Chương 4
"The hotel."
"Yes."
That single word pulled me backward three years.
A security image.
Lucie entering the lobby of Hôtel Charlemagne.
Paul arriving twelve minutes later.
A private investigator telling me they had remained inside for almost two hours.
A photograph of them leaving separately.
My own pulse pounding while I stared at the images in my office.
"That was the proof."
"No."
"It was enough to show you met him secretly."
"Yes."
"At night."
"Yes."
"You lied when I asked where you'd been."
"I lied because Paul told me your company was already being watched internally and that if whoever was moving the money knew I was asking questions, the records would disappear."
I shook my head.
"Convenient."
Lucie flinched.
It was small, but I saw it.
Three years had passed, and I still knew exactly what hurt her.
The fact that I had reached for the same weapon again made me feel suddenly cheap.
She stood.
"I don't need you to believe me tonight."
"Then why tell me?"
"Because Arthur wants you to know."
My father pointed at her.
Then he pressed his hand to his chest.
"She saved you?" I asked.
He shook his head.
He pointed at Lucie again, then at me.
Lucie's face tightened.
"Don't."
Dad ignored her.
He wrote slowly.
T R I E D.
Then another word.
T E L L.
I stared at the page.
"She tried to tell me."
Dad nodded.
Lucie turned away.
"What did Paul tell you at the hotel?"
I asked.
She kept her back to me.
"That someone had been changing supplier account details after invoices were approved."
"Someone inside my company."
"Yes."
"Who?"
"He wouldn't say."
"Why not?"
"Because he was involved too."
That was the first detail that made sense in a way I did not want.
Paul had always been slippery about money.
He negotiated every contract like he was trying to win a private war.
He once spent twenty minutes disputing an eighty-euro warehouse fee on a shipment worth nearly half a million.
I had mistaken that obsession for discipline.
"What did he want from you?"
"He wanted protection."
"From what?"
"From Margaux reporting him."
I looked at Dad.
"How would Margaux even be in a position to report him?"
Lucie hesitated.
"Because she was the one who first brought him into the scheme."
I stood so quickly the chair leg caught my shoe.
"No."
Lucie said nothing.
"Margaux was twenty-five."
"Twenty-six."
"She worked in marketing."
"She had access to vendor onboarding."
"She couldn't authorize payments."
"Not alone."
My mouth went dry.
"Who authorized them?"
Lucie looked at me.
"You."
I stared at her.
"That's not possible."
"You approved hundreds of supplier changes from your phone."
"After finance reviewed them."
"Did you read every attachment?"
The answer was obvious.
I had been opening new showrooms in Grenoble and Annecy at the same time.
My email inbox routinely held more than three hundred unread messages.
Managers sent urgent approvals while I was in cars, airports, restaurants, elevators.
I signed whatever looked familiar.
I trusted my staff to catch problems.
I trusted Margaux more than anyone.
"She couldn't have moved two hundred thousand without finance noticing."
"She didn't move two hundred thousand at once."
Lucie folded her arms against the cold.
"That number came later."
"What does that mean?"
"The money you accused me of stealing was the amount left exposed after Paul panicked and reversed several transactions."
I heard the sentence, but my brain refused to arrange it properly.
"The audit found transfers linked to my credentials."
"Because someone used your login."
"My password wasn't shared."
Lucie looked at me for a long moment.
"Your password was our wedding date followed by an exclamation mark."
I said nothing.
"You used it for years."
"I changed it."
"After the theft."
My father let out a weak sound that might have been a laugh.
I looked at him.
Even half paralyzed, he had apparently retained enough personality to enjoy seeing me confronted with my own stupidity.
"Fine," I muttered.
"Everyone knew my password."
"Half your office knew your password."
"That doesn't prove Margaux used it."
"No."
Lucie reached into the envelope again.
She removed a single folded sheet.
"This might."
I took it.
It was a photocopy of an old bank transfer authorization.
The beneficiary account belonged to a company called Sorelle Conseil.
I recognized the name vaguely from the audit.
One of the accounts had received eighty-six thousand euros before being closed.
At the time, investigators had traced its registered address to a virtual office near Geneva.
Nothing connected it directly to Lucie.
The prosecution had never moved forward because the evidence was too weak.
I had not cared.
I had already convicted her privately.
"What am I looking at?"
"The contact number."
I found it in the lower corner.
A French mobile number.
It took me three seconds.
I still knew Margaux's old number by heart.
The last six digits matched.
"That could be coincidence."
"It could."
Lucie's answer irritated me more than accusation would have.
"Stop agreeing with me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like I'm making your argument for you."
"You usually do."
Dad's shoulders moved again.
Another silent laugh.
"Glad you're enjoying yourself," I told him.
His smile disappeared quickly.
Then he pointed at the document.
I looked back down.
The authorization date was three days before my confrontation with Lucie.
"What happened after the hotel meeting?"
I asked.
"Paul gave me copies of account records."
"Where are they?"
"Gone."
"Of course."
Lucie turned her face toward me.
"Your sister took them."
I exhaled slowly through my nose.
"How?"
"Because I was stupid enough to tell her."
"Why would you tell Margaux if Paul said she was involved?"
"He didn't say her name at first."
Lucie rubbed her forehead.
"He told me someone close to you was involved."
"I assumed he meant someone at work."
"When did you know?"
"The next morning."
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"What happened?"
"Margaux came to our house before you got back from Geneva."
