What Rose Above

Twelve

Christian aligned his car into the empty space alongside the curbside of the morgue, then switched the gear into park. I followed his hand to the radio as he turned it off. Neither of us made a move to leave though. I watched him—waiting for him to tell me the details of whatever information he'd been withholding from his phone call. Maybe then, I'd have some sort of logical explanation as to what the hell we were doing outside the morgue and not my house.

But it didn't seem like he was going to break first. So, I caved.

"Why are we here?" I chose the straight-forward tactic.

Christian removed his hands from the steering wheel, twisting in his seat. "I got a phone call from Logan." Wow, spare me the details.

I bit down on my tongue to refrain from speaking my thoughts. "And?"

"Remember when I asked him to run a background check on the group home?" Sure, I remembered. It was just before we left his apartment this morning. He phoned Logan to fill him in on what's been going on. Of course, the group home came up too. "He's having a hard time locating all the group home residents that were living there after 1999."

So," I tapped my chin, humming, "anyone living there between the years 2000 and 2001?"

"That's what I'm assuming," Christian nodded, adding, "He told me that the records from those years can't be found. Or so, that's how it seems."

"What? How?" I unbuckled my seatbelt, my face scrunching in disbelief.

Christian's face contorted as if he was thinking faster than his brain could physically handle. He rested one of his elbows on the steering wheel and propped his chin on top of his knuckles. I felt the silence washing over us in waves. "Well, there are two options here. We could assume those records were either lost . . . or they were destroyed after the group home's closing."

"Could either of those options have been accidental?"

His chuckle was light and airy. "You're asking me?"

"Right." I sighed.

"Now, about the morgue"—he too unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door handle—"I need to see Tanya." Tanya? My body was quick to react; an eager spine straightening as I tried my best to dwindle my excitement down. To no avail, of course.

"Why? Did she find something?"

"A connection."

"A connection?" I frowned.

"Possibly." Christian's response was vague.

I blinked, my mind caught in a buffer as I tried to decode his ominous words. Meanwhile, Christian exited the car without so much as an explanation. He walked up to the passenger door, then gave the window two soft knocks.

"You coming?" I could hear him through the glass.

Still feeling eager, I fumbled with the door handle, nearly throwing myself out of the car when it finally budged, and followed him into the morgue. My knees were almost touching the back of his legs. That's the amount of distance I maintained between us. I probably looked like a lost puppy with its tail caught between its legs. But it wasn't on purpose. It was this building.

This was officially my second time in the morgue. While it wasn't as paranoid inducing as it felt the first time, it surely served the same impact. In giving me the heeby-jeebies, that was. Damn, I totally did not miss the errieness of this dreadful place.

When we reached the room Tanya was in, Christian stopped short. His head whipped around, his eyes finding mine. "Stay right here and just . . . do whatever you do, I guess."