LOGINColette took one look at the blood and did not gasp.
She pivoted.
“Lower sitting room,” she said. “Not the clinic. Too exposed. Gabriel, call the doctor we trust. Julien can wait. Towels. Hot water. And if anyone from staff asks questions, you tell them Mr. Valois slipped on ice and was punished for his vanity.”
Renaud, pale under control, said, “I have never once been vain.”
Colette did not break stride. “This is not the t
The townhouse went quiet in the wrong way after the call.Not peaceful. Not thoughtful. Quiet the way a room goes when everyone understands a line has been crossed and no one wants to be the first to say what it means.Julien gathered the scattered printouts into one neat stack, which was how lawyers admitted unease without embarrassing themselves. Gabriel was still out chasing his side of the missing-page trail. Snow struck lightly against the front windows. Somewhere downstairs, the old pipes clicked in the walls as the heat adjusted.Renaud stood with my phone in his hand, looking at the dead call screen as if he could force the voice back through it by contempt alone.“Which station?” I asked.He did not answer immediately.That was my first warning.The second was the look on Julien’s face. Not surprise. Not confusion. Recognition, followed by the very careful neutrality of a man who had just realized he was abo
We did not drive straight back to the estate.That was Gabriel’s decision, which meant it was the correct one and therefore immediately irritating.He took the first left, then the bridge road, then doubled through two ugly service lanes behind the market where snow turned grey and every building looked temporary. I sat in the back with the wrapped journal on my lap and the receipts tucked into my coat, trying not to reread the same three broken lines in my head until they became prayer or poison.The van followed for four streets.Then vanished.Which was worse.“Did we lose them?” I asked.Gabriel watched the mirror
The lower market station bank looked like the sort of place secrets would choose if they had grown tired of romance.No grandeur. No stained glass. No elegant old stone pretending history made corruption noble. Just a narrow brick frontage tucked beside a freight office, a faded brass sign, and windows that had given up on charm years ago. Snow gathered in dirty ridges along the curb. The river wind came hard through the lane and made everyone hunch their shoulders as if guilt were weather.Gabriel parked half a block away.“You stay beside me,” he said.“That is becoming your life’s slogan.”“It’s working.”I got out anyway and butt
Old Québec always looked like a place that believed in memory more than mercy.Stone lanes. Winter air. Iron balconies wearing frost like decorations. Tourists came for beauty and left with photographs. People like me arrived looking for ghosts and found administrative hours.The museum sat behind a square of packed snow and bare trees, elegant in the discreet way old money likes best. No banners screaming for relevance. No desperate glass addition pretending to be modern. Just grey stone, tall windows, and the quiet confidence of a building that assumed history would come indoors eventually.Gabriel parked at the side entrance.Julien had stayed back to prepare cover stories, legal buffers, and whatever else lawyers build when other people insist on doing urgent
I wore grey because it looked cooperative.Not weak. Not dramatic. Not the color of a woman about to throw a glass or confess to nerves in front of people who collected those things like stamps. Just soft enough to suggest I had thought carefully about tone. Sabine would notice. That was the point.Colette adjusted my collar once, then stepped back.“You look reasonable,” she said.“That sounds like an insult.”“It is insurance.”I glanced at myself in the mirror one last time. Hair pinned simply. No statement jewelry. No bright lipstick. No sharp edges that could be translated into defiance for a room already waiting to call me difficult.“Do I look frightened for the factory?”Colette’s eyes met mine in the glass.“You look like a woman who has learned that fear and intelligence can share the same coat.”“That is almost poetic.”
Morning came hard and white.Snow had buried the lower hedges and softened the stone paths, but the house itself felt sharper than ever. A place can look beautiful and still behave like a trap. By breakfast, the estate had perfected both.I found Renaud in the morning room with coffee he had forgotten to drink and three phones laid out in a line like surgical tools. Julien stood by the far window reading from a tablet. Gabriel leaned against the wall with that stillness that meant he had been awake longer than any of us and trusted none of the daylight.Colette set down a tray, looked at the men, then at me, then said, “No one is to raise their voice before food. If you intend to destroy one another, do it after eggs.”She left before anyone could pretend the order was unreasonable.Julien glanced up. “Good morning.”“That depends,” I said.He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
The clinic didn’t look like a clinic.No bright posters. No plastic chairs. No bored children dragging toys across the floor. Just quiet glass, pale stone, and a receptionist who didn’t blink when Gabriel walked in like he owned the building.They took Renaud through a s
Renaud didn’t fall like a man in a movie.He folded.One second he was holding himself upright with pure will, fingers white on the table edge, and the next his knees gave a little, like his body had quietly resigned.“Renaud…” I caught his arm.
Renaud still didn’t tell me the name.He said it once…someone I need to see will be there…and then he shut the door on the rest of the sentence like it was a room I wasn’t allowed to enter.He left me standing in the hallway, arms folded, trying no
Renaud didn’t say who he needed to see.He just held my gaze for a beat, then turned away like the answer had already cost him enough.I followed him down the corridor anyway. Not because I expected him to suddenly become chatty. Because if I didn’t follow, I’d spe







