“I’ll do what I can and keep you posted. Oh, and Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Of course not.” I hung up and faced Evelyn. “Let’s go find her.”
We started with Marie’s bridal suite, where Ned carved a pathway into the lush carpet as he paced and yanked stubble from a spot on his chin. The skin was red and bald from his anxious work.
“Anything?” he demanded when we arrived on the scene.
“Not yet,” Evelyn said, and Ned’s shoulders dropped. “But we let the police know, and Jack’s going to take a look at everything.”
Ned cast an inquisitive eye over me. “You can find her?”
“I’m going to damn well try.”
As was my protocol, I tore the room apart. With Evelyn’s help, we scoured the place from top to bottom. After examining for clues of unwanted entrance, we ripped off sheets, checked under furniture, and searched the closet and bathroom. Unlike in the previous kidnappings, none of Marie’s things had been taken.
“Where were you?” I asked Ned as we continued our search. “Weren’t you staying in this room too?”
“We agreed to spend last night apart,” Ned said, wringing his hands. “So that seeing each other at the wedding would feel more impactful. God, I’m such an idiot. I never should have left her alone.”
“It’s not your fault, Ned,” Evelyn called from the closet. “Don’t beat yourself up.”
“There’s nothing here,” I declared after searching the bathroom for the fourth time. “Let’s move on.”
Evelyn emerged from the closet. “To where?”
“The thirteenth floor.”
When I shifted aside the ice machine in the vending room to expose the secret chute behind it, Evelyn gaped and stared. She grabbed my arm as I clambered in.
“You’re not going down there, are you?”
“You’re coming too,” I informed her. “It’s a short drop.”
I let go, whizzed down the makeshift slide, and landed in the cart of dusty linens. After I clambered out, I called up the chute, “Your turn, Evelyn!”
She shot out of the chute like a cannon, landing with such gusto that the linen cart’s creaky wheels unstuck themselves and shifted across the room. Evelyn expertly vaulted over the edge of the cart and landed on her feet. She straightened up and looked around.
“So this is the thirteenth floor, eh?” she said. “Where you found Angelica’s things?”
“Yup,” I replied. “If the killer took Marie, he probably pushed her through the chute and forced her down here first. Seems like the easiest route out of the public eye.”
I led the way from the old laundry room, keeping my eyes peeled for evidence of Marie’s passage. Evelyn kept close on my tail.
“This is creepy,” she murmured. “I don’t like this one bit.”
“The Saint Angel is full of secrets,” I said. “The thirteenth floor is only one of them.”
Up ahead, a small white rectangle shone brightly against the dull, dusty floor. I rushed toward it and picked up a keycard. On the back side of it, someone had drawn an up arrow and a down arrow in red lipstick.
“That’s Marie’s shade for the wedding today,” Evelyn said, looking over my shoulder.
“You know her lipstick shade?”
“She did three different makeup tests. Of course I know the shade.” She took the card to examine it. “But what do the arrows mean?”
“Up and down,” I muttered, then snapped my fingers in realization. “The secret elevator!”
“What?”
“There’s a hidden elevator behind the statue of Hamlet in the lobby,” I babbled. “You need a special ring to access it. I thought it only went up to the penthouse, but I bet you it stops on the thirteenth floor as well.”
I closed my eyes and envisioned the Saint Angel blueprints in front of me, tracing invisible lines through the air. When I got my bearings, I rushed off, turning various corners as Evelyn hurried along behind me.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“If I’m where I think I am,” I said, stepping into a random storage room, “then the secret elevator should be right…about…here.”
I placed my palm on the wall behind a low stack of boxes. Evelyn stared at me like I was nuts.
“Jack, that’s a wall. Not an elevator.”
“We’ll see.”
I reached into my pocket, took out the cipher ring, and waved the ugly purple gem in front of the supposed wall. With a groan and a hiss, a section of the wall depressed and slid out of the way to reveal an old metal elevator grate.
Evelyn’s jaw dropped.
“I told you this place has secrets,” I said, pulling the grate aside. “Get in.”
When Wolf had first taken me up to Rodolfo’s in the old service lift, his ring had only triggered buttons for the floors above. As I flashed my stolen ring against the control panel, more options lit up, including ones for the sublevels below the hotel. I pressed the button to take us as deep as possible.
“How do you figure?” Evelyn asked as the doors clanged shut and we dropped down.
“Just a hunch.”
Beneath the Saint Angel, the air was cold and moist. We emerged into a low, dark tunnel. Evelyn’s head brushed the ceiling and our footsteps echoed hollowly on the rounded concrete floor.
“What do you think this was for?” Evelyn asked softly.
“Prohibition, I’d guess.”
The tunnel led deeper to our left, toward the apartment building that neighbored the Saint Angel. There were no lights, so Evelyn and I turned and let our phone LEDs lead the way.
“And now?” Evelyn murmured. “What’s this used for?”
“I think we already know.”
Other passageways led off the main tunnel, but instinct kept me heading straight to the end. Though the nondescript concrete made it difficult to measure distance, I guessed the underground path was the same length as the width of the hotel above it. Eventually, we came to a big iron grate that blocked a smaller passage, almost like a sewer pipe. Evelyn hefted the bolt and slid it aside, and we climbed through. For me, it was easy to slip through the pipe. Evelyn, on the other hand, had to do some impressive wiggling to make it to
