a disaster.” He hovered over my bag near the door. “What happens to my urn after you die? Did you even think of that?”
“I’m not dying,” I snapped. At least I’d better not. I shoved my phone in my pocket and opened a tall, rectangular box. Empty. “Did they ever have a key and a backup phone?” I asked Ellis.
He pried the fourth box open, another tall, rectangular one. “Let’s hope so.”
He found an umbrella.
Seriously?
I checked my phone again. No signal.
“Do you have a will?” Frankie pressed. “Who gets your house when you die?” I went for box number five, a wide one above the other two. “Your sister?” he prodded. “God, I hope not. I can’t break in another perky blonde.”
“She’d be just as thrilled with you,” I said, my fingers snagging on the edge as I pried the box open. Empty.
I looked to Ellis. We were running out of options. He forced open the final box, a wide rectangular one that could have easily held a phone. Old wires tangled at the back, but the receiver was missing.
“No,” I whispered.
“That’s right,” Frankie said. “Keep your voice down or you’ll just use up your air faster. Besides,” he instructed, “nobody can hear you anyway.”
Was it me, or had the air grown warmer and less breathable? I tried for a slow, easy inhale and exhale, but I felt like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I hoped it was in my head.
Ellis studied the room as if he could find some way out of a locked vault just by looking around.
Think.
We had wire, an umbrella… Oh cripes. I wasn’t MacGyver. “Suds was tunneling in through the floor,” I said. “Maybe we can break out that way. Frankie, where’s the tunnel?”
He sank down into the pink marble, and a moment later, his head reappeared out of the floor. “Here,” he said. “All set to go. Suds did a good job. It’s even set with a charge.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “How are we supposed to set off dynamite?” Ellis and I couldn’t reach it, and Frankie and Suds would pass straight through it.
We stood surrounded by locked safety-deposit boxes, at least a foot of steel in all directions, and a marble floor with four feet of concrete underneath. I had to admit, it didn’t look good.
I stomped on the floor. “Suds told me they’d cleared through the concrete and only needed to break through the marble floor. How hard is marble?” I could feel the air thinning, or perhaps I truly was panicking now. “Break, break, break!” I hollered, jumping up and down on top of it. But the pink marble floor remained solid. I grabbed the umbrella and drove it down into the floor, breaking the handle and the tip and sending pieces of it flying.
“Damn it!” I yelled, sweaty and spent.
“Hey.” Ellis wrapped his arms around me, stopping my rant, shoving my cheek up against his chest to calm me. He felt uncomfortably warm and his heart beat like crazy. “It’s going to be okay,” he murmured into my hair.
I lifted my head and looked straight into those gorgeous hazel eyes. “You don’t believe it, though, do you?”
The crinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened, but he didn’t answer. Great. I finally found one who couldn’t lie, and we were about to suffocate together.
“Ellis?” I began as I tilted his chin down and kissed him. It was sweet and desperate at the same time. A pledge of loyalty and trust and—my blood heated—a fair bit of lust. Dang. Even now, he could drive me to distraction.
He stroked my cheek as I pulled back. “You always kiss me at the end.”
“I’m glad we worked it out before we died,” I said, a little sad.
Ellis tried to smile and failed. “Don’t say that.”
He had to know. “I’m proud to be dating you. We could have made it work.”
He kissed me hard, then drew back just as quickly, resting his forehead against mine. “When we get out of here, I’m taking you to dinner at my mother’s.”
I laughed despite myself. “Are you trying to make me feel better about being trapped in here?”
He huffed out a chuckle. “Okay, how about a nice dinner out and a movie at the drive-in?”
I nipped him on the bottom lip. “That’s more like it.”
He held my head in his hands. “Verity, I…” He lowered his gaze.
“What?” I asked, leaning into his touch. “You can tell me.”
“I—”
Suds popped straight up out of the floor next to us. “Aww, come on!” He turned away. “You weren’t kidding, Frank.” He forced himself to turn back to us. “Enough with the smooching. Frankie and I have a plan, and it starts with you ending the lip-lock.”
I didn’t get it. “What can two ghosts possibly do?”
“I’m going to forget you just asked that,” Suds said. “You’re gonna change your tune anyway when Frankie and I set off my charge.”
Heavens to Betsy. “You’re going to blow the vault? How?”
Ellis appeared as surprised as I felt. “I thought you said they can’t touch anything.”
“They can’t.”
That didn’t stop Suds from grinning like a maniac. “I could touch all kinds of things before I knew I was dead. I just need to think like I’m alive!”
“You can’t just decide that,” I protested.
“I do believe that’s a dare,” Suds drawled, sinking back into the floor.
Frankie watched him go. “He just needs to push down on the lever. It’s a solid inch, but if anybody can do it, Suds can.” Frankie grinned as if pleased to see his friend in such high spirits. “He always did like to blow things up.”
“Go cheer him on,” I said, hoping they could do it.
Ellis placed a hand on my arm. “Let’s get back. We don’t know how much dynamite is down there.”
“Plenty, I assure you,” Frankie’s voice echoed from under the floor.
“Do you think they can pull this off?” Ellis asked.
“Maybe.” They certainly seemed to think they could. What choice did we have but to believe in them?
Of course, S
uds had believed he could break in eighty years ago.
“This way.” Ellis led me to the far end of the vault, as distant as we could get from the gangster’s explosives. “It could get ugly,” he said low under his breath. “I still have my duty vest on. I’m going to cover you and protect you as well as I can.”
“A duty vest is for bullets, not explosions.”
He huffed out a breath. “It’s a lot better than nothing.” He caught my eye. “We’re going to make it through this.”
I wanted to believe that. “You actually sound kind of convinced this time.”
“I am,” he said, hugging me close, trapping me safe between his solid chest and the steel of the vault. “We’re doing this. You and me.”
The air grew chilly. I pressed my forehead against Ellis’s upper chest and we braced ourselves.
“You can do it!” Frankie shouted like he was an Olympic coach. “Come on! You’ve been waiting for this your whole afterlife!”
“Urrrrrrgh!” Suds groaned. “I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive…!”
I slammed my eyes shut and gripped Ellis’s shirt in both hands, holding on tight.
Then, silence.
“Huh,” Frankie said, his voice echoing through the floor.
“Let me try it another way,” Suds said, sounding a little desperate. “I’m alive…and there’s money!”
I kept my head down and my eyes shut even though I didn’t see how they were ever going to be able to—boom!
The floor shook and I held on to Ellis as the explosion rang out against the metal walls of the vault. I pressed harder against his shoulder, choking on the dust.
“Did it work?” I stammered, daring to look.
As the air cleared, I saw Frankie’s head pop out of the middle of a hole in the floor. Just his head. Everything below the shoulders had gone missing, but he didn’t care. He grinned like a gangster who just broke into the vault at the First Sugarland Bank. “That was fantastic!”
Suds shot up out of the hole past him. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning. Tears filled his eyes as he threw his hands up in the air. “At last!”