“Does William have a surname? Or are you afraid little sprites will steal him if you tell us?” I raised a brow.
Lorelei’s eyes flicked my way before returning to Félice, ignoring me. “I will be working closely with him on the new production ofLa Sylphide.”
“I didn’t know auditions had already ended.” My jaw tensed.
“I suppose talent doesn’t have to audition if you know they’re perfect. Sometimes it’s just meant to be,” William replied, undoubtedly pleased with himself. “The minute I saw her perform, I knew she would be perfect forLa Sylph.”
“Oh, is that whattalentgets you?” I smiled, though I suspect it was more of a grimace.
Lorelei glared, begging me to be quiet.
I thought I had appealed to her better senses last time I warned her, but I suppose it fell on deaf ears.
Lorelei had never even owned a dress nice enough for a promenade, and suddenly she was wearing something worth more than any salary she’d ever made. When I looked closer, my heart dropped. A diamond and garnet brooch in the shape of a sparrow was pinned upon her coat. It was one of a kind ...
Or at least, that was what my mother used to say whenshewore it. I wouldn’t forget a piece like that.
This poor girl, being groomed into a position that would wear her down to the bone by the time there was a “two” in front of her age.
I couldn’t say that I wasn’t once in her shoes, but I thought I could break the cycle for her.
Even now, my cycle wasn’t over yet. Vincent continued to haunt me, lingering like a spirit clinging to the spine, shivers warning againstthe upper hand he still had. Much like a specter myself, I had unfinished business with him.
Like receiving some omniscience from beyond, my body wouldn’t quit its sheepish tremor. My hands were unable to still except when they were holding my skirts.
The coroner’s office was a bleak thing. The offices were entrapped in a cold brick building, a leaky, miserable place to spend most of your time. I would say it was at least sterile, but I had my doubts about that too.
A cold corridor led to the stairs, which spiraled down to the basement. It was ill lit; every complexion would be washed in the ailing light. I was familiar with the office space enough to know where to go but not enough to remember precisely where Vincent’s office was.
The hallway smelled of the sickly sweet putrescine cadavers. I couldn’t cook any dried offal because of the same off-putting musk. It stuck in your nose for days, and it would take serious scrubbing to make it leave the senses.
One by one, the doors passed. A storage closet, autopsy room, laboratory, then the offices. I peeked into the next room, the embalming room. It was brighter than the hallway, and the smell all the more apparent. The only difference was a tinge of sulfur and bleach.
The next door was an orange wood, the frosted glass dark, and I could almost feel the same dread as when he was alive.
The door creaked as it opened, the cheap wood on new hinges alerting whatever ghosts remained within. It was as musty as any office, maybe just as much dust despite the abandoned nature. Everything was exactly where he’d left it.
The only light came from the hallway, spilling across the dull gray stains on the carpet, the utilitarian furniture, all the way to the worn walls, likely from the sweating brick foundation.
It was painfully ordinary. His desk to the corner, no windows, papers scattered on every surface. The piles of folders never seemed to make their way back to the cabinets, always in vertical stacks. A skyline of evidence, justice to be neglected.
I approached the back of the desk and sat in the dry leather chair.
If I were a forbidden memory, where would I hide?
I picked at the peeling leather arm, scanning over the photographs. To anyone, this was a normal working man’s desk. This could be how he left it; men were allowed to be messy. They were allowed to abandon responsibilities, especially if they were elected. The only hint that he may have intended to come back was the half-full coffee mug, a film of fuzzy mold flourishing on the sour drink.
I brushed through the papers, my posture slouched and focused. Employee checks, crematorium records, police reports.
Within one stack of folders, cases from upstate that had made their way down here. Mysterious ailments of farmers, all escalated and never reviewed, yet their bodies had already been marked ascremated. The log stopped where expected, as there was no one to continue it after him.
I pulled open the first few drawers. Only paper clips, notepads, a crumpled bill or an invoice here and there. Then the last drawer, all the way at the bottom.
Stuck.
Another yank, only to brush my thumb over a keyhole below the knob.
My heart dropped directly to the pit of my stomach, a tingling at the back of my neck prompting a dry swallow.
