Read Chapter 22: A Desperate Contact

Camille sat on the edge of Victor’s hotel bed, phone in her hand, the screen dark. The silence in the room was thick enough to choke on. Victor stood by the window, watching the harbor lights flicker below, his back to her. He hadn’t pressed her about the badge again. He didn’t need to. The weight of his unproven story hung between them like a third person in the room.

“I have a name,” she said. “Someone who might know about the tooling. The carvings. The way the fake was aged.”

Victor turned. “Who?”

“My mentor’s protégé. Laurent Dubois. He took over the atelier after Jean-Pierre died. He’s the only one who inherited the full catalog of molds and casting techniques—including the ones used for Falk’s commission pieces.”

“And you trust him?”

Camille exhaled. “I trust his craft. He’s obsessive. He keeps records of everything—every mold, every chisel, every scrap of gold dust that goes through his workshop. If someone made a fake that good, they either used Jean-Pierre’s original tooling or replicated it so perfectly that only a madman would notice the difference.”

“That madman being you.”

“That madman being me,” she agreed. She stood, pocketing the phone. “But I can’t call him from my number. The police flagged my line. They’re probably tracing any ping near my apartment.”

Victor handed her a burner phone from the nightstand. “Then use this.”

She took it, hesitated. “If I call him, I have to tell him enough to make him listen. He’ll know something’s wrong. But I can’t tell him everything.”

“Tell him the truth about the commission. Not about us. Not about Lidia.”

Camille nodded and dialed. The line rang four times before a groggy voice answered. “Who is this? It’s nearly midnight.”

“Laurent, it’s Camille Laurent.”

A pause. Then, sharper: “Camille? The police were here this afternoon. They asked about you. About your work with Falk’s pieces. I told them I hadn’t seen you in months, which is true, but they didn’t look convinced.”

“I know. I need you to not tell them I called.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I need you to look at something for me. Something that was made using Jean-Pierre’s tooling. And I think you’ll want to see it before you decide who to believe.”

Another pause, longer this time. She heard the creak of a bed, the shuffle of feet. Laurent was getting up. Good.

“What kind of something?”

“A pendant. A replica of the Celestine. But the tooling marks—the inner filigree, the way the clasp was crimped—it’s too clean. Machine-level clean. Jean-Pierre never worked that way, not even on his most precise pieces. But there’s a signature style in the bezel setting that I’ve only ever seen in his presentation sets. The ones he made for Falk.”

Laurent was quiet for so long she thought he’d hung up. Then: “You’re talking about the 2014 series. The private commission.”

Camille’s chest tightened. “You know about it.”

“I wasn’t supposed to. Jean-Pierre kept a separate ledger for that one. I only found it after he died, tucked in the back of the safe. He’d written notes in the margins. About the carving method. The micro-grooves. He said it was ‘ready for reproduction’—which was strange, because he never intended to replicate Falk’s pieces. He considered them cursed.”

“Cursed how?”

“He didn’t say. But he wrote something else. A name. Or a place.” Laurent’s voice dropped. “He called it ‘the nest above the clouds.’ I always thought it was a metaphor. A poetic way of saying he wanted to forget the whole affair.”

Camille’s pulse quickened. She looked at Victor, who was watching her with an unreadable expression. “The mountains,” she said. “Above Monaco. Is there a workshop up there? Somewhere out of the way?”

“There’s an old stone building about forty minutes up the Col de la Madone. My father used to point to it when I was a kid. Said the hermit jeweler lived there. No one ever saw him come down, but sometimes the smoke from the chimney would go all night, and you’d hear tapping. Hammering. Very late.”

“Do you know if anyone’s used it recently?”

“I don’t know. But if you’re asking, I’m guessing you already have your answer.” Laurent paused. “Camille, whatever this is—be careful. The police don’t flag someone like you unless someone powerful made them do it.”

“I know.”

“And Camille?”

“Yes?”

“If you find the nest, bring me proof. I want to close Jean-Pierre’s ledger properly.”

She promised she would and ended the call. The room felt colder now. Victor moved closer, arms crossed.

“Well?”

“There’s a workshop in the hills. Above the Col de la Madone. A hermit jeweler’s place. Jean-Pierre knew about it—or at least, he wrote about it in his private ledger. Laurent says it was called ‘the nest above the clouds.’ If Lidia’s forger used that place, the real pendant might still be in Monaco. Or close to it.”

Victor’s jaw tightened. “She wouldn’t keep it local. Too risky.”

“That’s exactly what she’d want us to think.” Camille’s mind raced. “Lidia’s whole game has been misdirection. She sent me to a decoy location. She made the police think I’m the thief. She let us find that silk thread—she knew it would lead us to her. She’s playing with us, Victor. She wants us chasing the pendant out of the country so she can move it somewhere else entirely.”

“Or she wants us to find the workshop and walk into a trap.”

“Maybe.” Camille pocketed the burner phone. “But if the fake was made up there, the real one might be too. A forger doesn’t just make a copy—they study the original. They hold it. They compare it under light. If Pierre created the Celestine replica, he had access to the real pendant at some point. And if he has access, he might know where it went after.”

Victor held her gaze. “You want to drive up there tonight.”

“I want to drive up there before Lidia realizes we’ve connected it. She thinks we’re still chasing the tunnel. Every hour we waste is an hour she gets further ahead.”

Victor was already reaching for his jacket. “I’ll drive. You watch the road. If we’re being followed, I need you to spot them before they spot us.”

They moved through the hotel’s back exit, into the damp night air. The cobblestone streets of Monaco glittered under the streetlamps, but the moment they headed up the winding coastal road, the city fell away, replaced by the dark bulk of the mountains. The headlights carved a narrow path through the switchbacks, and Camille kept her eyes on the rearview mirror.

Nothing followed. Not yet.

After twenty minutes of silence, the road narrowed to a single lane, and the GPS signal began to stutter. Victor killed the headlights and let the car coast to a stop beside a low stone wall.

“We walk from here,” he said.

Camille stepped out into the cold mountain air. High above, she could just make out the silhouette of a building—small, stone, with a single chimney. No smoke rose from it. No lights burned in the windows.

But as they started up the rocky path, she saw it: a faint orange glow flickering behind a shuttered window on the ground floor. Someone was inside.

Victor saw it too. He put a finger to his lips and drew the small pistol from his inside jacket pocket—the first time she’d seen him arm it. Camille’s throat went dry.

“Stay behind me,” he whispered. “And if I tell you to run, you run.”

They crept closer, boots crunching on loose gravel. When they reached the door, Victor tested the handle. It turned. He pushed it open slowly, and the glow from inside spilled across the threshold.

The workshop was everything Camille had imagined and worse. Workbenches lined the walls, cluttered with crucibles, polishing wheels, casting flasks. Sheets of gold leaf hung from hooks like drying laundry. In the center of the room, under a single hanging bulb, sat a man—old, stooped, his hands black with grime and silver dust. He looked up as they entered, and his eyes widened, but not with fear.

With recognition.

“Camille Laurent,” he said, his voice cracked and dry. “I was wondering when you’d find me. Your mentor spoke of you often. Said you’d be the one to come looking, if anyone ever did.”

Camille stepped forward, her heart hammering. “Who are you?”

The old man smiled, and there was something broken in it. “My name is Pierre. And I made your fake pendant.” He gestured to a workbench behind him. “But I didn’t make it alone.”