Page 48 of Wish I Were Here
Luca and I step out into an empty hallway with dingy pale-blue-painted walls, a scuffed gray tile floor, and a dim fluorescent overhead light that buzzes slightly and flickers just faintly enough to make me wonder if it’s my anxiety messing with me. The elevator doors close behind us with a whoosh that sounds louder than it did on the upper floors, and I give a startled jump. Luca glances in my direction.
“You going to be okay?”
“I hope so.”
He gives me an encouraging smile.
“How are you so calm?” I ask, eyeing him standing there, seemingly cool and collected. “Have you ever done this before?”
“What? Dress like a janitor? No, but I’m really digging these coveralls.”
“No.” But despite myself, I laugh. “I mean breaking and entering.”
He shrugs. “I used to do a little freelancing for Uncle Vito. But I’m retired now.” And then he turns to wander off down the hall.
Dazed, I follow behind with absolutely no idea if he’s joking or not.
Ahead of us is a long hallway with nondescript gray doors situated about every twenty feet along the way. “Okay,” I say. “I guess we just need to find the one that leads to the file room? Fabrizio said they’d be marked.”
We walk past some spare hospital beds lined up against the wall and approach the first door. “This is…” I flinch.“The morgue,” I whisper-yell. My gaze slides to those hospital beds, and I stumble backward into Luca. “Fabrizio didn’t tell us the morgue would be down here!”
“You’ve had your head buried in a math book for too long and clearly need to catch up on your crime thrillers,” Luca whispers back. “Of course the morgue is down here. It’s always in the basement for peak creepiness.”
I press my ear to the door. “Do you think anyone is in there?” I whisper.
“I imagine there are a lot of people in there, but none of them will be talking.”
A shiver runs through me. “I meanlivepeople. Like a coroner.”
“Probably not at this time of night.” He gives me a light nudge toward the next door. “But we should get moving just in case.”
SUPPLY STORAGEthe next sign reads. We move to the next.
FILE STORAGE.
“This is it!” I try the door, but of course it’s locked, just like Fabrizio said it would be. “Let me just text Donnie. He’ll let us in.” I say it confidently, like Donnie and I are old friends. With the scrap of paper Fabrizio gave me in one hand, I enter the number into my phone with the other. And then I hesitate. Is there some sort of code word I should use? If they subpoena my phone, it probably won’t look good if I’ve texted,OPEN THE DOOR, DONNIE.
Finally, I settle onHere.Short and to the point.
A thumbs-up emoji appears, and a second later, the door clicks. I push it open and step into the middle of a dark room. The slant of light from the hallway gives me a quick glimpseof file boxes before Luca follows me inside and lets the door swing shut behind us.
We’re plunged into pitch darkness.
“Shit,” he mutters. And then he crashes into me from behind. His elbow hits my shoulder, jerking my arm forward, and my phone slips from my hand and clatters to the floor.
“Oh no.” I crouch down and feel around on the cold tile, trying to locate it, but I come up empty. “We need to find a light switch. Or open the door again.”
“Shhhh,” he whispers. “I can’t open the door.”
“Why are you whispering?” I whisper.
“Shhhh!”
“Is someone out there? Can you at least find a light?” I slap my hand on the ground, still searching for my phone.
I hear Luca moving, feel him shuffling directly behind me. Hopefully, he’s looking for a wall with a switch on it. But the next thing I know, two bony objects—probably his knees—connect with my back, and Luca trips, falling forward. I go sprawling, and he lands right on top of me.
“Ow,” I whisper, struggling to sit up, but his weight presses down on me.
