The air in the vault turned cold.
The groan of steel against steel filled the darkness as the massive door inched shut.
Evelyn couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face. She could only hear.
Her breathing.
Benjamin’s sharp inhale.
And the footsteps.
Measured. Deliberate. Not hurried. Whoever it was wanted them to hear it.
“Don’t move,” Anthony repeated, his voice low against her ear. “And don’t make a sound.”
Evelyn clutched the flash drive and the notebook to her chest. The envelope had slipped to the floor.
The footsteps stopped.
For three heartbeats, nothing.
Then a soft click. The emergency lights along the base of the vault flickered on, casting a thin red glow across the floor.
Standing ten feet away was a man in a bank manager’s uniform. Except Charles Whitmore w
