Pulled. The door creaked loudly, protesting. Beyond the opening was a long, dark, dank staircase. Leading to a basement, most likely. It was probably nothing more sinister than Philippe’s cave—pronounced khawv. She had learned during her teenage sojourn in Paris: Anyone with enough space, even the humblest Parisian, kept his or her own wine cellar. Dave used to have a small one in a cool interior closet; someone (probably Catharine) had already cleared it out, replacing the old bottles with new cleaning supplies. But whatever this was, it had been long abandoned. Genevieve would bet that the door hadn’t been opened in many years. In her uncle’s bag was a heavy-duty head-mounted flashlight. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and pulled the device over her skull, adjusting it to a smaller size. Genevieve felt silly, like a kid dressing up as a miner for Halloween, but this way she could carry the locksmith bag in one hand and keep the other free to hold on to handrails or grapple with the stone walls . . .
