“How can I help you?” the morgue director asks in French, peering at me from above square-rimmed spectacles. A blazer hangs on a coat hook in the corner, and his white button-up shirt is fastened to the neck. He regards me clinically.

“My name is Shayna Darby. Can we speak in English? My French isn’t great.”

Slate-gray eyes widen. He stands. “Ah, yes. I have waiting you since weeks. Inspector Valentin apprised me . . . expect you. My condolences. Angela, correct?”

I nod, choosing to ignore the lack of conjunctions and prepositions and instead feel grateful he’s willing to speak on my terms. He grabs a set of keys from the wall.

“My name is Julien Park. We see her now.”

A slick, bitter taste fills my mouth as I follow him down the narrow, dimly lit hallway. Fear courses through my body at finally being here, living out my nightmares of the last three weeks. I focus on the pleats in Park’s trousers to stay calm. The width of the hall forces us to walk single file, with Park’s head inches from scraping the paneled ceiling as he barrels forward. The bounce to his gait seems better suited to a jaunt at Six Flags than an institution of death. We pass through double doors to a bright hospital wing, where the space opens and I can breathe easier. Refrigerated air gusts from vents on either side—refreshing against the nausea gripping my stomach.

He halts at a door marked CONSERVATION. I search for the nearest exit in case the unthinkable—my sister’s body—is in fact inside this room, and find the hallway extends another fifty feet, then forks into a right and left turn. The only sure way out appears to be the way we came.

Park uses a key to open the door. Metal drawers line each wall of the room in floor-to-ceiling squares. Each bears a label identifying its contents, except for one. The air smells sickly sweet, perfumed and covering odors, masking decay. I cross to where Park waits beside the unmarked stainless steel box. He raises his chin a fraction.

“Your sister passed a week underwater. She changed. This, not your sister.” The full gaze he fixes me with seems defiant, challenging. Choosing to believe the director means Angela has changed state, from my sister to a putrid, soggy remnant of a person, is the only option I have. If he meant otherwise, that this is literally not my sister, could that mean . . . ? What could that mean?

A burst of vanilla-scented air claps me in the face, and I dissolve into abrupt coughing. The director remains grim. “Believe me, this smell is not worst you encounter today.”