The Shadow Cabinet by Maureen Johnson

a girl, roughly my height, with a tousled head of curly hair. She had big brown eyes, framed by a large pair of round tortoiseshell glasses. Her face was sporadically freckled and had that rude glow of skin that has never known makeup—a healthy, warm veneer against which a few blemishes stood out proudly. She wore an oversized chunky knit sweater and jeans that were some kind of hybrid of baggy art student and mom jean.
    â€œIt’s all right!” she said, in a plummy, full accent. “Oh, dear, is that smoke? We’ll have you out of there in no time!”
    There was someone behind my mysterious savior, someone I knew well.
    It was Jerome.

ST. MARY’S HOSPITAL, WEST LONDON
10:30 A.M.
    H OSPITAL MORGUES TEND TO BE QUIET PLACES , FOR A number of reasons. For a start, the patients are silent. Also, not many people are allowed into the morgue. Usually it is located in a remote corner of the hospital, tucked away behind security doors, often with deliberately inaccurate signage to prevent distress to patients and families and mislead curious creepers. (This particular morgue had a sign on the hallway door marked “Lower Level Conference Room C.”) It is a steady, dignified place, and patients passing through leave by back entrances in the care of funeral directors or a representative of the coroner’s office.
    On this morning, a plain black Transit van pulled up in the morgue car park in a small nook behind the hospital. A man and a woman in plain black suits got out of the front. A woman in an equally grave gray suit emerged from the back. Her fuchsia lipstick was the only bright note in the whole group. The two from the front went ahead to the service doors and requested entry from the guard, who quickly admitted them all after seeing their credentials. The three walked down the corridor, which was eerily lined with empty gurneys.
    â€œI’ll do the formalities,” the fuchsia-lipped woman said. “Stay here for a moment.”
    She stepped inside the morgue, into a small office space with a desk and a computer. The attendant, named Oren, was eating a snack bar and idly scrolling through a website.
    â€œCan I help you?” he asked.
    â€œI’m Dr. Felicia Marigold,” the woman said. “Someone will have phoned about an hour ago from the Home Office.”
    â€œFrom the Home Office,” Oren repeated, setting down his snack bar and dusting his hands. “Yeah. Stephen Dene, was that it?”
    â€œCorrect.”
    â€œI’ve got the paperwork here,” he said, picking up a clipboard. “Hang on a moment. I’ll go and get Dr. Rivers to sign him out.”
    Dr. Marigold looked at the clock on the wall. She’d been kept in the dark for an entire day. Thorpe was buying time—but for what, she wasn’t sure.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    Inside the examination room, Dr. Rivers, the pathologist, looked at the clipboard.
    â€œDene, Stephen,” she read. “Motor vehicle accident, head trauma, subdural hematoma. Life support terminated. Signed off at nine ten yesterday morning. All right. Get him out. Unit twenty-one.”
    Oren positioned a gurney under a drawer of the cold storage unit and pulled back and twisted the handle, releasing the door. The body inside was wrapped in a blue sheet. He rolled out the shelf while Dr. Rivers read and checked boxes.
    â€œAre you doing a coffee run any time soon?” she asked, flipping casually through the pages. “I’d love a latte.”
    Oren pulled back the sheet to reveal the body. He stopped moving for a moment.
    â€œHey, Doc . . .”
    Oren’s tone caused the doctor to look up. The body of the boy was exposed to midtorso. The doctor saw the problem at once and quickly flipped back through several pages.
    â€œThis can’t be the right one,” she said.
    â€œIt’s Stephen Dene,” Oren said. “I checked the bracelet.”
    â€œThen