All Chapters of VOWS IN THE WAR ROOM: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

By the time we returned to the estate, the house felt like it knew.Some buildings do that. They hold their face for guests, then shift the moment the doors lock and the weather seals everyone inside. The Valois estate had gone still in a way that did not feel restful. It felt watchful.Colette was waiting in the east corridor with a ring of old brass keys in her hand and a look on her face that told me she had already argued with herself and lost.“I checked the old inventory ledgers,” she said. “The sealed wing was cleared on paper years ago. It was not cleared in truth.”Renaud came up behind me, coat still on, the line of pain near his side sharpened by the long day though he was doing his best to pretend otherwise.Julien had stayed in the study to keep tearing into the forged filing and prepare for the hearing on Day 29. Gabriel had taken two men to sweep the exterior and secure the library passage, which, as he put it

We left just after one in the morning.The roads beyond the city had gone from wet black to salt-white, and the snow along the highway edges looked almost blue beneath the headlights. Night driving in Québec has its own kind of honesty. No decorative romance. Just distance, cold, and the fact that if you choose motion at that hour, you probably have a reason you cannot explain well to polite people.Gabriel drove.Of course he did.One of his men followed in a second vehicle at enough distance to avoid theater and close enough to be useful if the night went ugly in a hurry. Colette had refused to come, then changed her mind halfway down the front steps, then changed it back when Julien reminded her someone sensible had to remain at the estate in case the hearing papers were served before dawn.So it was the three of us.Me in the back seat with the tape recorder wrapped in my coat beside me and my mother’s envelope tucked into t

The police were courteous.That was how I knew the move had been planned properly.Real panic is loud. Real discovery comes with confusion, crossed instructions, people talking over one another, coats half-zipped, paperwork missing from the right folder. What arrived at the estate was not confusion. It was rehearsed calm. Two officers at the door, one detective with a neat wool coat and an apologetic expression already prepared, and a warrant envelope that had been folded only once.Gabriel opened the study door before anyone else could.“No one enters this room without stating purpose.”The detective looked at him, not offended, merely bored enough to be dangerous.“Detective Lemaire,” she said. “We have a report concerning stolen archival property and unlawful possession of restricted materials.”My whole body seemed to recognize the shape of the lie before my mind had finished hearing it.

Chapter 68: The Public HearingMorning made everyone look more honest than they wanted.The courthouse stood in the grey center of the city like an old lesson nobody enjoyed but everybody had to attend eventually. Stone steps, brass doors, wet footprints, a coat check run by a woman who had probably seen ministers cry and liars faint and found neither impressive.Inside, the air smelled of paper, damp wool, radiator heat, and institutional patience.We arrived without spectacle.That mattered.Julien first, carrying the hearing packet like a controlled fire.Me beside him.Renaud half a step behind, not because he meant to loom but because every room lately had taught him what happens when he gives distance too freely.Gabriel farther back in plain clothes, invisible only to the arrogant.Maud already moved through a separate access point under Colette’s management and one doctor’s irritated b

Gabriel did not shout.That was why people got out of his way.Loud men cause scenes. Efficient men create currents. He cut across the hallway with one hand brushing the rail and the other already reaching for his phone, not to call for help, but to move help into place before the rest of us had finished turning our heads.The runner hit the stairwell door.Gabriel hit it a breath later.Renaud took one step after them and stopped only because Julien caught his arm.“No.”“That was not a request.”“No,” Julien said, breathing harder than dignity required, “it was legal preservation.”I stepped forward before either of them could decide whether to drag me bodily back into the hearing room.The corridor outside the courtroom had gone live with panic disguised as etiquette. Clerks frozen at tables. One investor pretending not to stare. The journalist already texting wit