The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

her.
    Calling the manager, or hitting the panic button?
Jane wondered wildly, but the man who popped out of a side door in response definitely looked more ‘manager’ than ‘security’. He was a sturdy but somehow fragile-looking man with a delicate nose and tiny wire-framed glasses, who seemed almost painfully delighted to meet Jane. She hesitated for a moment after he introduced himself as James McDeary, but his hazel eyes darted first to the little key, and then to the passport she held loosely open in one hand.
    ‘Miss Chase, I presume,’ he announced, wringing his hands in a thoroughly depressing mixture of anxiety and delight. ‘This way, please.’ McDeary whisked her along a dizzying series of glass-and-marble hallways, his voice pattering nearly as quickly as his footsteps. He had been happy, he told her – terribly happy, in fact – to see Malcolm Chase again last month. Of course, he had been handling Mr Chase’s account personally for quite some time, but, to his sincere regret, hadn’t seen him in years.
    At that last bit of news, Jane had to fight her impulse to turn and run straight back out of the bank.
He’s known this ‘Malcolm Chase’ for
years? Jane had only known Malcolm for a few months. What had he been up to that he had needed an alias, apparently, before even meeting her? It couldn’t have had anything to do with their escape plan, and she wondered if she had even been supposed to come here at all. But she held her ground and kept her face composed as they turned into the silent, airless-feeling safe room.
    ‘It’s this one in the corner,’ McDeary told her, pointing with a finger that trembled faintly with his obvious joy. Jane took in row upon row of stainless-steel doors lining every wall. A simple table made of matching metal stood in the centre of the room; other than that, it was as bare as the surface of a star. ‘Box 41811. I was concerned that it might be too small when your . . . your . . .’
    Jane squeezed the fingers of her left hand together surreptitiously: Gran’s silver ring never left her second finger, but she had removed her incredibly conspicuous engagement ring weeks ago. Luckily, she had also left off her plainer wedding band. ‘My brother,’ she told the manager firmly.
    ‘Brother, of course! I see the resemblance, naturally. Anyway, I thought you might need a larger safe when he came in with the new item, but luckily it all fit. Many customers are, you know, very particular about keeping the same box, especially when it’s one they’ve had for a long time. And Mr Chase is one of our very valued, long-term customers, of course, so I was pleased to be able to keep his location consistent, as I’m sure that he hopefully was as well . . .’
    Jane’s head was swimming, and she could barely read the tiny numbers on the stacked rows of boxes. She held up the key Malcolm had left inside her passport in one faintly trembling hand. He removed a matching one from his pocket, inserted it into one lock on box 41811, and nodded meaningfully towards the other one. They turned their keys in near-unison, and the box slid smoothly free of the wall. Jane carried it to a stainless-steel table in the middle of the room, while McDeary lowered his eyes discreetly to the floor.
    The box was almost completely filled by a black leather case, and Jane could feel her heart pounding in her ears as she reached for it. She fumbled with the latches, snaps and ties –
just how many ways do you
need
to keep a lid on
– until finally, unexpectedly, the case opened.
    Money,
she told herself.
Of course it’s just money.
There was a lot of it, in fact: certainly more than she had left in her Grand Central stash. But she couldn’t deny the shiver of excitement that ran down her spine when, looking past the neat green-and-grey stacks, she saw the corner of something . . . else. She dug eagerly through the pile of cash, carelessly moving more hundreds than she could count out of the way like empty candy wrappers. Money was welcome, but the real proof that Malcolm had been thinking of her was finally in her hands.
    ‘It’s a . . . chequebook,’ she said out loud, flipping the faux-crocodile cover open. The cheques were drawn on an account at the First Trust Bank of New York, in the name of Caroline Chase. After a quick search, Jane found a second book, with a different account number, for Malcolm Chase.
He was careful,
she thought sadly.
He knew one of us might be caught,