Chương 8
Renaud stepped in before the argument sharpened.
“Afterward, Elias paid the clinic’s debts.”
Claire looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because the owner had treated people who would otherwise have died.”
Renaud said, “And because he was trying very hard to convince himself he was becoming someone else.”
Elias looked away.
Claire noticed.
“So you helped him disappear?”
“No.”
Renaud shook his head.
“He didn’t disappear.”
“He changed how visible he was.”
“That sounds worse.”
“It probably is.”
Renaud stood.
“I’m going to get the discharge papers.”
At the door, Claire called after him.
“Renaud.”
He turned.
“I’m angry with you too.”
“I assumed.”
“You should.”
“I do.”
He left.
Claire sat silently for almost a minute.
Then she said, “I don’t know what to do with all of this.”
“You don’t have to decide today.”
“That sounds convenient for you.”
“It is also true.”
She picked at the edge of the tape securing the IV dressing on her hand.
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
Elias answered immediately.
“Yes.”
“When?”
He did not.
Claire laughed once.
“That means no.”
“It means I kept moving the date.”
“Why?”
“Because every version of the conversation ended with you leaving.”
“And that frightened you more than lying to me.”
“Yes.”
Her face tightened.
“At least that answer was clean.”
The nurse returned with a paper bag containing Claire’s borrowed slippers and the sweater Elias had asked one of his security people to buy from a twenty-four-hour shop.
Claire held up the sweater.
“Gray.”
Elias said, “I did not choose it.”
“Who did?”
“A man named Benoît.”
“Benoît has the taste of a municipal office.”
“He’ll be devastated.”
A small smile escaped her before she caught it.
Elias saw it and said nothing.
By 6:40 they were in the rear of Elias’s SUV.
Claire refused the front seat because the seat belt pressed too painfully across her ribs.
One of the security contractors drove.
The other followed in a second vehicle.
Claire noticed both.
“Do they know who you are?”
“Yes.”
“Do they call you Ghost King?”
“Not if they want to keep their jobs.”
That earned him another reluctant half-smile.
It vanished when her phone, returned by police after forensic copying of the voice memo, began vibrating repeatedly.
Messages filled the screen.
Pauline.
Six missed calls.
Four voice messages.
Three texts.
Please answer.
Mom has lost her mind.
I didn’t mean for this to happen.
Then the last message.
Vanel made us do it.
Claire stared at the screen.
Elias did not ask to see.
She turned the phone toward him herself.
He read the message.
“That may be true.”
Claire looked at him sharply.
“You believe her?”
“I believe frightened people often tell partial truths.”
“She hit me.”
“Yes.”
“With a candlestick.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re defending her?”
“No.”
His voice stayed even.
“I’m separating what she did from what may have pressured her to do it.”
Claire looked back at the message.
“That sounds like something a criminal learns.”
“It is.”
She did not answer.
The car moved through waking traffic.
Bakeries were opening.
Delivery vans occupied half the curb lanes.
A man in a fluorescent jacket drank coffee beside a roadworks barrier and watched them pass without interest.
The world had started its morning.
Claire rested her head against the window.
“My father used to take this route.”
“To the factory?”
“Yes.”
“He hated the motorway.”
“Why?”
“He said everyone drove as if they had unfinished arguments at home.”
Elias smiled faintly.
“That sounds like him.”
Claire turned toward him.
“You knew him better than you admitted too, didn’t you?”
Elias looked out the opposite window.
“We met privately three times.”
Claire sat up despite the pain.
“What?”
“Not socially.”
“When?”
“The first time was four months before we married.”
She stared at him.
“My father investigated you.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew.”
“Yes.”
“What did he find?”
“Enough to confront me.”
Claire’s voice dropped.
“Where?”
“In Paris.”
“What happened?”
“He asked whether I loved you.”
“That was his first question?”
“No.”
Elias looked at her.
“His first question was whether I was armed.”
Despite everything, Claire almost laughed.
“That sounds more like him.”
“He had a retired police officer outside the restaurant.”
“Did you know?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you did.”
“He had two, actually.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“I miss when my family was merely dysfunctional.”
Elias let the silence settle.
After a while she said, “What did you tell him?”
“That I loved you.”
“And he believed you?”
“No.”
“What changed his mind?”
“I don’t think anything did.”
Claire looked at him.
“He let us marry.”
“You were thirty-two.”
“He couldn’t stop me.”
“No.”
Elias rubbed his palms together once.
“He did something else.”
“What?”
“He asked what would happen if my old life found you.”
Claire’s jaw tightened.
“What did you say?”
“That I would keep it from happening.”
“And now?”
“Now your family found it first.”
Claire looked away.
The answer sat between them.
At 6:58, Matteo called.
Elias answered normally this time.
“Tell me.”
“We identified the trust administrator behind Pauline’s beneficial ownership.”
“Who?”
“Luc Bernier’s brother-in-law.”
Claire heard and turned sharply.
Matteo continued.
“And we found something more important.”
“Go on.”
“Étienne requested a private audit nine months before his death.”
Claire reached for the phone.
Elias switched to speaker.
Matteo said, “He hired an outside forensic accountant.”
Claire asked, “Who?”
“Anne Giraud.”
“I know that name.”
Elias looked at her.
“From where?”
“She came to the house twice.”
“When?”
“Last spring.”
“What did Étienne say she did?”
“He called her an insurance consultant.”
Matteo said, “She wasn’t.”
Claire’s expression hardened.
“Where is she now?”
There was a pause.
“That is the problem.”
Elias felt it before the answer.
Matteo continued.
“She disappeared from public professional records about seven months ago.”
Claire frowned.
“Disappeared how?”
“Closed her practice, sold her apartment, stopped using the professional accounts we found.”
“Dead?”
“No evidence of that.”
“Then find her.”
Matteo’s voice tightened.
May you like
“I’m trying.”
Elias said, “What did her audit cover?”
