Chapter 6: Stalled

It was midnight before the police let us go, and the great hall was still full of reporters.

"There's a staff elevator at the back," Quincy said. "It goes straight to the loading dock."

I looked at the inspection certificate inside the elevator door.

It had expired in March.

"Don't get in that," I said.

"Why?"

"The inspection is eleven months overdue."

"It's a museum elevator, Tilda. They have a whale."

"They have a whale and no current inspection."

Quincy pressed the button anyway, because he had been told no only twice in his life and both times by me.

The doors opened. We stepped in. The doors closed.

The car dropped one inch and stopped.

I put my hand on the wall.

"I said don't."

"You said it like it was a hobby."

The lights went dim and a single yellow bulb stayed on over our heads.

I started the inspection I would have done in my old life.

The alarm button: pressed it. Nothing.

My phone: no bars.

Emergency light: working, which was kind of them.

Capacity plate: twelve persons.

"There are two of us," I told him. "It's rated for twelve."

"Are you going to put a sticker on it?"

"Obviously."

I peeled one off the roll and put it over the dead alarm button.

HAZARD, in black capitals, in a stalled elevator, at midnight.

Quincy took out his phone and held it up to the ceiling, hoping for a bar.

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