“No shit.” Gwendolyn maneuvered the lower half of the dead raider through the entrance. “There have always been the occasional rats who were dumb enough to try to rip me off, but most of the locals know it’s a bad idea. Thanks to your drug, my shop has developed a certain reputation.”

“You might be able to get in but you won’t be able to get out?”

“Something like that. Lately, however, I seem to have become a target for an out-of-town crowd. They’ve heard I’m a single woman who has a fortune in relics with a psychic provenance stashed in my vault. They decide to try their luck and think they’ve hit the lottery when they discover the tunnel entrance in the alley.”

“Bait in your rat trap.”

“That’s the general idea,” Gwendolyn said.

She glanced toward the clockwork doll dressed in a vintage nurse’s uniform—white cap, white dress, white shoes—standing on the far side of the basement. The figure was about four feet tall. It held what appeared to be a toy syringe in one upraised hand. But the syringe was very real, as anyone who crept into the room via the old tunnel soon discovered.

The mechanism was triggered when the intruder stepped on the board that concealed the sensors in front of the nurse. At that point the hand holding the syringe moved in an arc designed to deliver a lethal injection in whatever part of the body it struck. The needle was big enough and strong enough to pierce heavy clothing. Raiders never took the mechanical nurse seriously until it was too late.

She pulled a wallet out of the raider’s jacket and flipped it open. “Just as I thought, he’s from out of town. Phoenix, to be precise. The rumors about Vortex are getting hotter. They’re drawing outsiders now.”

Eloisa released her hold on the dead man’s wrists, used the toe of her shoe to nudge a stray arm over the vault’s threshold and straightened. “We’ve got to move fast. If the Foundation gets to Vortex ahead of us, we’ll never be able to find Aurora Winston’s last logbook.”

“You know, I could do without the helpful advice. I’m the one who has been doing all the hard work on this project. I decrypted the code Grandmother used in her journal. I got the camera into Olivia LeClair’s hands. I’ve been keeping the Foundation agents pointed in another direction. Do you realize how many dealings I’ve had with the Las Vegas crowd lately?”

“I know,” Eloisa said. “I’m just worried. We’re so close—”

The muffled sound of impatient pounding on the front door of the shop interrupted her.

“I thought you put the Closed sign in the window,” she hissed.