Chương 11
First Lucie.
Then Dad.
Possibly now her.
I picked up my coat.
"Where are you going?"
"Back to the office."
Lucie's expression tightened.
"You said no confrontation."
"I'm not confronting her."
"Then what?"
"I want every invoice she ever sent me."
Lucie looked at my father.
Then back at me.
"And if they are all fake?"
I put the phone in my pocket.
"Then this stopped being a family argument a long time ago."
By three that afternoon, Claire had built a folder large enough to make me ashamed of how little I had questioned.
There were thirty-two invoices that Margaux had forwarded over six months.
Twenty-nine came from the same template.
Three used slightly different formatting but carried identical bank details.
None matched the account number listed on the actual residence website.
Claire sat across from me with a calculator she did not need.
"She wasn't improvising."
"No."
"She prepared these in advance."
"Yes."
Claire looked at the dates again.
"The first fake invoice was created eight days before your father's stroke."
I stopped.
"Are you sure?"
She turned the screen toward me.
The embedded creation data showed the date clearly.
Eight days before Arthur collapsed.
"Why would she prepare care invoices before he needed residential care?"
Claire folded her arms.
"Because she expected him to need it."
The sentence sat between us.
I rejected it immediately.
"No."
"You asked."
"I asked what the timeline suggested."
"And I answered."
"Suggesting Margaux knew Dad would have a stroke is insane."
"I didn't say she knew he would have a stroke."
Claire leaned forward.
"I said she expected a reason to ask you for money related to his care."
That was different.
It was also worse in a quieter way.
"What happened eight days before the stroke?"
"I don't know."
"We need to."
Claire nodded.
"I already started pulling company emails and calendar entries."
My phone rang.
Lucie.
I answered before the second ring.
"What happened?"
"Arthur's doctor called."
Her voice was controlled, but I could hear movement behind her.
"What did he say?"
"They had a cancellation tonight for imaging."
"Imaging?"
"The neurologist wants a new scan before tomorrow's swallow assessment."
"Why?"
"Because Arthur told him something about the night of the stroke."
My chair scraped the floor.
"What?"
"He said his symptoms started after he fell."
I stood.
"What fall?"
"I don't know yet."
"Is he okay?"
"He's stable."
"Where are you?"
"At the clinic."
"I'm coming."
"Alexandre."
"What?"
"Drive like a normal person."
I grabbed my coat.
Claire raised one eyebrow.
"Family emergency?"
"Possibly."
"That phrase is doing a lot of work lately."
She pointed at the folder.
The clinic was across town.
Traffic made the trip feel punitive.
At every red light, I replayed Arthur's hesitation when I asked whether Margaux had hit him.
By the time I reached the neurological unit, I had already convicted her twice in my head.
That frightened me.
I forced myself to remember the hotel photographs.
The accusation.
Lucie's suitcase on wet pavement.
The fact that certainty had once destroyed the wrong person.
I parked badly and walked inside.
Lucie was sitting beside a vending machine with a paper cup of coffee between her hands.
She had changed into cleaner clothes, but the same worn boots were on her feet.
"Where is he?"
"Imaging."
"What happened?"
She looked at me.
"Sit down."
"I'd rather stand."
"Of course you would."
I sat.
She took a sip of coffee and made a face.
"This is terrible."
"Why are you drinking it?"
"Because it is warm."
We sat for several seconds without speaking.
A man in scrubs pushed an empty wheelchair past us.
Somewhere behind a closed door, a child was laughing too loudly for a hospital corridor.
"What did Dad tell the doctor?"
Lucie rubbed the rim of the cup with her thumb.
"Not much."
"Lucie."
"I'm telling you what I know."
She looked tired enough that my impatience embarrassed me.
"He managed to indicate that he fell during the argument with Margaux."
"Did she push him?"
"He couldn't make that clear."
"Did he hit his head?"
"Possibly."
"Would that cause a stroke?"
"I don't know."
"Did the doctor say?"
"He said there are different possibilities."
That answer annoyed me because it was responsible.
"What kind?"
"Trauma could matter."
She shrugged.
"Or the stroke may have started first and caused the fall."
"So we still don't know."
"No."
I stared at the floor.
A dark scuff mark ran beneath my shoe.
"What do you think?"
Lucie did not answer immediately.
"I think Arthur has been trying to tell us he was afraid that night."
"Of Margaux?"
"Maybe."
"That doesn't sound like him."
"No."
"He's never been afraid of her."
"People become afraid when someone changes."
I looked at Lucie.
"Did she change?"
"You knew her better than I did."
"Apparently not."
She took another bad sip of coffee.
"Margaux always needed to be the person nobody worried about."
"What does that mean?"
"She liked being underestimated."
I frowned.
"That's not how I saw her."
"I know."
"How did you see her?"
Lucie considered the question.
"Smart."
"She is."
"Funny when she wasn't trying too hard."
"Also true."
"Jealous."
I looked at her.
"Of you?"
"Sometimes."
"Why?"
Lucie smiled faintly.
"Because you gave me things she thought belonged to her."
"Such as?"
"Your attention."
I almost dismissed it.
Then I remembered birthdays.
Trips.
The opening of my second showroom.
Margaux had complained that I brought Lucie into business decisions.
Lucie had complained that Margaux treated our office like a family extension.
At the time, I believed both women were being petty.
Maybe they had been.
Maybe that pettiness had mattered.
"She adored you," Lucie said.
"That doesn't fit."
"It fits perfectly."
"How?"
"Adoration and resentment are not opposites."
I looked toward the imaging doors.
"Did you resent me?"
Lucie gave me a sharp look.
"Now?"
"Before."
She stared at her coffee.
"Sometimes."
The answer landed softly.
May you like
"For what?"
"For being able to walk into a room and assume it would make space for you."
