Chapter 55: The Boy Behind the Glass

 

Gabriel Calloway stood on the other side of the locked doors, looking at Rhys as though he had been searching for him all his life.

Rhys lifted a hand toward the glass, then stopped.

“Open it,” he said.

Brandt shook his head. “After we verify his identity.”

The stranger heard him through the intercom.

“Ask me about the horse,” he said. “The tail broke when Rhys dropped it down the stairs. He tried to fix it with candle wax. I told him it looked worse.”

Rhys's fingers tightened around the toy.

“I used blue wax,” he whispered.

Gabriel smiled, and something in that smile made him look very young.

Brandt signaled the officer to open the door.

Rhys stepped forward. Neither brother moved to embrace the other.

“I thought you were dead,” Rhys said.

“I thought you had forgotten me.”

Rhys swallowed. “I had.”

Gabriel's smile faded.

“Then they got what they wanted.”

 

Brandt checked Gabriel's identity against the available records. Gabriel agreed to a recorded interview, but asked to see Sylvie first.

Elara watched him enter the guarded room. Sylvie was sitting beside the window, the unopened water bottle in her lap.

She looked up.

For a moment, she did not seem to recognize the man before her.

Then the bottle fell.

“Gabriel?”

He crossed the room and knelt beside her wheelchair. She held his face between both hands, as if she needed to learn it again by touch.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

Sylvie shook her head. “Not now. Not when you're here.”

Elara turned away.

Behind her, Rhys stood rigidly in the doorway. He watched his brother being welcomed home and made no move to enter.

“You can go to them,” she murmured.

“I don't know where I belong in that room.”

“Neither does he.”

Rhys looked at her. Then he walked inside.

 

They spoke to Brandt in a consultation room afterward. Gabriel had a faded scar across his left eyebrow and the watchful posture of someone accustomed to checking exits.

“Why disappear for eleven years?” Brandt asked.

“Vale found me in Lyon. He said my mother's care depended on my cooperation.”

“What cooperation?”

“Medical appointments. Questions about what I remembered. Pills I stopped taking because they made whole days disappear.”

“Do you have records?” Brandt asked.

“Some. Not here.”

Elara studied him. “Were you the one leaving letters for Odette?”

“Yes. She knew Lucille. I thought she'd understand the warning.”

“Why use Theo?”

“He wasn't one of Augustin's favorites. I thought he might listen without reporting me.”

Rhys leaned forward. “You told me I was at Saint-Claire the day our father disappeared.”

Gabriel glanced at him.

“You were waiting in a chair outside Vale's office. You had a nosebleed. You kept wiping it with your sleeve because you'd lost your handkerchief.”

Rhys touched his upper lip unconsciously.

“Father came out of the records room,” Gabriel continued. “He was furious. He said someone had made you sign something.”

“I was eleven.”

“I know. He shouted that children couldn't consent.”

Elara's skin prickled.

“So the later authorization might have carried Rhys's signature as well as Marcus's.”

Gabriel nodded. “Father told Vale to give him every copy. Vale refused.”

“What happened next?” Brandt asked.

“A man came down the corridor. Conrad Hart. He told Father to lower his voice.”

Rhys went still.

“I remember a man's shoes,” he said. “Black, with silver buckles.”

Gabriel stared at him.

“He wore those.”

For the first time, hope crossed his face.

“You remember.”

“Only that.”

“It's enough.”

Elara saw Rhys draw a careful breath. For once, he had been given a memory without anyone demanding that it prove a theory.

Brandt checked his notes. “What did Conrad say?”

Gabriel looked toward the closed door.

“That he'd already arranged the boat. He said Marcus could have his files if he went alone.”

“Did your father agree?”

“He told Conrad there was something worse than the records.”

“What?” Elara asked.

Gabriel's hand closed around the edge of his chair.

“A witness. Someone who had heard Vale admit what the medicine was for.”

“Who was the witness?”

Gabriel looked directly at Rhys.

“You were,” he said. “And Father made me promise that if anyone took you away, I'd tell you what you heard.”

“I wrote his warning in my school notebook,” Gabriel added. “I was afraid the next pill would take it too.”

Rhys's voice was barely audible.

“What did I hear?”

Gabriel's eyes filled.

“Vale said the medicine wasn't meant to treat your headaches.”

He paused, then looked at Elara.

“He said it would stop you remembering what happened at Lucille Quinn's atelier.”

 

Word count: 770 words (excluding chapter title).