Chương 3
“Matteo.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No threats, no visits, no intimidation, no accidents.”
“What do you want?”
“Information.”
“On whom?”
“Viviane Delcourt and Pauline Delcourt.”
“Financial?”
“Everything obtained lawfully through our corporate compliance channels, public records, existing contractual records, and counsel.”
“Deadline?”
Elias looked toward the eastern horizon, where darkness had begun thinning almost imperceptibly.
“Sunrise.”
Matteo was silent.
Then he said, “Someone hurt Claire.”
Elias closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The joking tone vanished.
“How badly?”
“She’ll recover.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
Matteo understood the answer anyway.
“I’ll call Brussels.”
“Call New York and Tangier too.”
“Elias.”
“What?”
“You told me once that if this day came, I was supposed to remind you why you left.”
Elias watched a cleaning worker push a yellow cart across the lobby.
The woman stopped to straighten a crooked stack of magazines nobody had read.
“I left because I married Claire.”
“No.”
Matteo’s voice softened.
“You left because you were becoming someone Claire would never have married if she’d known him.”
Elias gripped the paper coffee cup until the lid shifted.
“I remember.”
“Do you?”
He did not answer.
Matteo waited.
Finally Elias said, “Find me the truth.”
“That I can do.”
The call ended.
When Elias returned upstairs, Lieutenant Mercier was leaving Claire’s room.
“She corroborated what you told us.”
“Did she mention the recording?”
“Yes.”
“Can you preserve it?”
“We’ll handle the device according to procedure.”
Mercier tucked his notebook away.
“We’re also sending officers to the estate.”
“They may deny access.”
“They can deny some things.”
Mercier looked at him for a moment.
“Mr. Morel, your wife told us something else.”
Elias waited.
“She said her mother claimed the transfer had to be completed before eight this morning.”
“Why?”
“She doesn’t know.”
That changed something.
Viviane had not merely wanted Claire’s property.
She had been racing a clock.
At 5:11, Matteo sent Elias one message.
Do not call Viviane again.
A second message arrived twenty seconds later.
There is a reason she needed Claire’s signature before eight.
Elias stared at the screen.
A third message followed.
And I think Étienne Delcourt knew about it before he died.
Inside the room, Claire called his name.
Elias put the phone away before entering.
She was sitting upright now, pale and exhausted, with a paper cup of tea balanced between both hands.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“So do you.”
“Marriage is beautiful.”
He pulled a chair beside the bed.
For a few seconds, neither spoke.
Then Claire set down the tea.
“My father was afraid of something.”
Elias looked at her.
“Before he died,” she continued, “he kept asking whether I still trusted you.”
The room seemed to narrow.
“What did you tell him?”
“That it was a strange question.”
“What did he say?”
Claire watched his face.
“He said I might need you when the house stopped being safe.”
Elias felt the old world moving beneath his feet.
Claire reached for his hand.
“And now I need you to tell me why my father knew enough about my husband to be afraid for me.”
Claire reached for his hand.
“And now I need you to tell me why my father knew enough about my husband to be afraid for me.”
Elias looked down at their joined hands, at the faint bruising around her wrist, and for the first time that night the silence between them frightened him more than Viviane did.
“He wasn’t afraid of me hurting you.”
Claire’s fingers tightened.
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
“Then give me one.”
He pulled the chair closer and sat.
Outside the door, a cart squeaked down the corridor, followed by the soft rattle of glass bottles and someone complaining about the coffee machine again.
The ordinary sounds made the room feel cruelly normal.
“My work isn’t what I told your family it was.”
Claire stared at him.
“What did you tell my family?”
“That I handled logistics consulting.”
“You do handle logistics consulting.”
“I handle more than that.”
Her expression changed by degrees rather than all at once.
Confusion came first.
Then irritation.
Then the beginning of fear.
“How much more?”
Elias rubbed his thumb once across the side of her hand.
“I own controlling stakes in several transport companies.”
“So?”
“They operate in ports, freight corridors, storage facilities, customs brokerage, private security.”
She waited.
“Legitimate businesses?”
“Yes.”
The pause afterward was too long.
Claire noticed.
“And?”
He looked at her.
“Not all of the money that built them was legitimate.”
She pulled her hand away.
Elias let her.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I spent most of my twenties and early thirties involved with people who moved things governments did not want moved.”
“What things?”
“Sometimes contraband.”
“What kind?”
“Claire.”
“No, you don’t get to do that.”
Her voice stayed low because raising it hurt her ribs, but the force behind it was unmistakable.
“You don’t get to decide which detail is too ugly for me after three years of marriage.”
Elias looked toward the floor.
“Weapons passed through networks I controlled.”
Claire went completely still.
“Drugs?”
“Not under my authority.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Some people around us did.”
“People around us.”
She gave a short, disbelieving laugh and immediately pressed a hand to her ribs.
“God.”
“I stopped certain routes when I took control.”
“Took control of what?”
“A network.”
She stared at him as if waiting for some sane interpretation to arrive.
None did.
“How big?”
“Large enough.”
“That is the kind of answer villains give in bad movies.”
“I know.”
“Then stop talking like one.”
Elias swallowed.
“France, Belgium, Spain, Morocco, parts of the eastern United States, and smaller operations elsewhere.”
Claire’s face emptied.
The silence lasted nearly half a minute.
Then she whispered, “The Ghost King.”
He said nothing.
She looked toward the door as though expecting someone to burst through it.
“My father used that name once.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
Elias lifted his head.
May you like
“He was on the phone in his office.”
“With whom?”
