“Even still,” Sam leaped in, in a desperate attempt to show that he, at least, was on Max’s side, “we can’t just walk in.”
“We’re not going to walk in,” Thomas said. “You”—he placed a finger on Sam’s chest—“are going to break in.”
“Usually”—Sam panted—“when you say”—he huffed and strained—“you have a plan”— he adjusted his feet for purchase and heard the lock on the other side of the door whine in protest—“it has”—another hard shove and the door shuddered against his back—“more than one”—he turned around and pushed with both hands—“step,” he finished, breathing hard, as the steel lock gave way.
The service door opened with a long creeeeak.
The morgue was in the basement of Bellevue Hospital, all the way on the east side, on First Avenue between Twenty-Sixth and Twenty-Ninth Streets. Pippa knew this because the previous year when one of Miss Groenovelt’s spotted tabby cats had died, she insisted that it had been foul play and had carried the body there for an autopsy. She had come back sputtering in outrage after they explained that it was not the habit of New York City medical examiners to conduct postmortems on cats. Pippa had spent many afternoons sipping weak chamomile tea and comforting Miss Groenovelt as she blubbered about poor Tabitha.
“Well?” Sam said, stalling. He hated hospitals, even more than he hated the thought of dead bodies. Hated the thought of illness and bedpans and, on the crazy ward, people strapped to their cots. “What now?”
Thomas answered him by slipping inside. Sam was glad that Thomas had at least taken the lead. He cast one last glance behind him. They’d snuck out just after dinner, and the sun was now setting beyond the spiky line of buildings, layering the sky with colors that looked as if they belonged in Sol’s Candy Shoppe. For one wild second, Sam had the urge to run.
“Come on, Sam,” Pippa whispered, gesturing to him to hurry up. He filed in after her, easing the door closed behind him.
Once they were inside, the sounds of car traffic from First Avenue, and the stink of fish from the East River, faded. They were standing at one end of a long, ugly hallway, poorly lit, that smelled simultaneously of lemon oil and unwashed sheets. From somewhere above them, Sam heard the squeak of shoes and the hum of machinery. He imagined, too, that he heard someone moaning.
To their right was a short flight of stairs leading upward, and signs pointing the way to registration and metabolic unit and psychiatric and accident and emergency: all words that made Sam feel like a thousand insects were crawling over his skin.
“This way.” Thomas had unconsciously dropped his voice to a whisper. He gestured the group forward. At the far end of the hall—it seemed miles and miles away—was a small sign indicating the way to a second set of stairs.
They inched forward together. Although it was dinner hour and they were alone in the hall, Sam had the impression that eyes were everywhere, watching him. The hall was very cold and lined on either side with small rooms; he was afraid to look inside to see what they contained.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Max muttered.
“Me, too,” Sam said, and then wished he hadn’t. He should have said, instead, that he wasn’t scared at all.
When they were twenty feet from the stairs going down, a door suddenly opened in front of them, and a nurse’s voice drifted out: “That’s a good girl, Mrs. Marsh, be a sport. I’ll be right back.” Her elbow appeared; then her right foot.
They froze. Pippa gave a squeak of fear. Sam’s stomach plunged all the way to his toes, and he wondered whether he would have to go to surgery if it were to get stuck there. The nurse was coming into the hall. She would find them and arrest them for trespassing, and they would be sent to jail.
Or even worse, to Bellevue.
At the last minute, the nurse clucked her tongue and said, “Now don’t do that, Mrs. Marsh,” and retreated back into the room. But Sam knew they had mere seconds before she reappeared.
Thomas was the first to recover. He sprang toward the first door he saw and threw it open. It was a broom closet, no wider than a coffin, and cluttered with cleaning supplies and buckets, old mops and stiff rags. Thomas practically shoved Pippa inside, and Sam crowded after her, uncomfortably aware of the fact that he was pressing against her back and that her hair was tickling his chest. Thomas folded himself up at their feet.
“Let me in!” Max whispered, jabbing Sam from behind with an elbow.
“There’s no room!” Pippa squealed. “Sam, stop crushing me.”
“Shhh,” Thomas hissed.
“Sorry, I’m trying to—”
“I said you’re crushing me.”
“SHHH.”
“Let. Me. In!”
Pippa pushed. Sam leaned back. And Max went stumbling backward into the hallway, just as Thomas reached up and closed the door.
Sam nearly went hurtling after her. He heard the creak of a door again, and the nurse’s cooing voice.
“We can’t just—” he started to say.