Read Chapter 36: The Liar Revealed

The wind had picked up again, a thin whine threading through the rocks above the col, and Élise could feel the minutes bleeding away. She stood in the center of the huddled group, the diary open in her gloved hands, the pages fluttering like a trapped bird.

"You want to know who really altered that map?" she said, loud enough to cut through the gusts. "Who made sure the safety survey never reached the authorities?"

The tourists exchanged glances. Pfeiffer sat apart, his knees drawn to his chest, his eyes fixed on the snow between his boots. Luc watched her, silent, one hand resting on his ice axe.

Élise turned to face the group, her gaze sweeping past the familiar faces—the couple from Lyon, the retired teacher, the three students who hadn't stopped shivering since the crevasse. Then her eyes stopped on him.

Bastien. The quiet one. The one who always volunteered to take photographs of the group at scenic stops. The one who had smiled so warmly when they'd first met at the trailhead.

She walked toward him. He was sitting on his pack, fiddling with his camera strap, his face arranged in an expression of polite confusion. But his fingers had gone white.

"The diary doesn't just contain survey data," she said. "It contains photographs. The dead climber—Antoine Raval—was a meticulous man. He documented everything. Including the person who visited his base camp the night before he went up alone."

Bastien's smile tightened. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know exactly what I'm talking about." Élise pulled a loose photograph from between the diary's pages. It showed a man in a red down jacket standing beside a tent, his face half-turned from the camera, but the angle of his jaw, the slope of his shoulders, the way he held his camera at his hip—unmistakable.

"You shot him with your own camera," she said. "He must have seen you reflecting in his lens. He documented you documenting him."

Bastien laughed, but the sound was hollow. "That could be anyone. It's out of focus. It proves nothing."

"It proves you were there," Luc said, stepping forward. "The night before the avalanche on the original route. The night the survey data went missing."

Bastien stood now, his hands hanging loose at his sides. The group had closed around him, a semicircle of cold, accusing faces. The wind moaned across the col, sending spindrift skittering across the snow.

"All right," he said, and his voice changed. The warmth drained out of it, leaving something thin and brittle. "All right, you want the truth? Fine."

He looked directly at Élise. "You ruined me. Three years ago, the Saint-Gervais competition. You won the grand prize with your photograph of the Mer de Glace at dawn. But you know who helped you get that shot? You know who told you that the light would be perfect that morning?"

Élise felt something cold settle in her stomach. "I had no idea—"

"No. You never do." Bastien's voice rose. "You took my advice, you took my positioning notes, and then you told the judges that I had plagiarized when I submitted my own piece the following year. You destroyed my career. My gallery dropped me. My name was ruined."

"I never—"

"You did. Maybe you don't remember. Why would you? You had everything. The prizes, the exhibitions, the recognition. And you never once looked back at the wreckage you left behind."

The group was silent. Élise's chest felt tight, her skin hot despite the cold. She had no memory of any plagiarism accusation, no memory of Bastien at all before this trip. But the certainty in his voice was absolute.

"So when I found out you were on this expedition, I made my plans," Bastien said, calmer now, his eyes flat. "The map was easy to alter. Pfeiffer is an old friend; he owed me favors. And the avalanche—that was an accident. I didn't mean for anyone to die. But when it happened, I thought, good. Let her feel loss. Let her feel the weight of something she can't photograph away."

He smiled. It was a dead, empty thing.

"I never expected you to survive. But here you are. Still taking photographs, still pretending nothing is your fault."

Élise's throat was dry. She thought of Margaux, of the young woman who hadn't made it, of the families who didn't know yet. Her hands were shaking, but not from the cold.

"You're wrong about the plagiarism," she said. "I never accused you of anything. I don't even know you."

Bastien's face twitched. "Liar."

"You manipulated this group," Luc said, stepping between them. "You put everyone here at risk for revenge. You're coming with us to Chamonix, and you're going to confess."

Bastien laughed, a short, ragged sound. And then he moved. Quicker than anyone expected, he broke from the circle, scrambling up the loose snow slope behind them. Élise shouted, and several tourists lunged, but Bastien had already gained the crest.

He slipped. The snow under his boots gave way with a soft, menacing hiss. A sheet of white peeled away from the slope, not a full avalanche—just a narrow slide, debris cascading down a channel of rocks. Bastien was carried with it, tumbling, his body striking a boulder and coming to rest in a heap of snow and broken limbs.

The slide settled. Silence.

Luc moved first, crossing the slope with practiced caution, checking the snow above him with every step. When he reached Bastien, he knelt, checking for a pulse.

"He's alive," Luc said. "But his leg—it's bad. We can't leave him here."

The group stared at the broken man in the snow. Then someone asked the question no one wanted to hear:

"How are we supposed to carry him and Marc both?"