Wish I Were Here

Chapter 14

A t exactly midnight, I’m standing in the lobby wearing a pair of black jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black hoodie over top.

Luca, of course, is not here yet.

He arrives two minutes later, hopping off the elevator that stopped on the eleventh floor right before it went straight to the lobby.

Not that I was watching the numbers light up over the door.

“Hey,” he says with a grin when he sees me standing there with my arms crossed over my chest. “Sorry I’m late.”

At this point, I’m not even annoyed about the time. I’m dying to know what Uncle Vito uncovered about my mother. Of course, Luca wasn’t in the lobby all afternoon when I came looking for him. And he hasn’t been answering my text message inquiries.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I blurt out. “What did Uncle Vito find out?”

Luca looks me over. “Good. You wore black.”

“I assumed that’s what ‘dress like a crow’ was supposed to mean.”

“Yep, you nailed the uniform.”

My gaze shifts from his face, and I realize he’s wearing a version of the same outfit as me—black jeans and T-shirt with a black hoodie. I try to close the door on the thought that I prefer him in the white T-shirt with his tattoos showing, but it slips through before I can stop it.

Luca holds up his first and middle fingers, pointing at his eyes and then flipping them in my direction. “I think we’re going to make a good team on this.”

“A good team on what , Luca? What are we doing here at midnight dressed like gravediggers?”

Luca takes me by the hand, pulls me into his chest, and then spins me out again, just like Mrs. Goodwin during our impromptu dance rehearsal. “We, my darling Catherine, are dressed this way because it’s the best way to dress when you’re about to do a little light breaking and entering.”

I plant my feet firmly on the floor. “What? You’re joking.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Luca.” I make my voice firm. “Tell me what’s going on right now.”

“Fabrizio did some digging.”

“And?”

“And since the only information we have is your birth date, place of birth, and your mom’s name at the time…”

Her name at the time. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that she might have changed it since I was born. Maybe she got married. Maybe she even has kids. Kids who got to grow up knowing her. My heart aches at the idea of it. Of all the scenarios I imagined, my mom having an ordinary life with another family wasn’t one of them.

“So, Uncle Vito and the guys thought the best place to start digging was at the hospitals around here. If they could figure out where you were born, they could access your birth records and maybe find some information that we don’t have. Your mom’s date of birth. Her address at the time. Things we can use to track her down.”

Uncle Vito and the guys really thought this through. I’m grateful they’re on my side. “This all makes sense, but none of it explains why I’m dressed like a crow at midnight.”

“Fab managed to shake down some people at Pittsburgh General and University Hospitals.”

I open my mouth at his use of the phrase shake down , but then I quickly close it. I really don’t want to know.

“Nobody at either of those hospitals could find any record of your birth. So that leaves St. Anne’s. It’s the only hospital left that was delivering babies the year you were born. So that must be it.”

“Okay. And was Fabrizio able to shake—uh, I mean, question someone at St. Anne’s?”

“He was able to confirm what Uncle Vito suspected. The records from thirty years ago are stored in some old file boxes in the basement. They’re in the process of moving to electronic records, but they haven’t converted anything that far back yet.”

It’s all starting to come together for me now. “And we’re going to—” This is crazy.

“Yep. We’re going to break in and find the file.”

Twenty minutes later, I’m standing next to Luca’s Lincoln Town Car and staring at a broad-shouldered white man named Fabrizio. When we arrived in the hospital parking lot, Luca got out and hugged the guy like they’re old friends. Or I guess cousins, in this instance. The Morelli family tree has a lot of branches.

We’re in the very back corner of the lot, standing under a dim fluorescent streetlight that’s flickering on and off. A red sign with the word Emergency glows on the building in the distance.

“Fab, man, thanks for hooking us up,” Luca says, pounding him on the back.

“When Vito told me the favor was for you, of course I agreed to it.”

There are an awful lot of people in this town who are eager to help Luca. I eye his wide grin suspiciously. Maybe all that good-guy friendliness is a cover. Maybe he’s the Mafia boss.

But then Fabrizio says, “Thanks again for your help when my grandma was sick,” and I start to put the pieces together.

Luca waves him off. “It was nothing.” And then, almost like he’s trying to change the subject, he turns to me. “Anyway. This is my friend Catherine. She’s the one whose mother we’re looking for.”

Fab holds out a hand, and I shake it.

“I really appreciate your help,” I say.

“Sorry your mom took off. That’s rough.”

“Thanks.” I press my lips together, strangely moved by these people who are all willing to help me. Thanks to Luca.

“So, what do you have for us?” Luca’s voice cuts into my thoughts.

Fabrizio turns to the car next to us and reaches in the open window, pulling out a bundle of clothes. “This is for you, Catherine.” He shoves a pile of blue fabric into my arms. “And you.” He hands Luca some sort of coveralls.

I unfold the pants and shirt in my hands and find that I’m holding a pair of scrubs. “What is this for?”

“These are your disguises.”

I give the scrubs a shake. “Luca told me to wear black. I imagined us crawling into a broken window or something.”

“Luca watches too many movies. To get into the basement, you’ll need to blend in.” Fabrizio hitches his chin at the clothes in my hand. “Not roll in looking like you’re about to rob the place.”

“Makes sense,” I agree.

“Luca, you are…” Fabrizio pulls a hospital ID badge from his pocket and squints at it. “Janitor Malik Osman.”

Fab holds out the badge, and I catch a glimpse of Janitor Osman as the ID changes hands. He looks to be in his midthirties with brown eyes and wavy hair similar to Luca’s. Though Malik’s skin is slightly darker and his cheekbones more pronounced, Fabrizio has done a pretty good job of finding a match for Luca that won’t draw anyone’s attention.

Fabrizio hands over my badge. “Catherine, you’re Dr. Daphne Dawson.”

I take the badge and flip it over. My mouth drops open. “You’re kidding.”

Dr. Dawson is an older Black woman with short, silver-streaked curly hair. For the record, I’m twenty-nine and have long blond hair and blue eyes. “I’m not going to pass as this woman. She looks nothing like me.”

“It’s the best I could do on such short notice. Here.” He holds out a blue surgical cap that matches the scrubs. “You can wear this on your head. Maybe that will help.”

I look back and forth between Dr. Dawson’s and Janitor Osman’s photos. “Who are these people anyway?”

“They’re former hospital employees. Both left their jobs recently, and human resources collected their ID badges. The protocol at the hospital is that when someone leaves their job, they give their badges to my associate in IT to shut off their security access. My associate generously agreed to leave the badges’ access on for another twenty-four hours.”

I wonder if his associate still has all his limbs. “But if anyone even glances at my badge, they’re going to know immediately that I’m not Dr. Dawson. Do I need this to get through security? Show this to a guard?” I clutch the ID in shaking hands, remembering how I handed my driver’s license over to Bill at the Social Security office. That ID actually had my own picture, and I still almost got arrested. They’ll lock me up and throw away the key if I get caught breaking and entering with Dr. Dawson’s badge. And then I’ll never get my job back.

“Nobody should be checking badges. All of that is done electronically.” Fabrizio gives me a reassuring smile. “The badges just give you access to the parts of the building that aren’t open to the public. Like the hospital basement.”

Okay, that doesn’t sound so bad.

“All you have to do is swipe your badge to ride the elevator down to the basement,” Fabrizio continues. “Once you’re in the basement, you’ll need to locate the file room. There should be a sign. But it will be locked.” He thrusts a small piece of paper into my hand. “Your badges won’t work for the file room. Access is only granted to certain hospital administrators.”

I turn the paper over in my hand. Donnie , it reads. And then a phone number. “Who is Donnie?”

“Donnie is my associate, and that’s his number. He works in IT and can remotely open the file room door once you’re standing outside of it.”

“And then what?”

“Then you go inside and find the file from your birth. It should be in there somewhere.”

My gaze drifts from the badge in my hand to Luca’s face. Can we really pull this off? As if he can read my mind, Luca gives me a nod and a reassuring smile. I guess if we get caught, I can always hope the judge is a Morelli. The odds seem in my favor.

Luca turns to Fabrizio, and they do a hand-slap shoulder-bump handshake. “Thanks again for your help, man.”

“Let me know if you need anything else.”

Fabrizio gets into his car, and with a wave, he drives off. I clutch the scrubs to my chest and look around for somewhere to change. We’re in the farthest row of a dark parking lot with no other vehicles around us. Are there security cameras back here? I guess my only option is to go behind the car and hope for the best.

I turn around to find that Luca doesn’t share my concern with public displays of nudity because he’s kicked off his shoes and pants and is standing in his black T-shirt and a pair of boxer briefs that hug his muscular legs. Mystery solved about whether his tattoos extend beyond his arms. I clear my throat and look away from the blue jay gliding across his thigh. “You didn’t want to go behind the car or something?” I ask, dragging my eyes to his face.

Luca looks down and shrugs. “I wear less than this at the beach.” He takes his time stepping into the janitor coveralls and zipping them up. A name tag on the chest reads Bob . I guess Fabrizio didn’t pilfer Malik’s uniform when he stole the badge.

And then I realize I’m still standing there watching Luca, so I quickly spin around and move behind the car to change into my scrubs. I slide out of my jeans, taking another quick glance around for security cameras. When I’ve pulled on the scrubs and tucked my jeans into Luca’s car, I use the side mirror to twist my hair into a tight bun and arrange the surgical cap over it. If anyone actually catches a glimpse of my ID badge in person, I’m done for. But maybe if I keep my hair covered, they won’t be able to identify me in a lineup later.

And then I wonder if there’s time to grab my to-do list from my bag and add find a good lawyer before we head inside. I’m not this person who impersonates strangers and breaks and enters. I eat all my vegetables and go to bed by ten. If I do this, I really could be arrested and lose my job.

But if I don’t do it, I could lose everything.

“You ready?” Luca asks when I meet him on the other side of the car.

“Not really,” I mumble, shaking a little as I pull the security badge over my head.

“You’ll be great,” Luca says. “Everything will be fine.” He reaches out to squeeze my hand, and a warm glow drifts up my arm and settles in my chest. I squeeze his hand back, grateful for his presence. I am deeply skeptical that everything will be fine, but it’s nice to know I’ll have a companion in the back of the cop car.

I take a shaky breath. “So, what’s the plan now?”

“When we get near the hospital entrance, we’ll split up. I’ll go in the left door, and you go in the right. Just act like you’re an ordinary doctor coming back from your break. We’ll meet up at the elevator and take it down to the basement together.”

“Okay,” I say, slightly breathless.

“Whatever you do, just pretend you belong.”

He says that like I know what it means.

We head across the parking lot and, like Luca laid out for me, we veer off and go our separate ways, entering the hospital through different doors. I hesitate briefly in the lobby, eyeing the security guard at the desk by the entrance, half expecting him to jump up and arrest me right then and there. But his gaze drifts past me as he casually scans the room, so I keep walking and stop at the elevator.

I sense someone approach from my right, and out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of blue coveralls. It’s Luca, coming from his entrance on the other side of the lobby, but I focus on pressing the elevator button, and I don’t meet his eyes. The doors open, and Luca and I step on, still not making eye contact. Instead, I look at the buttons. In addition to floors two through ten, our options are G—the floor where we got on—and B, for basement. The elevator begins to close, and I reach for the B. But just as I’m about to push the button, a hand appears between the doors, and they bounce open again. My shoulders stiffen as a handsome blond man in blue scrubs and a white lab coat steps on.

“Going up or down?” he asks.

I shoot a quick glance at Luca. If I say we’re going down, is he going to wonder why a doctor and a janitor are riding down to the basement together? “Uh, up?” I blurt out, slamming my hand on the button with the number ten.

The guy nods and pushes the number seven. Then he looks at Luca. “You?”

Luca gives him a nod. “Also ten.”

We settle in, facing the doors as they close, Luca on the right, the blond doctor in the middle, and me on the left. There’s a moment of silence as we slowly ascend past floors two and then three. The blond guy looks over at me. “Which department?”

“What?” I look up blankly.

“Which department do you work in?”

I remember Dr. Dawson’s badge around my neck. Thankfully, we’re all facing the front, so he can’t see it. Still, I flip it around and cross my arms over it. “Um. I work in—” My mind whirs. What should I say? What if I name a department, and that’s where he works? “Uhhh.”

I start to panic, and suddenly, I can’t remember the name of any medical department at all. Luca clears his throat as if to nudge me along. I start to sweat.

And then— thank the Lord —the blond doctor slaps a hand on his forehead. “Duh, how dumb of me. You’re going to the tenth floor. You must be in neurology.”

“ Yes! ” I seize on that answer. “I’m in neurology. That’s it exactly. Uh—you?”

He puffs up his chest just a little. “I’m in emergency medicine.”

I remember the blinking red sign near the entrance. “Isn’t emergency on the first floor? Not seven?”

Luca clears his throat again, and I get the message. Stop engaging, Catherine. Too late now.

The doctor looks at me sideways. “I’m headed up to the cafeteria. It’s on seven?” He says it like I should know that.

“Of course. The cafeteria. I forgot. I’m, uh, I’m new here.”

The elevator begins to slow, and the numbers above the door show we’re approaching floor seven.

“I could have guessed that,” the blond doctor says. The doors slide open, and he steps out but turns to look at me. “I’d definitely remember seeing you around.”

Luca gives an awkward cough.

“Oh,” I murmur, pressing a hand over Dr. Dawson’s ID, just in case. “That’s—uh. Thanks?”

The doors start to close, but the doctor shoves his hands between them, and they slide open again. “Since we’re here, do you want to grab a coffee?”

My eyes widen. “Gosh. I’d love to, but sorry. I can’t. Off to perform an emergency brain surgery.” I hold my hands up in an exaggerated shrug. “You know how it is.” And then I remember I’ve left my ID badge exposed and slam my hand back over it.

The doctor nods. “Sure.” He takes a step back, and I breathe out a sigh. But my relief is premature, because then he reaches between the closing doors again. “Maybe tomorrow? Same time?”

With a grunt, Luca reaches out and hits the “close door” button. “I really should be going. Emergency spill on ten.” He holds his hands up in an exaggerated shrug, a mirror of mine a moment ago. “You know how it is.”

“Right. Sorry.” I turn to the doctor. “Sure,” I blurt out to move this along. “See you tomorrow.”

The blond doctor gives me a shiny white grin. “I’ll be looking forward to it.” With a wink, he pulls his hand from the door, letting it slide closed.

I slump back against the wall. “That was close. I almost forgot to hide my badge.”

Luca’s sneakered foot is tapping on the floor, and a muscle twitches in his jaw. “I can’t believe that guy just hit on you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it since Dr. Daphne Dawson is rudely going to be a no-show tomorrow.” I adjust my surgical cap, hoping that no blond strands have slipped out.

“Still, it seems presumptuous of him, don’t you think?” Luca crosses his arms over his coveralls, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was—jealous? But that’s ridiculous, because Luca definitely doesn’t have any reason to be jealous of a guy I met on an elevator when I was in the middle of pulling off a heist.

The elevator rises to the tenth floor, and we stay on it as the doors open and close. Luca hits the B button, waves his ID card to gain access, and we head down to the basement. I begin to worry that someone else might hop on and we’ll end up riding up and down on this thing all night, but I don’t have to worry. It’s close to one in the morning, and we make it to the basement without incident.

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 mean live people. 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 STORAGE the 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 on Here. 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 glimpse of 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.

“Shit, are you okay?” Luca asks, and I feel his warm hand slide down my back through the thin material of my scrub shirt. He presses gently, as if he’s blindly checking me for injuries.

I do my best to flip over but quickly realize my mistake. Because now, in the complete darkness, his hand is sliding up the front of me. It brushes the side of my breast before finding my shoulder and curling around it. I shiver, though my body is quickly heating up.

“Um, I guess so,” I manage. He’s still half sprawled on top of me, his breath warm near my ear, our legs tangled together. I still can’t see a thing, but I’m aware of every hard plane of his body, and okay isn’t exactly the word to describe what I’m feeling.

“Why were you crouching on the floor?” he whispers in my ear, and the stubble on his cheek brushes the side of my face.

“I dropped my phone when you ran into me. Where’s yours?” I reach out a hand as if I’m looking for his phone. But I’m not going to lie; a little part of me just wants an excuse to run my palm down his chest.

His breath hitches, just the tiniest bit. “Uh, I left it in my jeans. In the car.”

“Why did you let the door close before we could turn on a light?”

He shifts above me. “I heard another door open down the hall.”

“From the morgue ?” I shudder. “You said nobody would be in the morgue at one in the morning.”

“Yeah.” Luca breathes out a laugh. “It’s probably a ghost.”

“ Stop it. ” I reach out in the darkness, and this time I give him a shove. “Don’t tell me you believe in ghosts.”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, not me.” I hesitate. “But if I did , I’d definitely expect to find one in a creepy hospital basement in the pitch darkness.”

Luca laughs again, pushing himself to a seated position and pulling me along with him. I expect him to let go, but his hand stays firmly wrapped around my shoulder. “Catherine.” His voice is more subdued now.

“Yeah?” For some reason, it comes out breathless.

“I’m really glad to be here with you.”

Somehow, I know he doesn’t mean he’s glad to sit on a cold tile floor being stalked by ghosts in a creepy hospital basement. He’s glad to be with me , wherever we are. This fills my chest with warmth and makes me feel strangely like crying at the same time.

“I’m really glad to be with you, too,” I whisper, reaching for his hand because I can’t meet his eyes, and I need to show him what I’m feeling. He laces his fingers with mine.

“I guess we should find your phone and face these files,” he says with a sigh.

I reluctantly pull away and feel around on the floor again.

“Found it,” Luca says a minute later. He stands, clicking on the light and setting the phone on top of a box so it bathes the room in a soft blue glow.

I do a slow spin in the center of the room, staring at the contents. “Oh my God.”

“Oh boy,” Luca mutters.

The file boxes that I’d caught a short glimpse of before we were plunged into darkness are piled everywhere , one on top of the other, shoved into every available corner, practically towering overhead. It looks like a hoarder lives here. I step toward one of the piles and check out the label on the side. Da-Dal , the label reads. Okay, so this box must contain files for people whose name begins with D. But there must be ten or fifteen boxes just for the Ds. And there are twenty-five other letters in the alphabet. Next to the Ds sit the Rs. Nothing is in order.

“I was expecting a filing cabinet or something. We’ll be here all night.” I turn to Luca, who is staring at the boxes with the same wide-eyed expression that must be stamped on my face. “I’m sorry, Luca. I can’t ask you to do this. It’s too… disorganized.”

His lips quirk.

“What?”

“You’re okay with breaking and entering, but you draw the line at disorganization?”

“No.” I pause. “Yes.” I do hate disorganization. What do these people have against filing cabinets?

As if he can read my mind, Luca gives a sharp laugh. “You should have brought your label maker.”

“Hey,” I protest. “My label maker is actually very useful.” I check out the boxes again, and then something occurs to me. “Wait. How did you know I have a label maker?”

“I didn’t until right now.” His shoulders shake.

I give him a light shove on his shoulder and turn around to survey the room. It really is a complete mess.

“We can do this,” Luca says, walking over to a pile of boxes and scanning the labels. “We just need to find the Ls, right? For Lipton?” He shoves two boxes to the side and peers at the ones behind it. “How hard could it be?”

An hour later, we finally locate the Ls, but of course they’re in the very back of the room, shoved up against the wall, and with a whole row of other boxes in the way. Luca begins dragging them to the middle of the room, and I move in to help him. My shoulder bumps his, and I feel that same heat zing through me as I did when he took my hand earlier, and when his palm landed on my stomach in the dark.

Luca drags the Le-Ll box to the middle of the room and tosses the lid to the side. I peer in, flipping through the files. Libby… Lily…

And then, there it is. Lipton, Catherine Moonstone.

I pull the file from the box and wave it in the air. “Found it.” I sink down on an F box to take a closer look.

Luca sits next to me on H and peers over my shoulder. “Wait.” Luca reaches for the file. “Your middle name is Moonstone?”

I yank the file away. “Maybe.”

“When were you going to tell me that?”

“Approximately never.”

He makes another grab for the file. “I mean, you know my nickname is Elbow, yet you didn’t feel the need to share that you have the most amazing middle name ever?”

“You already heard my dad call me Kitty Cat. What more do you want to know about me?”

“Everything, Moonstone.” He leans in. “I want to know everything .” There’s something in his voice, a slight edge to it that tells me he’s not joking.

I look away and flip the folder open. The first paper is a document listing basic information about newborn Catherine Moonstone Lipton. My name, obviously. Date of birth, birth weight, and height.

Next are my parents’ names. I scan past them. But then I stop.

Wait.

I go back.

Parents’ names.

My eyes widen. Because my father’s name is listed just as I expected. Andrew John Lipton. But where my mother’s name is supposed to be…

“Oh my God, Luca.”

“What? What is it?” He leans in.

“Look at my mother’s name.”

Luca’s eyes roam across the page and then snap to mine. “Shouldn’t it say…”

“Yes.”

Except it doesn’t.

Luca stares at the page. “Didn’t the copy of your birth certificate say your mother’s name is Michelle Jones?”

I manage a tiny nod. “It did.”

“So, who is Melanie Jankowski?”

“She… she must be my mother.”