When we reach the second-floor landing, Roderick and Christopher are coming out of the room between ours and Hal Raphael’s.
“Anything?” Roderick asks.
I shake my head. “No. Y’all?”
“Nothing.”
“Have y’all checked our room again yet?” I ask.
“Was just about to.”
I place my key card into the reader on the door handle.
Keith says to Christopher, “You been checking the fireplaces?”
When my key card won’t read, I glance back at the others and then try again.
Christopher, who seems out of it, says, “No. Why?”
“I have,” Roderick says. “They’ve all been clear.”
“I meant to make sure they’re locked,” Keith says.
“Locked?” Roderick asks.
“They’re the doors to the secret passageway that runs from the escape room to the back of the house.”
“All of them?” Roderick asks. “I thought—”
“Yeah,” Keith says. “Only two are direct exits from the escape room, but they all access the passageway. The only working fireplace in the house is in the parlor. But they all lock from the inside of the room like connecting doors in hotel rooms.”
“For some reason my key won’t work,” I say, then to Keith. “Will you try yours?”
“That’s strange. Sure.”
He steps up and tries his master key card and it works the first time.
I rush into the room to find it just as we had left it. I run over to the fireplace and turn toward Keith. “How does it work?” I ask. “Will you see if it’s locked?”
He steps over and runs his fingers along the underside of the right end of the wooden mantel. Finding the button, he presses it. Following the pop of a latch from inside, the left side of the fireplace slowly swivels open a few inches with a low creak.
He shakes his head. “It wasn’t locked.”
“We need to search the passageways and the escape room,” I say.
“We’ll start from the escape room and come this way,” Roderick says.
“I can’t do this again,” Christopher is saying.
“You don’t have to,” Keith says. “Let Roderick into the escape room, show him an exit to access the passageways, and then go lie down on the couch in the parlor. I’ll be in to check on you as soon as I can.”
Christopher mumbles something but I am too far into the passageway to make it out.
Tapping on the flashlight on my phone, I scan the narrow, all-black passageway—first in one direction and then the other.
The light from my phone doesn’t have much reach and I wonder what’s in the darkness beyond its illumination.
In another moment Keith joins me, the light of his phone joining mine.
“Are there any lights in here?” I ask.
“No, sorry,” he says. “We could really use some strong flashlights. Want me to go get—”
“I don’t want to wait another second to search back here.”
“I understand,” he says. “Let’s do it.”
“You lead the way,” I say. “Take us through the best, quickest way possible, but make sure we cover every inch.”
“Will do.”