All Chapters of The scent of her revenge : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Rhys looked at Marguerite as though she had spoken in another language.“You just said I was the control.”“You became the control,” she replied. “That wasn't how it began.”Rain tapped against the pharmacy awning. Beyond the police barriers, firefighters rolled hoses across the pavement. Nobody seemed to notice that Rhys Calloway had stopped breathing properly.“Explain,” he said.Marguerite glanced at Brandt. “Not here.”“You don't get to choose where.”“Rhys,” Elara said quietly.He turned toward her. She had not heard that voice from him before. It wasn't the voice of a billionaire giving orders. It belonged to a little boy discovering that every adult in the room had known something he hadn't.Elara faced Marguerite. “Start with the first treatment. No theories. Tell us what you saw.”Marguerite lowered her eyes.“In 1998, your father brought you to Saint-Claire. You had headaches. Nothing unusual, but your grandfather was convinced the Calloway men carried an inherited condition

Elara recognized Julian before the photograph had finished loading.He held the car door with the patient smile he wore at charity galas.“Where is she now?” Rhys asked.“Ground floor,” Brandt said. “They came through the east entrance. My officers are watching them.”“Then let's go,” Elara said.Brandt stepped in front of the door. “We don't know why she's with him.”“Which is why I intend to ask.”Rhys moved beside her, but she shook her head. “Not in front of Julian. He'll turn it into a performance.”After a moment, Rhys nodded. “I'll stay within sight.”It mattered that he listened. More than Elara wanted to admit.They found Julian in the hospital's quiet atrium, beneath an enormous arrangement of white lilies. Sylvie Laurent sat in a wheelchair beside him, her hands clasped over a brown handbag.Elara smelled the lilies first. Then expensive leather, hospital disinfectant, and the sweet, artificial sandalwood of Julian's cologne.His smile widened when he saw her.“Ellie. You l

Odette watched Elara read the letter.“Who brought this?” Elara asked.“I never saw a face. A shoe beneath the door. Then footsteps.”“The hospital has cameras.”“Then you must hurry before someone decides the cameras are broken.”Elara folded the paper without putting it in her pocket. The envelope carried the same gentle chamomile sweetness as Rhys's tea, but the bitter edge was missing. Someone wanted her to recognize it. That did not mean it came from Gabriel.“Which bed?” she asked. “The one at Saint-Claire, or after the fire?”Odette's breathing caught.“I don't know.”“You must have some idea.”“I know that boy remembered things when they thought he was asleep.” Odette closed her eyes. “Lucille told me that much.”The monitor quickened. Elara leaned forward, then stopped herself. She had already asked too much of this woman.“Rest. I'm not leaving you alone again.”Odette's fingers tightened around hers.“Don't promise what you can't keep, ma petite.”Rhys was waiting outside,

The words settled over the chapel like dust.“Grandfather told them to bring Gabriel here?” Rhys asked.Theo shook his head. “He said to tell him his mother was waiting. He didn't say where.”Elara looked toward the corridor. Sylvie was two floors away, seated in a room any visitor could find if they knew whom to ask for.“Brandt,” she said. “Someone brought Sylvie to this hospital under false pretenses. What if the point wasn't to question her?”Brandt's face changed. He lifted his radio. “Check on Mrs. Laurent. Now.”Rhys started for the doors.Elara caught his hand. “Don't run ahead of the officers.”“Gabriel might be coming.”“Then the safest thing we can do for both of them is stop making decisions in a panic.”Rhys stared at her. For an instant, she thought he would pull away.Instead, he nodded.They followed Brandt into the corridor.Sylvie was still in the consultation room, but she was no longer alone.A young nurse stood beside her wheelchair holding a paper cup. The woman

The date was wrong.Elara knew it before Brandt finished speaking. Lucille had died in 2001. Marcus Calloway had been reported dead three years later.“My mother couldn't have witnessed a signature made after his death,” she said.Across the table, Rhys went motionless.Brandt turned the inventory sheet toward them. “The entry says the folder contained a consent form and a witness statement attributed to Lucille. It doesn't say she witnessed the signing. The clerk added the later date in the margin.”“Then somebody put two different events together,” Elara said.“Possibly. Until we recover the pages, we cannot say why.”Rhys reached for the sheet. His fingers stopped just short of it.“My father was lost at sea in October 2004.”Brandt nodded. “That's the date on his death certificate.”“Then who signed a hospital authorization the following day?”No one answered.Priya brought Marcus's death certificate to the hospital conference room an hour later. It bore a maritime authority's sea