Read Chapter 6: The Debt Collector

The knock came at ten in the morning, but it wasn't the polite rap of a courier or the tentative tap of a neighbor. It was the flat, commanding pound of someone who expected the door to open.

Camille set down her coffee cup and crossed her small apartment to the peephole. Through the warped glass, she saw a man in a charcoal suit, trimmed beard, and sunglasses despite the overcast Paris sky. Behind him, a younger man in a black jacket stood with his hands clasped in front of him like a sentinel.

She knew the suit. She knew the posture. She'd seen Julien Vasseur's associate, Marcel, at gallery openings, always hovering near the exits, never speaking to anyone but his employer.

She opened the door a crack.

"Mademoiselle Moreau." Marcel didn't smile. "Monsieur Vasseur requests a word."

"Requests," Camille repeated. "That's a strong word for a man who sends his security to my apartment."

Marcel's mouth tightened almost imperceptibly. "He said you would prefer discretion to a visit at your place of work."

Camille's jaw tensed. Julien knew she was on thin ice at the gallery after the failed exhibition two months prior. The one that had cost her employer money and cost her a reputation she was still rebuilding. A visit there now, with a debt collector at her side, would end her.

She unlatched the door and stepped aside. "Five minutes."

Marcel gestured for the younger man to wait in the hall, then entered alone. He didn't sit when she offered. Instead, he produced a folded envelope from his inner pocket and held it out.

"What is this?"

"Your outstanding balance with Galerie Vasseur."

Camille took the envelope but didn't open it. "I don't have an outstanding balance with—

"From your exhibition in March. The rental of the annex space. The transport of pieces. The catalog printing. The promotional materials. The opening reception. The damages to the east wall when the installation was removed."

Camille's stomach dropped. "Those invoices were submitted to my gallery. My employer handled—

"Your employer declined to pay. He cited your personal guarantee on the rental agreement."

The words hit like a slap. Camille opened the envelope with shaking fingers. The figure at the bottom of the page was damning: eight thousand four hundred euros plus accrued interest.

"I never signed a personal guarantee."

"You initialed the addendum." Marcel produced a second sheet—a photocopy of a contract page, her initials CM in the margin beside a paragraph of dense legalese. She recognized the document. She'd been distracted that day, rushing between phone calls, and Julien had slid the addendum across his desk with a reassuring smile. "Standard procedure," he'd said. "Just confirms liability for the space."

She'd initialed without reading.

Her throat tightened. "I don't have this money."

"That is not Monsieur Vasseur's concern." Marcel's voice was flat, patient, rehearsed. "He extends his sympathies, of course. He knows your situation is difficult. Which is why he offers a solution."

Camille looked up sharply. "A solution."

"He is willing to waive the debt entirely if you provide him with a single service."

"Service."

"You have access to certain materials, I believe." Marcel paused. "From your grandmother's house. Letters. Diaries. Photographs."

Camille's blood went cold. "What does Julien want with my grandmother's things?"

"He is a collector of historical artifacts. Your grandmother corresponded with figures of some note, I understand. Artists. Writers."

"Nonsense. My grandmother kept recipe cards and old newspapers."

"She kept more than that, and you know it." Marcel's eyes flicked to the stack of books on her table, where the diary sat face down beneath a folder she'd forgotten to move. "Monsieur Vasseur is prepared to be generous. The debt forgiven, plus a finder's fee for anything of interest."

Camille stepped toward the door. "Get out."

"Mademoiselle—

"I said get out."

Marcel didn't move. He looked at her with something approaching pity. "Mademoiselle Moreau, forgive my bluntness, but you are not in a position to refuse. The debt is valid. The contract is signed. If payment is not received by the end of the month, Monsieur Vasseur will be forced to pursue legal remedies."

"You mean you'll take me to court."

"I mean we will file a claim against your wages and your assets. Your apartment. Your savings. Whatever else you possess." He tilted his head. "I understand you have been considering traveling to the Marais. A studio address a friend shared with you. It would be unfortunate if your circumstances prevented you from pursuing your interests."

Camille's breath caught. So Julien knew more than she'd realized. He knew she had the address. He knew she hadn't gone yet.

"The end of the month," Marcel repeated. "Monsieur Vasseur is confident you'll make the right decision."

He let himself out. The younger man in the black jacket closed the door behind them. Camille stood in the center of her apartment, the envelope crumpled in her fist, and listened to their footsteps fade down the stairs.

She didn't move for a long time.

When she finally did, she walked to the table and picked up the diary. Marguerite's handwriting, faded but legible, stared up at her from an open page:

*He told me his brother's name was Édouard, but when I pressed him for the story of how Édouard died, his face changed. He said it was a debt, not a death. A debt owed by their family, passed like an heirloom from one generation to the next. I asked what kind of debt could survive a century. He didn't answer.*

Camille read the passage three times. A debt that survived a century. Passed from one generation to the next.

Was that what this was? Her grandmother had seen the pattern. She'd written about the painter's curse—how he was taken from everyone he loved. How his mother had lost him, his brother had lost him. How Marguerite herself had lost him when he disappeared in 1901, only to surface in a death certificate dated 1905 that the man in the photograph clearly contradicted.

Camille flipped through the diary, searching for another mention of the debt. Near the end of the entries, she found a passage she'd barely skimmed the night before:

*I asked what Édouard owed. He said nothing—not anymore. Édouard had paid in full. But there was another, he said. Someone who still carried the debt. Someone who would come for him one day, when the time was right, to collect what was owed.*

*I asked who. He said he didn't know the face, only the name.*

*The name was mine.*

Camille closed the diary.

Her phone buzzed on the table. She ignored it. It buzzed again. She picked it up and saw her mother's name on the screen.

"Isabelle," she answered, her voice hoarse.

"Camille." Her mother's tone was clipped, businesslike. "I received your message about the attic."

"You did."

"I told you to leave it alone."

"You also told me the photo was just 'someone who looked like Grandfather.' You knew it wasn't."

A long pause. Then: "You've found something."

It wasn't a question.

Camille considered lying. She considered telling her mother nothing and hanging up. But the debt hung over her like a guillotine blade, and she had no money, no options, and no idea where the silver key belonged. If her mother knew anything about the box the key was meant to open, Camille needed to find out.

"There's a diary," Camille said carefully. "Grandmother's. She wrote about a man. A painter."

Her mother was silent for so long Camille checked the call was still connected.

"Marguerite always had a vivid imagination," her mother said at last. "She told me stories when I was a girl. I never believed them."

"Stories about what?"

"About a man who couldn't die." Her mother's voice had gone strange, almost dreamlike. "About a bargain she made to keep him safe. About how her bloodline would always be bound to his, no matter how far we ran."

Camille gripped the phone. "Bound how?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" Her mother's voice sharpened again. "She never told me what she traded. But whatever it was, she said it would come due." A pause. "Camille, are you in trouble?"

Camille looked at the envelope on the table. Eight thousand four hundred euros. A deadline at the end of the month. A gallery owner who wanted her grandmother's papers, and a painter with no history who looked exactly like a man who should have died a century ago.

"No," Camille lied. "I'm fine."

"Don't lie to me. I'm your mother. I know when you're—

"I'll call you later, Maman." Camille hung up before her mother could argue.

She stood in her apartment for another minute. Then she walked to the closet, pulled out her coat, and reached for her keys.

The end of the month was three weeks away. She didn't have three weeks to solve a century-old mystery. She had three weeks to find something worth more than eight thousand euros, or she'd lose everything her grandmother had left her.

The diary rode in her bag as she locked the door behind her.

The studio address in the Marais was folded in her pocket.

She chose the studio.