“Good hiding spot because I’d never have thought a wall full of breakable bottles would give way.”
“Me neither.”
They pushed and prodded every inch of the trim, shelving, and the lip at the front of the shelves that kept the bottles secure.
“Surely,” she said, “there must be someone on the internet who’s posted videos about how to enter secret rooms like yours.”
He pulled his phone from the pocket of his basketball shorts. Sure enough, several YouTube videos populated in response to his search. Most had been created by people trying to master “Escape the Room” challenges.
They watched three videos in a row before implementing the suggested techniques.
No success.
They watched another video. Tried the technique. No.
“How come mysteries never take this long for Nancy Drew to solve?” Remy wondered.
“Who’s Nancy Drew?”
“A girl detective in a series of novels.”
“Wish Nancy was here now.”
Next, they watched a video that had just 127 views. In it, a man suggested they hunt for an item that was permanently affixed. That, he said, would be a lever.
One by one, they tested the bottles. They seemed too fragile to function as a lever. The items used as levers in the video—a book, a small statue—had been more substantial—
“Jeremiah,” Remy said.
“Did you find it?”
“Look. This one can’t be removed.” She’d wrapped her hand around a matte black bottle of Scotch whiskey positioned near the height of her shoulder. She stepped aside to let him try.
He couldn’t lift it upward, either. But when he tipped it to one side, it leaned smoothly. With ashlick, the entire wall of bottles swung on a central hinge. One side of the wall turned in, the other side turned out. Behind lay a short passageway that ended in an old-fashioned wooden door.
He glanced at Remy. Her hands lifted to cover her mouth.
“Would Nancy Drew be proud?” he asked.
Slowly, she dropped her hands. “Yeah. She would.”
They walked into the hallway. He tried the door.
Locked. “Maybe 1.0 was very protective of his green beans,” he said.
She visibly deflated.
The historic door was clearly original to the house. So was the keyhole below the knob. As he hunched over to look into the keyhole, realization tripped in his brain. He reversed out of the space and went to the mudroom next to the garage, Remy hot on his heels.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“My plane of thought is so high that you wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain.” During their searching of the past several days, Remy had looked through the cubbies in the mudroom and he’d looked through the storage bench and also the contraption mounted to the wall. The contraption had a mirror, a rectangular drawer, and a row of hooks where jackets, sweatshirts, and umbrellas hung.
He opened the drawer. “This is where 1.0 kept his keys.” A key ring for his house keys that snapped open and closed. One key for each car that he could add to the main ring depending on which car he took. Plus a few miscellaneous keys. Jeremiah picked up the old-fashioned metal key he’d remembered and grinned at Remy.
“Locating a key in a key drawer? That’s the extent of your high-plane thinking?” She shook her head but was doing a bad job of hiding her pleasure.
It would take her down a few notches to learn that the secret roomdidcontain green beans. But he couldn’t make himself hope for that. He wanted her theory to lead them to his notes about Alexis. For both their sakes.
