Page 68 of Shadowing You

One of the women looked younger than Mei Lin, the other at least a decade older. They both wore nurse’s scrubs.

Mei Lin let her eyes go wide. “Aiyo. I’m so sorry.” She spoke Mandarin, allowing herself to sound both surprised and apologetic. “I had a delivery and my stomach was not good.” She pressed her hand to it as if it still hurt. “A woman—she had gray hair in a bun.” She was describing Nurse Wen, hoping she was still in charge. “She said I could use this bathroom. I didn’t mean… I am sorry.”

The older one watched her a beat too long. “Wen sent you down here?”

“I don’t know her name. My stomach was rumbling.” She dipped her head, going for embarrassed. “I must go now.” Mei Lin pulled a package from her bag. “I’ll leave this here, yes? I’m late.” She dropped the package on another table and headed for the door. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” She stepped outside and into the hallway.

She rushed away, not looking back.

“Hurry,” Michael said in her ear. “That took too long.”

She bit back her reply. At least she’d kept them from calling security.

The sharp, chemical stench of pathology reached her as she neared it. She listened at the door, praying nobody would see her. No noises came from inside, but that was no guarantee the little room between where the doctors worked and the storage area would be empty.

She tapped the badge against the reader. The light turned green, and the door clicked.

She pushed inside.

Through the window on her right, she saw workers bent over desks or focused on screens. Nobody glanced her way.

Thank You.

She slipped into the storage room on her left and pulled the door shut behind her.

The cold hit. It was freezing in here, as it always had been, cold enough that her breath fogged. Aside from the cold, everything looked different. There were now shelves down the middle, not just along the edges, two new banks of racks with narrow aisles between. The original wall units were still there, but when she hurried to where she’d left the evidence, the first jar she picked up was labeled 2022.

“You got it?” Michael asked.

“They reorganized.” She kept her voice low, moving quickly and reading labels, searching for the year she needed.

“We’re running out of time.”

“Thanks,” she said. “That’s helpful.”

“Sorry.” A pause. “Ethan’s doing great. He’s complaining to some guy in a white coat, but people are moving away. It seems the show is over.”

She’d scanned the shelves on one bank, then moved to the next. 2019. 2018.

Finally, she found where the 2014 samples had been stored. She waded through shelf after shelf, pulling jars out, reading labels, and pushing them aside. And then…

There it was, an amber jar labeled with her handwriting, including the patient’s name and the words Infected Tissue: 2014

She unscrewed the lid. Inside, suspended in water meant to look like preserving chemicals, was the small waterproof pouch she’d left six years and another lifetime ago. Her fingers were practically frozen, but she pulled out the dripping pouch. “Got it.”

“Get out of there.”

She returned the jar to the shelf, zipped the pouch into a pocket on her uniform pants, and slipped out of the storage room, then out of pathology and into the hall without being seen.

Now, she just had to get to the stairs.

Someone was coming her way. She was nearly past when she heard a slight gasp.

“Mei Lin?”

It was Ying.

What should she do?