Chương 3
He already knew.
My phone rang.
Margaux's name filled the screen.
Lucie saw it.
Neither of us spoke.
I answered.
"Alex?"
My sister sounded cheerful.
"You'll never guess who I just ran into."
I looked at my father on the camp bed.
"Try me."
"Dr. Beaumont, from Dad's residence."
She laughed.
"He says Dad has been impossible in physiotherapy again."
My father's fingers tightened around the blanket.
I watched Lucie's face lose what little color remained.
Margaux continued talking.
"I was actually going to call you about the monthly payment."
"Why?"
"They've increased the rehabilitation fees."
"How much?"
"Another twelve hundred."
I closed my eyes.
"Of course they have."
"So you'll transfer it?"
Across the room, Lucie slowly shook her head.
"Alex?"
"Yes."
The word tasted rotten.
Margaux exhaled with relief.
"You're a lifesaver."
Then she added, almost casually, "Dad asks about you all the time."
I looked directly into my father's frightened eyes.
"I bet he does."
I ended the call before my sister could hear anything in my voice.
For several seconds, the only sound in the room was the cheap heater clicking against the damp wall.
Lucie stood beside the table with both hands pressed flat against its warped surface.
My father stared at the phone as if Margaux might somehow still be inside it.
"She knew exactly what to say," I said.
Lucie gave me a tired look.
"She has had practice."
I wanted to reject that immediately.
I wanted to tell her Margaux was careless, spoiled, dramatic, irresponsible with money, and occasionally capable of lying when she felt cornered, but not this.
Not six months of fabricated invoices.
Not abandoned medical care.
Not stealing from our father.
Not whatever connection existed between her and the missing two hundred thousand euros.
My father began scratching the pen across his notebook again.
His hand trembled so badly that the first attempt became a black knot of ink.
Lucie steadied the paper without touching his hand.
He wrote three letters.
P A U.
I frowned.
"Paul?"
He nodded once.
The name meant nothing to me.
Lucie looked away.
That was enough.
"You know who that is."
"Yes."
"Who?"
"Someone you should have asked about three years ago."
My patience snapped.
"Can we stop doing this?"
"Doing what?"
"Speaking in riddles."
Lucie straightened.
"You don't get to be impatient with the truth because it arrived later than you wanted."
I stepped closer to her.
"I am standing in a freezing room with my disabled father after discovering my sister has been lying to me for half a year."
"And I have been standing in this freezing room for five months."
Her voice never rose.
That made it worse.
"So yes, Alexandre, you can wait ten more seconds."
My father made a soft, unhappy sound between us.
Lucie looked at him and immediately lowered her shoulders.
"Sorry, Arthur."
He tapped the notebook.
P A U L.
Then he drew a crooked line beneath it.
"Paul who?" I asked.
Dad struggled to shape the next word.
Lucie answered instead.
"Paul Mercier."
The room seemed to narrow.
Mercier was not just one of my suppliers.
He had once been my largest supplier.
Three years earlier, he handled almost forty percent of the imported stone, hardwood, and custom metalwork used across my showrooms.
He was also the man I had accused Lucie of sleeping with.
The man whose name had detonated our marriage.
"What does Paul have to do with Dad?"
Lucie laughed once without humor.
"You really never checked anything after the divorce, did you?"
"I checked enough."
"No, you believed enough."
My father slapped the mattress with his palm.
We both stopped.
His breathing had quickened again.
Lucie crouched beside him.
"Not now."
He shook his head fiercely.
"Arthur, you're tired."
He pointed at me.
Then at the notebook.
Then at himself.
"All right," she said.
She pulled the folding chair closer and sat.
I remained standing.
Lucie looked at me.
"Paul contacted your father about four months before the stroke."
"Why?"
"Because he was scared."
"Of me?"
"No."
She glanced at Dad.
"Of Margaux."
The absurdity of it almost made me smile.
"Paul Mercier was afraid of my sister?"
"He was afraid of what she knew."
I crossed my arms.
"And what exactly did she know?"
"That he had been falsifying purchase orders with someone inside your company."
The words landed quietly.
No thunder.
No dramatic interruption.
Just a heater clicking and rainwater dripping somewhere near the door.
I stared at her.
"You're saying Paul stole from me."
"I am saying money was being siphoned through false invoices, inflated freight charges, duplicate orders, and supplier rebates that never reached your company."
"And you knew this?"
"I found part of it."
"When?"
"Before you accused me."
I felt heat crawl up the back of my neck.
Lucie continued before I could speak.
"I noticed repeated payments to a logistics contractor I didn't recognize."
"You weren't in accounting."
"I did procurement reconciliation every quarter."
"Not personally."
"I did that quarter because Claire was on maternity leave."
Claire had been our senior purchasing analyst.
I had forgotten that.
Lucie had not.
"I asked Paul about three duplicate invoice numbers," she said.
"He told me it was a software error."
"And you believed him?"
"No."
She looked directly at me.
"That was my mistake."
My father scratched another word.
M A R G.
I crouched so I could see him better.
"Margaux was involved then?"
He nodded.
"How?"
His hand stopped moving.
The muscles in his jaw worked.
Nothing came.
Lucie reached for a bottle of water and held it while he drank through a straw.
I noticed the bottle was half full and labeled with a black marker.
Arthur, 6 p.m.
There were six more beneath the table.
Someone had been tracking his fluids.
I hated that I noticed it.
I hated even more that I understood what it meant.
May you like
"Paul called me the night before everything blew up," Lucie said.
"He wanted to meet."
