I press my ear against the door. I hear nothing.

I open the door slowly, push my head through the small gap I have created.

The room is empty, the bed made, the window ajar so that the lace curtains sway gently in the morning breeze.

I stumble back to my room, grab my phone, ring Iris’s mobile.

This is Iris. Leave a message but not a long one.

I hang up, toss the phone onto my bed, rush out of the room, down the stairs.

Madame and Monsieur Lalouette are at either end of the dining room table—set for five—eating identical bowls of what looks like prunes, in silence.

Monsieur Lalouette looks up. “Ah, you are finally awake,” he says, tapping the face of his watch with one of his meaty fingers.

“Oh. Oui. Je me sentais un peu malade.”

Madame Lalouette’s spoon pauses halfway to her mouth to give her time to shake her head slowly from side to side to demonstrate her... I don’t know. Nothing good anyway. I find that I don’t care.

“Has Iris already eaten?” I ask Monsieur Lalouette in French that seems oddly effortless. Perhaps because I am not dwelling on it. I can’t think about anything right now. Except Iris.

Where is Iris? “No,” he says.

The pair resume their breakfast, lowering their spoons into their bowls in tandem, lifting them to their mouths, which open just wide enough to allow the withered-looking purple fruit to tip inside.

“Have you seen her?” I ask, taking a step nearer the table.

Monsieur Lalouette nods his head, continues eating.

The urge to grab his bowl and pour the contents over his head is enormous. I clench my fists.

“Where is she?” I say.

It is Madame Lalouette’s turn to speak now, apparently.

She examines me over the tops of her glasses.

“Your friend has left,” she says with a sort of caustic accent on the word “friend.”

“Gone?” A rash of goose bumps breaks out across my skin. The couple continue eating.

“What do you mean, gone?” I say.

“I believe my wife’s meaning is perfectly clear,” says Monsieur Lalouette. “Your friend is gone.”

“But is she coming back?” My voice is louder now, and the pain in my head, which had dimmed with the medication, returns in slow, deliberate waves.

Monsieur Lalouette shrugs. “It is not my habit to inquire of my guests as to their intentions.”

“Did she have her case with her? Did she say anything?”

“Yes,” he says. “She had her case. And no, she did not grace us with any conversation.”

“Well, did you see what direction she went in? Was she walking?”

“I believe we have told you everything we know,” he says, setting his spoon on the table beside his bowl. A spool of viscous liquid dribbles from it. He picks up a napkin, dabs at the corners of his mouth.

I try to think through the pain in my head. THINK.

“There’s a taxi, isn’t there?”