Read Chapter 10: The Guest Returns

The knock came at half past six, just as Élodie was setting the dining room for the next morning's breakfast. She almost didn't hear it over the clatter of silverware. But it came again, sharper this time, and she set down the last fork and crossed to the front door with a knot already forming in her stomach.

She opened it to find Monsieur Lefevre standing on the gravel drive, a duffel bag at his feet and the same thin smile on his face he'd worn the week before. Behind him, the evening light had gone amber and long, slanting across the courtyard and catching the dust motes that hung in the still air.

"Mademoiselle Marchand," he said, inclining his head. "I apologize for arriving without notice. I had hoped to book another night. Perhaps two? The region has proven more—" he paused, searching for the word, "—absorbing than I anticipated."

Élodie's fingers tightened on the doorframe. She thought of the phone call with Luc, of the fake ID that Capitaine Roussel had run through the system. *Louis Dubois*. A known alias. And now this man, who had been so pointedly interested in the Chevalier debt, was back.

"I wasn't aware you'd left the area," she said, keeping her voice even.

"I had business in Tours. Unavoidable." Lefevre spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "But I found myself thinking of your château. The peace of it. And—" he smiled, gentle and disarming, "—your grandmother's excellent taste in wine."

The knot in Élodie's stomach tightened. She should tell him no. She should tell him the inn was full, that she had reservations, anything. But he was watching her with those pale, patient eyes, and she knew if she turned him away, she'd spend the night wondering what he'd do next. Better to have him inside walls she knew, where she could see him.

"I have a room," she said. "The blue room. It's the last one available."

"Wonderful." He picked up his duffel bag before she could offer to take it. "You're most kind, Mademoiselle."

She led him up the stairs and unlocked the door to the blue room, which was actually the smallest of the guest rooms, its walls painted a grayish blue that her grandmother had always said was meant to calm the nerves. Élodie had always found it depressing. Lefevre stepped inside, set his bag at the foot of the bed, and turned to survey the room with apparent satisfaction.

"I won't be much trouble. A light breakfast, perhaps. You still serve breakfast?"

"Seven to nine," Élodie said.

"Perfect. I have a long day of exploring ahead of me. I shall take my coffee early and be out of your way."

He said it lightly, but something in his tone made her want to ask where he was going. She didn't. She simply nodded, closed the door behind her, and stood in the hallway for a long moment, thinking.

She went to her office and locked the door.

The tin box sat on her desk where she'd left it after her visit to Luc's office, the photograph tucked inside its protective sleeve. She took it out and studied it again in the lamplight—her grandmother, young and radiant, standing beside a man with dark hair and a serious face. André Moreau. The man who'd been arrested for vineyard fraud. The man whose name had appeared on her mother's birth certificate.

The man who might have killed Antoine Moreau. Or been killed by him. Or disappeared with him. The truth felt like water slipping through her fingers.

She slid the photograph back into the box, closed the lid, and locked her desk drawer. Then she went to bed, leaving the hallway light on.

---

She woke at six to the sound of a car engine outside.

By the time she'd pulled on a robe and reached the window, the car—a dark sedan—was already disappearing down the drive, dust rising behind it in the pale morning gray. She checked her phone. Quarter past six. Too early for anyone to be leaving without saying something, especially a guest who'd promised to take his coffee at seven.

She pulled on clothes and went downstairs. The front door was unlocked. The blue room stood empty, the bed neatly made—too neatly, as if it had never been slept in at all. She crossed the room, but found nothing. No toiletries in the bathroom. No trace of him except the faint, clean smell of some cologne she couldn't place.

Then she remembered, and her blood went cold.

She ran to her office. The door was still locked, which was wrong—she'd locked it the night before. But it hadn't been opened. She fumbled for her keys, unlocked the desk drawer, and pulled out the tin box.

It felt too light.

She opened the lid.

The photograph was gone.

For a moment, she simply stared into the empty box, the letters still lying there untouched—the letters she hadn't yet found the courage to read. But the photograph, the only physical proof she had of her grandmother and André Moreau together, was gone. Her hands shook as she pulled out her phone and called Luc.

He answered on the second ring. "Élodie? It's early."

"Lefevre," she said. "He came back last night. I gave him a room. This morning he's gone, and the photograph—the one from the cellar, of my grandmother and André—it's been taken from my office."

A pause. She heard him getting out of bed, heard the rustle of clothing. "Where's your office?"

"First floor. He had access. I locked it, but—" She realized how weak it sounded. The door had been locked. But the lock was old, the kind anyone could pick with a hairpin.

"I'm on my way," Luc said. "Don't touch anything. Don't let anyone in."

She ended the call and stood in the middle of her office, breathing carefully, her hands still trembling. The photograph. Her grandmother's face. The only bridge between her family and the man named André Moreau. Lefevre had known where it was. He'd known what it was. Which meant he hadn't come back for peace and quiet. He'd come back for that.

Fifteen minutes later, Luc pulled up in his unmarked sedan. He took the stairs two at a time, his face tight with concern, and let her explain as he examined her desk drawer and the tin box.

"You're sure it was him?" he asked.

"Who else would it be? The only other person who knew about the photograph was you."

Luc's jaw tightened at that, but he didn't argue. He pulled out his phone and made a call, speaking in clipped, businesslike French. When he hung up, his expression was grim.

"His ID came back fake," he said. "Just like the Dubois couple. I ran it through the database before I left. There's no such person as Jean-Luc Lefevre."

Élodie felt the floor tilt beneath her. Two sets of guests. Two fake identities. Both of them circling the château like moths around a flame.

"Who are these people?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Luc looked at her for a long moment, and she had the uncomfortable feeling he was weighing something, deciding how much to tell her. Then he said, "I don't know yet. But whoever they are, they're not tourists. They're not even guests." He closed the tin box and set it back in the drawer. "They're players. And this—" he gestured to the empty space where the photograph had been, "—this was a move."

Élodie looked down at her hands. They had stopped shaking. What replaced the fear was something colder, harder. The photograph was gone. But she had the letters. She had her grandmother's words, still unread. And she had this man standing in her office, who seemed to know more than he was saying.

Surreptitiously, she glanced at Luc's face. He was looking out the window toward the overgrown path that led to the woods. Toward the place where Pierre said Antoine Moreau had last been seen, all those decades ago.

She wondered, suddenly, what else he knew. And whether she could trust him enough to find out.