All Chapters of The scent of her revenge : Chapter 61 - Chapter 68

The gardener's voice shook over the speaker.“Not the orchids,” he said. “Everything. The soil, the roots, even the stone troughs.”Elara gripped the phone. “What's your name?”“Henri Duvall. I worked for your mother before the Calloways hired me.”“Why didn't you tell me?”“I promised her I would only speak when the lower room was threatened.”Rhys stepped closer. “How would you know it was threatened?”“Because Augustin never let anyone touch that corner of the greenhouse. Yesterday he ordered the entire eastern bed stripped.”“What's planted there?” Elara asked.“White irises. Your mother's.”She remembered the tiny silver iris on the blue folder. Odette's enamel box. The green ribbon tied around Lucille's unfinished formulas.“Are they still alive?”“This morning, yes. The contractors arrive at six.”Elara checked the clock. Four forty-eight.“Give Brandt your name and address,” she said. “Don't go back to the estate.”Henri hesitated. “Madame, there's one thing Augustin doesn't k

The words on the cassette were written in ink that had not faded.Elara looked from the photograph to the greenhouse, where officers were sealing the hidden cabinet.“Someone reached those tapes recently,” she said.Brandt nodded. “Or added the warning after finding them. We’ll examine the handwriting and ink. Nobody plays anything until the evidence technician checks it.”Rhys stared at the screen.“DON’T LET HIM LISTEN ALONE,” he read. “Who gets to decide that?”“You,” Elara said. “Not the person who wrote it.”He turned toward her, surprised.“I’m asking you to stay,” he said.“I will.”Beyond the police barrier, a stretcher rattled toward the ambulance. Vale lifted his head as the attendants passed. His eyes met Rhys’s, and he flinched as though the boy he had treated had finally caught up with him.Rhys made no move to follow.At their feet lay severed irises. Elara gathered one bruised bloom and set it carefully in the shade.The tapes went to a police media laboratory in Paris.

Rhys leaned toward the screen.“Gabriel was locked up while you questioned me?”Marguerite's face crumpled. Her solicitor put a hand on the table, but she shook her head.“He was in the next room. Conrad said he'd let him go once the recording was finished.”“Finished saying what?” Elara asked.“That Lucille gave Rhys the key. That she told him to lock the door.”Elara felt sick. Her mother's name had been turned into a lesson for a frightened child to recite. She remembered the photograph of the atelier, the way Lucille stood before its doors with her sleeves rolled up. A lifetime of work had been reduced to a single accusation, carefully placed in the mouth of a boy.“Where did this happen?” Brandt asked.“Saint-Claire. October 2004.”“Three years after Lucille died,” Elara said.Marguerite nodded.Rhys stared at her. “And the woman's voice at the end?”“An earlier recording. Lucille argued with us before the fire. I heard Conrad ask Vale to copy her voice onto the cassette afterwar

The woman's warning ended, leaving a soft rush of static.No. Elara is only five.Elara took the phone from Rhys and played it again. Five. Not two, the age she'd been when Lucille died in the atelier fire. Five meant someone had spoken about her three years later."That sentence wasn't recorded the night my mother died," she said.Brandt's voice came through the call. "That's our working assumption. The voice is on the 2004 section, but the tape has been altered. We cannot yet identify the speaker.""Could you send the isolated audio to Odette?""Only with her doctor's approval. And I would prefer a formal identification, not a room full of people guessing."Elara glanced at Rhys. He was staring at the hospital floor, his hands clenched at his sides."They knew about you," he said."They knew my name. We don't know what they wanted."He looked up. "You're trying to make this less frightening.""I'm trying not to let fear write the evidence."An hour later, Elara walked into Odette's