Chương 11
“We are trying to locate Monsieur Vallon.”
“Is he missing too?”
“No.”
“Then where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
I stared at her.
She added, “His registered residence is empty.”
“Empty how?”
“Unoccupied.”
“Since when?”
“Neighbors say several weeks.”
Chloé came back into the kitchen.
“Maxime saw him last summer.”
Morel turned.
“How do you know?”
Chloé repeated the story about the phone call in Provence.
Morel took notes without reacting.
“And you never met this Vallon?”
“No.”
“Never saw a photograph?”
“No.”
“Never heard his surname?”
“No.”
“Only Rico.”
“Yes.”
Morel looked at me.
“Did your husband maintain contact with Vallon?”
“I thought they had drifted apart.”
“When?”
“Years before Henri died.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did they argue?”
“Henri never said.”
“Could they have had business together?”
“Apparently.”
My bitterness crept into the answer.
Morel noticed.
She said nothing.
The officers left with my phone.
Claire locked the door behind them.
Chloé remained standing in the hallway.
“What happens to Maxime now?”
Claire answered carefully.
“He may be released after questioning unless investigators establish grounds to hold him.”
Chloé’s face tightened.
“So he could come home.”
“Yes.”
“To our apartment.”
“Yes.”
She hugged herself.
“I don’t want him there.”
“Then don’t go back tonight.”
“I mean ever.”
No one answered.
The statement seemed to surprise her as much as us.
She sat on the bottom stair leading to the upper rooms and covered her face.
I had disliked her for twelve years.
She had mocked people’s clothes after dinners.
She had returned gifts without thanking me.
She once complained that my guesthouse in Provence smelled old while drinking wine from a cellar older than her grandparents.
But sitting on my staircase in my robe, she looked like a woman whose marriage had disappeared in a single evening.
I went to the closet and took out a blanket.
When I draped it around her shoulders, she looked up.
“Why are you being nice to me?”
“I’m not.”
“You just brought me a blanket.”
“You were cold.”
“That qualifies.”
“I have low standards tonight.”
She laughed once through her nose.
Then her face crumpled again.
“I was awful to you.”
“Yes.”
“Especially tonight.”
“Yes.”
“I thought Max was joking.”
“He was.”
“That makes it worse.”
“Yes.”
She wiped her cheeks.
“I don’t know why I went along with it.”
“You do.”
She looked at me.
“You wanted him pleased with you.”
Her eyes dropped.
That answer reached her.
I knew because it had once described me too.
Different man.
Different marriage.
Same cowardice.
I sat beside her on the stair.
“He could make a room feel very cold when he was angry,” she said.
“Henri?”
She glanced at me.
“No.”
“Maxime.”
“Oh.”
I looked toward the dark living room.
“His father was like that sometimes.”
“Max said Henri never got angry.”
“Maxime remembers what suits him.”
“So do I.”
We sat in silence.
Claire gave us three minutes before interrupting.
“Marianne.”
I looked up.
She was staring at her tablet.
“What now?”
“I found something in the old Belmont archives.”
I stood.
She turned the screen toward me.
It was an internal reimbursement report from September 2019.
Henri Belmont had personally authorized payment for three nights at Clinique Saint-Rémy.
The patient name had been coded for confidentiality.
But the internal cost center was one I recognized immediately.
Executive family.
Chloé came closer.
“Who could that have been?”
“Henri.”
“Was he sick?”
“No.”
“You?”
“No.”
“Maxime?”
I stared at the date.
September 14 through September 17.
“He told me he stayed at the property after the accident.”
Claire scrolled.
“There’s more.”
A second reimbursement appeared.
Private neurological consultation.
Emergency imaging.
Three days of observation.
The coded patient identifier matched across all documents.
Chloé whispered, “Maxime was the patient.”
My mouth went dry.
“He wasn’t injured.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw him the next morning.”
“You saw him?”
“At home.”
“When?”
I stopped.
The memory shifted.
Not morning.
Late afternoon.
Henri had told me Maxime was sleeping at the property.
Then Maxime appeared at our house around five.
He had looked terrible.
Pale.
Slow.
I had assumed hangover.
I had not asked enough.
“Not until later,” I said.
Claire read another line.
“Reason for admission is abbreviated.”
“What does it say?”
“Acute neurological symptoms following possible loss of consciousness.”
Chloé stared at me.
“From the crash?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire scrolled farther.
Then she froze.
“What?”
“There’s a physician name.”
“Who?”
She turned the screen.
Dr. Antoine Mercier.
I knew that name.
Not from Maxime.
Not from Belmont.
From Henri.
He had attended Mercier’s funeral two years before his own death.
He had told me Mercier was an old friend.
Nothing more.
Claire searched the archived attachments.
“There’s a discharge note.”
“Open it.”
“It’s partially redacted.”
“Read what isn’t.”
She did.
“Patient demonstrates confusion regarding sequence of events preceding admission.”
My throat tightened.
“Keep going.”
“Reports severe headache, transient memory loss, and inability to account for approximately forty minutes.”
Chloé whispered, “Forty minutes.”
Claire looked at me.
“The accident timeline.”
I stood completely still.
For seven years, I had believed Maxime remembered hitting Luc and had paid another man to take the blame.
But the hospital record suggested something stranger.
Maxime might not have remembered the accident at all.
Claire continued reading.
“Family representative requests no police notification pending clarification of circumstances.”
“Family representative?”
“Yes.”
“Henri?”
“The signature is initials only.”
“H.B.?”
Claire looked up.
“No.”
“H.V.”
Henri Vallon.
The room went cold around me.
Chloé spoke first.
“If Maxime didn’t remember what happened, then how did Vallon know what needed covering up?”
I looked at the photograph again in my mind.
Henri.
Maxime.
Room 312.
The morning after the collision.
And suddenly the secret was no longer simply what my son had done.
It was what someone had convinced him he had done while he could not remember doing it.
Claire lowered the tablet.
May you like
“For seven years, we’ve been asking the wrong question.”
Chloé wrapped the blanket tighter around herself.
