Read Chapter 11: The Vanished Father

The knock came at nine in the morning, an efficient triple-tap that belonged in an office building, not a hospital ward. Camille had been dozing in the plastic chair beside Julien’s bed, her neck crooked at an angle that promised a day of stiffness. She had stayed. She had told herself it was clinical—observation after the cast application—but the truth was simpler. He had asked her to stay, and she had not known how to leave.

Julien stirred, his good arm reaching automatically for the nightstand before remembering where he was. The plaster cast on his right shoulder made him move like a man in slow motion, deliberate and angry.

“Who the fuck—” he started.

The door opened before Camille could answer. Marie entered with a man in a navy suit that looked expensive and out of place against the pale hospital walls. The man carried a slim leather portfolio and wore the expression of someone delivering bad news wrapped in professionalism.

“Julien,” Marie said, her voice softer than Camille had ever heard it. “This is Marc Delahaye. He’s a private investigator the club hired. After Vincent.”

Julien’s face went from confusion to something harder in a fraction of a second. Camille watched the transformation—the way his jaw tightened, how his eyes moved from Marie’s face to the stranger’s and immediately became flat and unreadable.

“I didn’t hire anyone,” he said.

“The club did. Eight years ago, when your father—” Marie stopped, glanced at Camille, then continued. “When Antoine disappeared. We never stopped looking.”

The investigator stepped forward, extending the portfolio. Julien didn’t take it. The man held it for a long moment before setting it gently on the foot of the bed.

“The trail goes cold in Barcelona, 2019,” Delahaye said. “He used a fake passport to cross into Andorra. After that, nothing. No bank activity, no medical records, no border crossings under any of the aliases we’ve identified. He’s either very good at hiding, or—” He paused. “Or he’s dead. I’m sorry. We have no other way to put it.”

Julien stared at the portfolio like it contained a snake. “Eight years,” he said slowly. “Eight years and this is what you come back with? He’s been gone eight years and you’ve got a passport stamp and a trip to Andorra?”

“Julien—” Marie began.

“No.” His voice cracked through the room like a whip. “No. I told you when he left, I told the club, I told everyone. He’s dead to me. He died the day Vincent did. Whatever happened to his body after that is not my business.”

Camille watched the muscles in his neck strain against the cast’s constraints. She had seen him angry—she had seen him shove her against a locker, had seen the red haze descend during matches. But this was different. This was a cold, contained fury that seemed to have been frozen for years and was only now beginning to thaw.

“The court—” Marie started.

“The court declared him dead two years ago. I was the one who signed the papers. I was the one who buried an empty coffin because that’s what you do when someone you love just stops existing.” Julien’s laugh was bitter, hollow. “So yes, legally, he’s dead. And emotionally, he’s dead. And now you’re telling me that a dead man might be alive in a tax haven. Provence my mother fucked off to, and now this. Great news. Wonderful. I feel so much better.”

The investigator cleared his throat, clearly wanting to be anywhere else. “I’ll leave the file. If you change your mind, everything we have is in there.”

He left without waiting for a response. Marie lingered by the door, her face a study in guilt and determination warring with each other.

“I should have told you sooner,” she said. “But we thought—we hoped—if we found him, you could have closure.”

Julien turned to face the wall. “The only closure I want is a season without my shoulder screaming at me. Take your file. Take your investigator. I’m done with this conversation.”

Marie looked at Camille, a question in her eyes. Camille gave a small nod—I’ll handle it—and Marie slipped out, closing the door softly behind her.

The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. Julien didn’t move, his face still turned to the wall. Camille waited. She had learned not to push him in these moments—the pressure only made him harder, more resistant. But she also couldn’t stay silent.

“He went to Andorra,” she said finally. “That’s not nothing.”

“That’s nothing,” Julien said, his voice muffled. “He was always running. When Vincent was alive, when Vincent was dying, when Vincent was dead. The man ran from everything. Andorra is just another place to hide.”

“Why did he leave?” Camille asked. It was a bold question. She felt the risk of it ripple through the air between them.

Julien was quiet for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he turned, slowly, his eyes red-rimmed but dry.

“Vincent’s death was ruled an accident. Brain bleed. Coaches should have caught it. Vincent said he had a headache before the match—my father was the coach that day. He was the assistant coach of the youth team. He knew Vincent was struggling and he let him play anyway.”

The words hung in the air like weights. Camille felt her throat tighten. She thought of her own brother, of the river, of all the things she had never been able to say to him.

“He blamed himself,” Julien continued. “He blamed himself so hard he couldn’t look at any of us anymore. Not me, not my mother. So he left. And my mother blamed herself too, but she stayed—she just did it badly.”

“That’s why you play,” Camille said softly. “That’s why you play through everything. Vincent’s injury was missed, so you’ll never let them miss yours. You have to prove that pain can be pushed through, because if he had just pushed through—” She stopped, seeing the recognition flicker in his eyes.

“Don’t,” Julien warned. “Don’t you dare psychoanalyze me, physio. You’re not my shrink.”

“No, I’m not,” Camille agreed. “But I see the pattern. You hate your father for leaving, but you’re doing the same thing. You’re hiding your injury from the club. You’re hiding your mother’s visit. You’re hiding me. You’ve been hiding for months.”

Julien laughed—a real laugh this time, surprised out of him. “You’re comparing me to Antoine? The man who abandoned his family and disappeared to a tax haven?”

“I’m saying that you’re both running. He ran from the weight of what happened. You’re running from the weight of what’s happening.” Camille stood, moving to the window. The morning sun was bright over the rooftops of Toulouse. “Vincent died because no one knew he was hurt. You’re going to end your career because no one knows you’re hurt. It’s not the same thing, but it rhymes.”

The file sat on the bed between them. Julien’s good hand reached for it, then stopped. He didn’t take it. But he didn’t push it away either.

“I haven’t told my mother about the shoulder,” he said quietly. “She’s coming to Toulouse tomorrow. I’m supposed to meet her for lunch.”

Camille turned to face him. “Are you going to?”

Julien was quiet for a long moment. Then, so softly she almost missed it: “I don’t know what kind of son I am anymore. Vincent’s death made me the son who stayed. But I’ve been gone for years too. Just in a different way.”

He lifted his eyes to meet hers, and for the first time since she’d known him, he looked genuinely lost.

“What do I do about her? She left. She came back. And now she wants to see me like none of it ever happened.”

Camille had no answer. She thought of her own secrets—the unaccredited degree, the journalist’s threat, the letter from Vincent that sat unopened in her apartment. She was a professional at hiding now, too.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I’ll be there if you want me to be.”

Julien’s smile was fragile, something that might break under direct sunlight. “You keep saying things like that.”

“Because I keep meaning them.”

He looked at the file again. His hand hovered over it. Then he picked it up, opened it, and began to read.