Read Chapter 7: The Fake Diploma

The email arrived at 7:14 a.m. Tuesday. Camille saw it on her phone while still in bed, the subject line reading simply: *Question regarding your credentials.*

She almost swiped it away. Spam. Phishing. Some nonsense from a LinkedIn bot.

Then she saw the sender: Julien Perrin, *La Dépêche du Midi.* Not the rugby columnist. The investigations desk.

She read it standing up, her heart doing something arrhythmic and unpleasant.

*Madame Roussel, I am preparing a profile piece on the medical staff of RC Montpellier and came across some documentation regarding the accreditation status of your physiotherapy degree from Université Paris Descartes. I would like to speak with you before publication. My schedule is flexible. Please reply at your earliest convenience.*

Accreditation status. The phrase sat in her stomach like a stone.

She typed a reply, deleted it. Typed another, deleted that too. Finally she sent: *I'm not sure what documentation you've seen. My degree is legitimate. Happy to discuss further this week.*

She hit send and immediately regretted the word *legitimate*. Innocent people didn't need to insist on it.

Camille made coffee she didn't drink. She showered, dressed, and drove to the club on autopilot, her mind cycling through the same loop: who had told him, how much did he have, what did *documentation* mean?

The answer arrived at 8:47 a.m., while she was in the treatment room with Theo, the club's second-row forward, working on a hamstring strain that wasn't healing as fast as it should.

Her phone buzzed. Julien Perrin again.

*I have seen a copy of your academic record, Madame Roussel. It appears your degree was never formally accredited by the French Ministry of Health. I understand this must be distressing. I want to give you the opportunity to tell your side of the story. I will be at Café de la Marine, near the port, at 6 p.m. this evening. If you do not come, I will publish what I have found.*

Camille's hands went cold on Theo's leg.

"You okay?" Theo asked, craning his neck to look at her.

"Fine." She forced a smile. "Just thirsty. Keep going, I'm listening."

She wasn't listening. She was remembering the apartment in Paris, the paperwork spread across the kitchen table, the knot in her stomach as she slid the documents across the counter to the man who assured her everything would be fine. The money she'd paid him. The diploma that arrived three weeks later, embossed and official-looking, identical to the ones her classmates had earned honestly through years of study and examination.

She'd been a different person then. Younger. More desperate.

The accreditation verification had never come up in Paris because she'd worked for a private clinic that didn't care. In Montpellier, with the club, Moreau had run a basic background check and apparently missed it. Or found it and decided to use it as leverage instead.

That thought made her sick.

She finished Theo's session mechanically, then locked herself in her office. The kit bag with Vincent's things sat on her bottom shelf. She stared at it for a long moment before pulling out her phone and calling Marie.

Marie arrived with two coffees and a worried face. She was the senior physio, a sturdy woman in her fifties who had seen everything and judged almost nothing.

"What's happened?" Marie asked, closing the door behind her.

Camille pushed the phone toward her, the email open on screen. Marie read it, then read it again. Her eyebrows climbed toward her hairline.

"This is bad."

"I know."

"How bad?"

Camille hesitated. "It's true. The degree. It might not be—" She stopped, pressed her fingers to her eyes. "There were complications. With the program. I finished all the coursework but there was a dispute about clinical hours. My advisor was supposed to sort it out and then he—he died. Suddenly. And I couldn't redo the hours because I couldn't afford to stop working, and I needed the paper to get the job—"

"Sweetheart." Marie set down her coffee. "Slow down. Are you saying you bought it?"

"No. Yes. God, Marie, I don't know. I paid someone to make the problem go away. He gave me documents that looked official. I never checked. I was too relieved to check."

Marie was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, "And the journalist has proof."

"He says he has documentation."

"Then you have a problem."

"I know I have a problem. The question is whether I can make it go away before he prints it." Camille's voice cracked. "Moreau would fire me in a second. He's already threatened me once. If he finds out about this—if Julien finds out—"

"Julien has been asking questions."

Camille looked up sharply. "What?"

"About you. Your background. Where you came from, how you got your training." Marie's face was careful, neutral. "He asked me yesterday. After training."

A cold wave moved through Camille's chest. "What kind of questions?"

"Casual ones. Seemed casual. Was asking whether I'd worked with you in Paris, whether you'd always been in physio, what school you went to."

"And you said?"

"I said I didn't know much about you. You kept your personal life close." Marie studied her. "He's suspicious of something, Camille. The two of you vanished together yesterday morning. Everyone saw it."

Camille's phone buzzed again. She glanced at it automatically—Julien, a text message.

*Still on for tomorrow morning? Pick you up at five.*

She stared at the words. Twelve hours earlier, the idea of him picking her up in the dark, taking her somewhere away from the club, had felt like a lifeline. Now it felt like a trap.

"Does he know?" she asked. "Does Julien know about my degree?"

"I don't think so. He was asking like someone who's curious, not someone who's got a file on you." Marie paused. "But he's asking. That's the point. Whatever is between you two, he's not just looking at you like a patient anymore. He's looking at you like a question he wants answered."

Camille picked up her coffee but didn't drink it. The café sat in her peripheral vision, the journalist waiting there in a few hours. The vineyard sat further away, where Julien had shown her his grief like a wound and she had shown him hers.

The letter sat in the kit bag on her shelf, unopened. The letter that might explain everything.

"Let me look into this journalist for you," Marie said. "See who he's written for before. Sometimes they bluff."

"And if he doesn't?"

Marie's face softened. "Then you decide what the story is before he does. You talk to him. You tell your version. Whatever happened in Paris, it doesn't change the fact that you're good at your job. That you've saved more careers than anyone at this club."

The words landed soft, but Camille felt them anyway, a warmth through her chest.

"Thank you," she said.

Marie squeezed her arm. "I should get back. There's a sprained ankle in room two."

She left. Camille sat in the silence, the afternoon light slanting through the blinds. Her phone buzzed again—Julien.

*You there? I know it's late notice. We don't have to talk. Just thought you might want to see the sunrise.*

She typed back: *I'll be ready.*

She sent it before she could think about what she was agreeing to.

Then she opened the bottom drawer and pulled out the kit bag. She lifted the scrum cap out, ran her thumb over the rough cloth of Vincent Roussel's name. The letter was still inside, stiff with age and water damage.

She held it for a long moment.

Then she heard footsteps in the hallway. She shoved the bag back into the drawer and was closing it when Olivier Moreau walked past her open door, glanced in, and stopped.

"Madame Roussel." His smile was pleasant and wrong. "I trust everything is in order?"

She smiled back, her heart hammering. "Everything is fine, President Moreau."

He held her gaze a beat too long. Then he nodded and continued down the corridor.

Camille watched him go, the burn of the unanswered question in her chest. The degree. The letter. The secret about the club's debt. The man she might share blood with.

In one day, every lie she'd been telling had started to surface at once.