Read Chapter 13: The Broker's List

The café was called Chez Marcel, a cramped hole-in-the-wall with a zinc bar worn slick by generations of elbows. Camille arrived twenty minutes late, having circled the block twice to check for tails. The place smelled of stale coffee and Gauloises, and the lunch crowd had thinned to a few old men nursing pastis.

Étienne sat in the back corner, his face half-hidden behind a copy of *Le Monde*. He looked different in daylight—younger than she’d expected, the sharp angles of his jaw softened by a day’s growth of stubble. When she slid into the booth across from him, he folded the paper without looking up.

“You’re late,” he said.

“I had to make sure I wasn’t being followed. Your people, or the ring’s?”

“Tonight?” He set the paper aside. “No one. But you’re right to be careful, especially now that Le Corbeau has your face.”

Camille ordered a coffee she didn’t need. Her hands were steady, but the adrenaline from the warehouse and the catacombs had curdled into something sharper—suspicion, maybe, or the beginning of trust against her better judgment. She pulled a folded notecard from her jacket. On it, she’d copied the names from Élodie’s notebook, cross-referenced with the insurance claims ledger she’d stolen back from her tampered office.

“The broker,” she said, sliding the card across the table. “Élodie’s notes mention him four times, always initials. ‘P.L.’ I checked the claims registry for high-value pieces handled in the last eighteen months. Three collectors, all hit by thefts that were later proven to be forgeries swapped for originals.”

Étienne glanced at the card but didn’t touch it. “P.L. Philippe Legrand.”

“You know him.”

“Everyone in my line knows him. He runs a quiet gallery in the Sixth but does most of his business from a private office above a print shop on Rue de Seine. He’s the middleman between collectors who want to be anonymous and thieves who want to be paid.”

“Then he’s the one connecting all the victims,” Camille pressed. “The Auvray memo, the Fragonard in Élodie’s apartment—the inventory codes match a source inside the authentication lab. Legrand could be that source’s buyer.”

Étienne leaned back, studying her with an expression she couldn’t read. “You think it’s that simple?”

“No.” She had learned that much about this world in the past week. Nothing was simple. “But it’s a thread. And right now, it’s the only one that might pull something loose.”

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he reached into his jacket and produced a folded bank statement, creased along lines that suggested it had been read many times. He slid it toward her but kept his fingers on the edge.

“Legrand’s accounts,” he said. “I have a source inside his bank. He moves money in interesting patterns—always at the end of the month, always in round figures. Five transfers, each one exactly seventy-two hours after a major theft in Paris.”

Camille scanned the statement. The names on it meant nothing to her, but one entry caught her eye. “This one. Four days ago, a transfer to a holding account under the name Delacroix.”

“Not the painter,” Étienne said dryly. “Gérard Delacroix. Industrialist. Lives in Neuilly. Keeps a private collection he’s never registered—mostly works his father acquired during the war. He’s about to inherit a Fragonard from an estate in Lyon, but he’s been quietly shopping for one to fill the gap in his gallery.”

“He’s a buyer for stolen art?”

“He’s a collector who doesn’t ask questions.” Étienne tapped the statement. “Legrand met with him yesterday. If you want access to Legrand, Delacroix is your way in. The broker is hosting a private viewing at Delacroix’s home tonight. A small gathering—buyers, sellers, no one official. You want to meet the broker on his territory, that’s your chance.”

Camille’s coffee arrived. She wrapped her hands around the cup, letting the warmth seep into her palms. “You’re offering to get me in?”

“I’m telling you the door exists. Whether you can walk through it is another matter.”

“I’ll need a cover.”

“You’re a private buyer from Geneva,” Étienne said. “Recently widowed, looking to fill your late husband’s gallery with works that have ‘history.’ You have money to burn and don’t want it traced.” He slid a business card across the table. The name on it read *Claire Dubois*.

Camille picked it up. “I’m Swiss now?”

“You’re whatever I say you are. But you’ll need the details right if you’re going to pull this off—accent, backstory, why you’re in Paris for only one week and insist on seeing provenance documents before you spend millions.”

She studied him. "You have this prepared?"

"I have a lot of things prepared." He said it without bravado, which made her believe him. "I've been hunting Legrand for six months. He's careful. He doesn't slip. But a buyer who's willing to pay above market for stolen goods? He will show you everything if you're persuasive enough."

There was something in his tone—a note she couldn't quite place. "You've dealt with him before."

"Not the way I want to." He met her eyes, and for a moment she saw something beneath the professional sheen—anger, maybe, or grief. "He laundered a piece through my network once, years ago. A Fragonard that should have stayed buried. The woman who brought it to me ended up dead three weeks later. The police ruled it an accident. Legrand didn't have to kill her himself. He had people for that."

The café felt suddenly smaller. Camille set the card down carefully, as if it might bite.

"So this is personal for you."

"Everything is personal eventually." He drained his espresso and stood, dropping a few euros on the table. "Eight o'clock. The Delacroix residence, 42 Boulevard Victor-Hugo. Wear something dark enough to be grief-stricken but expensive enough to be taken seriously. Don't wear your locket."

Camille's hand moved instinctively to her collar. She hadn't shown it to him, not once in the past two days—but he knew it existed.

"When you come back out," he added, "tell me if it's still on your neck."

He was gone before she could answer.

Camille sat alone with the cooling coffee and the business card, which now felt like a promise and a trap at the same time. She pulled out her phone, still compromised, and texted her partner at the insurance firm to say she was investigating a dead end. Then she deleted the message.

The Delacroix mansion sat behind iron gates in Neuilly, a Haussmannian façade that had been updated with discreet security cameras and a man in a plain suit who greeted each arriving guest with a practiced smile. Camille stepped out of the taxi in a borrowed black dress that had cost her—or rather, Claire Dubois—more than she'd ever spent on clothing. The pearls around her throat were paste, but they caught the light well enough.

She gave the man the name on the card. He checked a leather-bound ledger, nodded, and led her up the steps.

Inside, the house was all marble and dim gold light, the walls crowded with canvases that should have been in museums. Camille's training kicked in automatically—she catalogued the pieces as she walked: a small Degas bronzer, a Manet sketch, something that looked like a Bonnard but was probably a copy. The real works would be in the private rooms, shown only to serious buyers.

She found Philippe Legrand in the library, nursing a brandy and holding court beside a landscape she recognized from a theft report three years ago. He was smaller than she'd expected—a compact man in his sixties with silver hair and a face that offered nothing but practiced charm. When she approached, he turned his full attention to her as if she were the only person in the room.

"Madame Dubois," he said, extending a hand. "I heard you arrived from Geneva today. You must be tired."

"Not too tired to appreciate good company and better art."

His smile warmed—or seemed to. "You heard about the Fragonard, then. You've come to see it?"

"I've come to see what's worth seeing." She matched his tone, letting the Swiss vowels she'd practiced soften her French. "My husband always said the real pieces never make it into the catalog."

Legrand's eyes flickered with something—assessment, maybe, or greed. "Your husband had taste."

"He had money and poor judgment. The taste was mine." She let her gaze drift to the landscape on the wall. "Is that the Fragonard?"

"Not yet. That"—he gestured toward a door at the far end of the library—"is through there. But I should warn you, Madame Dubois, provenance for such pieces is often... complicated."

Camille smiled. "Provenance is only complicated for people who have something to hide. I'm simply looking for a beautiful painting. If the paperwork is clean, I'm happy to pay for discretion."

Legrand studied her for a long moment. Then he set down his brandy.

"Come," he said. "I think I have something you'll like."

He led her toward the door, and behind her, she caught a glimpse of a security guard in the hall—a familiar set to his shoulders, a way of standing that tugged at something in her memory. But the door was opening, and Legrand was waiting, and she had a role to play.