Page 12 of Girl, Empty (Ella Dark #27)

Mark Miller’s wife had always told him he was the dullest man in the Midwest, and it was a title he’d come to embrace.

Dull people had dull jobs, and dull jobs paid well.

That’s how he’d gotten to become the manager of First National Bank, by gritting his teeth through the tedium, although for Mark, it hadn’t been much of a challenge.

‘Morning, Mr. Miller. Wow, that’s a lot of M’s ,’ said Gemma as she greeted him at the front door. ‘A yellow tie? With a black shirt? Did Linda approve that?’

‘Of course I’m ready. Why do you always treat this like some secret operation?’

‘Because it is,’ said Mark as he held down the switch beside the door. ‘There’s two-hundred thousand dollars in this building.’

Gemma tapped in the security code and the front door unlocked. ‘There’s more than that in the tills at Costco. Nobody robs banks anymore. It’s not the eighties.’

‘Just get this done, then you can make me an English tea.’

‘What? Because I’m a woman?’

‘No, because you know how to do it. I don’t.’ Mark followed Gemma inside. Regulations meant that opening up a bank was never a solo job, so every morning, Mark and another member of staff had to complete the ritual that took them from front door to bank vault with two checkpoints in between.

‘Then you should take some time off and learn some new skills. Don’t you feel left behind?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I don’t know. You can run a bank, but you can’t make tea. When was your last day off?’

Next up was the security door into the bank’s rear area. Mark held his card to the panel while Gemma used the biometric scanner. ‘December twenty-fifth.’

‘Christmas Day? It doesn’t count if you don’t have a choice.’

Through the back area, another security checkpoint came before the vault.

Mark entered his code like someone who'd done it four thousand three hundred and twelve times before.

Not that he was counting. On the other side of the door, Gemma pecked at her own code like she was writing poetry. The panel beeped red.

‘You know what I think?’ Gemma said.

‘That you should put the code in properly? Try again. Two more misses and Grayson will appear.’

Gemma got it on the second attempt, then they moved into the elevator that took them down to vault level. ‘I think you're scared to take time off because you might realize this place runs fine without you. And then what would you have?’

Mark glanced over at her. It wasn’t even 08:30 and she was already talking too much. ‘That’s not true. I trust everyone here.’

'I never said you didn't trust us. I mean this place is your identity. If you're not Mark Miller, the bank manager, you're… just Mark. You even have a boring name.'

He’d known Gemma was a no-filter type when he’d hired her, and that was partly the reason he had.

Unapologetic honesty was a trait Mark admired, and it was crucial in a place like this.

He’d heard a million stories of bank tellers and admin staff stealing the odd hundred dollars here and there, but he doubted Gemma would steal anything because her loose tongue would confess to it eventually.

They stepped out of the elevator into the underground vault. The place was a tiny, concrete cell with a steel door dominating one of the walls. The temperature down here never changed. Sixty-two degrees, forever and always.

‘You hear about that guy that died? Michael something.’

‘Rankin,’ said Mark. ‘An accountant at Morrison. Saw it on the news last night.’

‘Mad, isn’t it? That explains why the place was shut.’

Morrison & Associates had been closed all day yesterday, and word traveled fast through finance circles. Mark had never met the man, but had probably walked past him at lunch time. Their building was only a stone’s throw away.

‘Got your key?’ he asked.

‘Got my key,’ Gemma said. ‘Ready when you are.’

The main vault required both their keys turned simultaneously. Mark had always found this part overly theatrical, like something from a heist movie. But the insurance company insisted this be the case, and insurance companies wrote the rules these days. Mark put his key in the lock.

‘On three. One, two...’

They turned in unison and the huge panel above the door flashed green. Access granted. The huge steel door disengaged, and now came the physical part.

‘Want to do the honors?’ Mark asked.

‘Me? I thought you loved this part.’

‘I’ve done it four thousand times.’

‘Awesome.’ Gemma spun the circular handle and pulled. The massive door began its slow rotation. Six inches of hardened steel, which Mark, in his infinite nerdom, secretly thought was cool as hell.

But when the door cracked a few inches, an alien surge washed over Mark. It was the same feeling he’d got when he’d gotten off the plane to Jamaica and the heat had assaulted him.

Except this wasn’t heat.

‘Jesus.’ Gemma stopped pulling. Her hand flew to her nose. ‘What is that?’

Mark’s pulse picked up steam. He tried to place the scent, and the first thing that came to mind was decay. But no, because he’d smelt decay when he’d found a dead rat in his garage, and this wasn’t that.

‘Mark, you smelling that? Am I going crazy?’

‘No.’ He stepped back, because he too was getting overwhelmed by it. It was something chemical, straight out of a laboratory. His sinuses burned. His eyes watered.

‘Mark… that’s not…. nitrogen, is it?’

That was it. That was where he knew it from. He'd attended a safety seminar two years ago about the vault's fire suppression system. In case of fire, the system would flood the space with nitrogen gas, displacing oxygen, smothering flames.

‘Y…yes it is. We need to call…’

Mark froze mid-sentence, because that’s when he saw the shoes.

‘Is that...’ Gemma suddenly appeared at his side and gripped his arm. Her voice sounded like someone had replaced her vocal cords with violin strings. ‘Tom Grayson?’

Mark’s mind, an abacus of rules and regulations, cycled through the impossibilities. The time-lock was absolute. The nitrogen system was a weapon of last resort. The vault was a sealed tomb between 5 PM and 8:30 AM.

They had just opened it. They were the first ones in.

So why was their head of security lying dead in there?

Maybe today wasn’t going to be one of those dull days, after all.

‘Call the police,’ Mark gasped. ‘Now.’