Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know - Samira Ahmed Page 0,86

kiss Alexandre even when I’m mad at him? And why can’t I stop wanting to text Zaid when I think I’ve already shut that door?

“The heart is a mystery.” It’s too dark to see Alexandre’s expression clearly, but I hear the softness in his voice.

“Don’t you think there’s a funny contradiction in French culture? It’s all about reason and logic except when it comes to love.”

“There is no logic to love. So I don’t see the contradiction,” Alexandre responds flatly, and it’s hard to tell if he’s serious or joking. Could legit be either one.

Now seems like an excellent time to change the subject. “Gautier said there was a hidden panel, right? Or door?” I circle the room with light from my phone, trying to keep it away from the windows. It’s a risk using the lights, and my shaky hands remind me not to press our luck, but we need to get a closer look. The walls are all panels—rows of intricately painted flowers and elegant carvings of cherubs and garlands of ivy and rosettes along the edges where the wall meets the ceiling. It’s faded glory—the frescoes cracked and broken, paint peeling, the gilt borders tarnished, and bits of glass missing from dusty, ornate chandeliers.

“The only door in this room besides the entrance is to that tiny closet we hid in.”

Alexandre chuckles. “Oh, I remember that very well.”

He’s not helping make the situation less awkward. What’s more, he clearly doesn’t want to.

I ignore his leading comment. “Maybe one of these panels is the panel. We need to see if any of them have doorknobs or keyholes.”

We start at the far end of the room. I move in to get a closer look, crouching to examine the length of each panel while Alexandre guides his light over the surface. There are no keyholes anywhere. Gautier didn’t give any more specifics about the hidden door Leila emerged from. But maybe . . . I straighten up. Like so many things in this mystery, sometimes the meaning behind a thing isn’t what it seems at first.

“Hey, what exact word did Gautier use again? To describe the door Leila went into?”

Alexandre scrolls through his phone, a few seconds that feel like forever. “Cachaient. Meaning something is concealing the door.”

Two floor-to-ceiling tapestries hang against the wide wall at the back of the room. “Something like one of those, maybe?”

We grin at each other. I have a sudden urge to pull the tapestries down, but I don’t want to destroy any other French antiques. I step closer to one, examining the worn threadwork and fading forest scene, trying to figure out a way to handle it with care, like all lost things deserve. I decide to slip behind it, giving rise to plumes of dust that make me cough. The thick fabric feels heavy against my back. I run my fingers along the wall, feeling for a door.

I hear Alexandre walking on the other side of the tapestry, then a gasp, and a metallic squeak. The tapestry slides off my back along the wall. I whip around, and Alexandre points to the ceiling—the tapestry is attached to a heavy rod with metal rings like a drape. An easy way to hide a door. I step back. There’s no keyhole anywhere. No doorknob. We begin running our hands over the entire wall, pushing the panels, but nothing gives.

Then my finger catches on the edge of one of the panels. Alexandre shines his light on it. A narrow pocket door. I catch my breath, fit the pads of my fingers in a tiny grooved indentation along the side, and pull.

The panel groans and creaks and slides into the wall—a low, slim door, big enough for one person to squeeze through.

The room behind the pocket door is tiny and spare, furnished only with a narrow bed and thin bare mattress, a nondescript side table, and a small slanted, wooden writing desk tucked up under the only window in the room. It’s almost painfully austere. I can’t say for sure this was Leila’s, but I want it to be so much that I’m willing to believe it is based on one line in an article and my