Chương 5
“I thought you were sick,” she said to me.
I swallowed.
“So did I.”
That was the part I had never told Claire.
For nearly three weeks, I had secretly scheduled medical evaluations because Maxime’s comments had done what fraud alone could not.
They had made me distrust myself.
The neurologist had found no cognitive disorder.
The relief had lasted until I understood why I had needed the examination in the first place.
I looked at my son.
He would not meet my eyes.
The officer spoke quietly to Claire.
She nodded.
Then she turned to me.
“Marianne, they need Maxime to accompany them for questioning regarding the financial complaint.”
Maxime looked up.
“Mom.”
There it was again.
One word.
The oldest lever he possessed.
For most of my life, it had worked.
I felt the familiar instinct rise inside me, immediate and humiliating in its strength.
Protect him.
Delay this.
Call someone.
Make the room less frightening.
Then I looked at the extinguished candle in the dog bowl.
“No,” I said.
He frowned.
“I didn’t ask anything.”
“You were about to.”
The officer asked him to stand.
Maxime obeyed slowly.
As he passed me, he stopped close enough that I could smell the wine on his breath.
“You’re going to regret this.”
I looked at him.
“I already regret what I did seven years ago.”
He searched my face for something.
Mercy, perhaps.
Or weakness.
I could not tell anymore.
Then the officers walked him out through the double doors.
Chloé stayed behind.
For several seconds, none of us spoke.
Finally, Élodie stood, gathered her coat, and whispered that she was sorry before hurrying away.
The room became enormous.
Chloé stared at the place where Maxime had been sitting.
Claire closed the folder.
“Do you want to leave?”
“Yes.”
Chloé looked at me suddenly.
“Marianne.”
I paused.
Her phone still lay on the table.
The recording had ended.
Her mascara had smudged under one eye.
“There’s something else,” she said.
Claire went still.
Chloé glanced toward the open doors, making sure Maxime was gone.
“He kept a second phone.”
I felt the cold start in my hands.
“What was on it?”
“I don’t know everything.”
She swallowed.
“But two weeks ago, I heard him talking to someone about Luc Garnier.”
Claire stepped closer.
“What did he say?”
Chloé’s fingers curled around the back of her chair.
“He said the old man should have taken the money the first time.”
I looked at her.
“Luc refused money?”
“That’s what it sounded like.”
She shook her head.
“And then Maxime said something else.”
Outside the room, a waiter rolled a cart past the doors as if this were still an ordinary restaurant on an ordinary night.
Chloé’s voice dropped.
“He said if Luc started talking now, they would have to finish what they failed to finish seven years ago.”
Claire’s face changed before mine did.
“Did he name anyone?”
“No.”
Chloé looked toward the doorway again.
“He said ‘they,’ but I couldn’t hear the other person.”
“Where were you?”
“In our apartment.”
“Where was Maxime?”
“On the balcony.”
Claire pulled out her phone.
“Was the second phone there afterward?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ever see it?”
“Once.”
“What kind?”
“Black case, older model, smaller than his normal one.”
Chloé rubbed her thumb against the side of her index finger, and the resemblance to Maxime’s nervous habit unsettled me.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
She gave me a tired look.
“Because until twenty minutes ago, I thought my husband was hiding money from his mother.”
That answer was so painfully ordinary that I believed it.
Claire called one of the officers before they reached the lobby.
She spoke quietly, using none of the dramatic language the moment seemed to demand.
Second device.
Possible threat.
Potential witness.
Urgent preservation request.
The vocabulary of serious trouble was disappointingly administrative.
I sat back down.
My knees had begun to ache.
At seventy, even catastrophe eventually has to negotiate with the body.
Chloé watched me.
“Do you need water?”
I almost laughed.
“You filmed me eating from a dog bowl twenty minutes ago.”
“I know.”
“And now you’re worried I’m thirsty?”
Her mouth tightened.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“That makes two of us.”
Claire finished the call.
“They’ll search him according to procedure and determine whether there are grounds to seize any additional device.”
“Determine?”
Chloé sounded offended.
“You heard what I said.”
“Hearing it and proving it are different things.”
Chloé looked toward me as though I had designed the legal system personally.
“So he could just destroy it?”
“If he still has access to it, that’s possible.”
Claire closed the folder.
“That’s why we document what you remember now.”
The restaurant manager entered carrying the bill as if approaching a table occupied by explosives.
He placed it beside me.
“I am very sorry about the disruption, madame.”
“You didn’t cause it.”
His eyes flicked toward the dog bowl.
“No.”
I picked up the bill.
The amount made me laugh.
Not because it was funny.
Because Maxime had ordered two bottles of a Bordeaux that Henri and I used to debate buying for anniversaries.
He had apparently served it to people while calling me a dog.
“Charge my personal card,” I said.
Claire stared at me.
“What?”
“The restaurant didn’t commit fraud.”
“That isn’t why I’m looking at you.”
“I know.”
“You just canceled everyone’s cards, and now you’re paying the bill?”
“I invited nobody, but I can afford dinner.”
Chloé looked down.
“I can pay my part.”
“With what?”
The question came out sharper than I intended.
She flinched.
I regretted it immediately.
Not enough to apologize.
Not yet.
“Put the entire amount on mine,” I told the manager.
He left.
Claire sat in Maxime’s chair.
“You should go home.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
“Then go somewhere else.”
“I’m not checking into a hotel on my seventieth birthday.”
Chloé made a small sound.
May you like
“I forgot.”
I stared at her.
