Read Chapter 26: The Blackmailer

The bakery smelled of butter and burned sugar, the morning batch already cooling on wire racks behind the counter. Robert Maurier was wiping his hands on a flour-dusted apron when the bell chimed and the three sisters filed in, one after another, filling the narrow shop with the weight of their shared purpose.

His smile faltered when he saw Camille. Then Inès. Then Élodie, bringing up the rear like a quiet storm.

“Mesdames,” he said, recovering quickly. “What a pleasure. Can I get you something? The pain au chocolat is still warm.”

Camille placed both hands flat on the glass counter. The display case held neat rows of golden pastries, careful arrangements, the kind of order that suggested a man who liked control.

“We’re not here for bread, Robert.”

He blinked, his round face rearranging itself into something more careful. “Oh?”

“The ledger,” Inès said. Her voice was steady, but Camille could feel the tremor beneath it. “The one that records your monthly payments from our mother. Seventeen years, if I’m reading it correctly.”

The bakery fell silent. A radio played softly in the back room—some chanson about lost love—and Robert reached over and turned it off. The absence of music made the space feel smaller, hotter.

He took his time drying his hands on the apron. Then he untied it, folded it with deliberate care, and set it on the counter.

“I thought you might come,” he said. “After everything with Lefèvre.”

Camille felt the floor shift beneath her. *Everything with Lefèvre.* The notary had confessed at the cemetery yesterday afternoon. Word traveled fast in a town this size, but not that fast. Unless Robert had his own reasons to be watching.

“How did you know about that?” Élodie asked, voicing what Camille was already calculating.

Robert smiled—not the warm smile he offered his customers, but a thinner thing. “I’ve been watching this family for a long time. Your mother taught me that. Always know what’s coming before it arrives.”

He gestured toward the back of the shop. “We shouldn’t do this in front of the window. Come through.”

The sisters exchanged glances. Inès shook her head slightly—*don’t*—but Camille was already moving. If Robert wanted privacy, that meant he had something to say that he didn’t want overheard. That was leverage. And leverage was what they needed.

The back room was cramped: a small desk buried under invoices, a coffee machine, a calendar with dates circled in red ink. Robert gestured to three folding chairs. None of them sat.

“You were blackmailing her,” Camille said. Flat. A statement, not a question.

Robert’s jaw tightened. He poured himself a coffee from the machine, took a long sip, and set the cup down with a *clink* that felt like punctuation.

“I was protecting myself,” he said. “That’s what you need to understand. For years, your mother and I—we had an arrangement. She needed someone who knew how to keep a secret. I needed someone who could help me when the business went through hard times.”

“Help you?” Inès stepped forward. “The ledger shows you took money from her. Every month. For seventeen years. That’s not help, Robert—that’s extortion.”

He held up both hands. “Let me finish. Let me tell you what she was doing before you start throwing around words like *extortion*.”

The sisters waited. Camille could feel her heart beating against her ribs, a slow, heavy rhythm.

“You know about the smuggling,” Robert said. “Lefèvre told you that much. But what he didn’t tell you—what your mother never let anyone know—was that she wasn’t just moving art. She was *using money from this bakery* to do it.”

Camille blinked. “What?”

“I was her partner for twenty years,” Robert said. “The business was mine, but your mother had a key to the accounts. She was clever, your mother. She never took so much that it would be noticed in a single month. But over time—well. Let’s just say she was keeping the shop afloat with money that wasn’t entirely hers. She was skimming from me to pay her suppliers, her contacts, the people who moved her paintings across borders. And when she got out—when your father left—she found herself short. I discovered what she’d been doing. I confronted her.”

He paused, letting the weight of it settle.

“And she offered you money to keep quiet,” Élodie said quietly. “You blackmailed her into silence.”

“I protected myself,” Robert repeated. “She was the one who’d broken the law. She was the one who’d stolen from me. I asked for compensation, not revenge.” He spread his hands. “We had an agreement. She paid. I stayed silent. Everyone went home alive.”

“Except our father,” Camille said. Her voice came out sharper than she intended. “He didn’t go home.”

Robert’s face flickered. Something passed through his eyes—a shadow, a calculation—before he smoothed it away.

“Your father’s disappearance was your mother’s doing,” he said carefully. “Not mine. I had nothing to do with the smuggling ring’s internal affairs. I was just the baker who knew too much.”

Camille studied him. There was something too rehearsed about the way he said it, too neat. *I was just the baker.* A man who’d spent seventeen years extracting payments from a woman who’d driven her own husband into hiding, and he wanted to play the victim.

“What did you know about our father?” she asked. “Before he left. What did she tell you?”

Robert’s coffee cup hovered near his mouth. He set it down without drinking.

“She told me he was getting too close to the truth. That he wanted out, and that when he went to the authorities—” He stopped, as if weighing his words.

“When he went to the authorities?” Inès prompted, her voice dangerously low.

“I’m not saying he did go,” Robert said quickly. “I’m saying your mother was afraid he would. She was afraid he’d give her up to save himself. And she was afraid of the people she was working with—the ones she owed money to. And I think—” He hesitated again. “I think she may have made a choice to protect herself. You’d have to ask her. But she’s dead now, isn’t she?”

The silence that followed was thin and cold.

Camille thought of the letters in her apartment. The warm words, the descriptions of camellias blooming by the garden wall, the little sketches of the coast. All of it, now, with this new shadow cast over it.

“You were blackmailing her until the day she died,” Élodie said. “And you’re standing here pretending you’re the aggrieved party.”

Robert turned to her, his face hardening. “I’m standing here telling you that your mother owed me. I kept her secret—I kept all of you safe. If I’d gone to the police about the embezzling, she would have gone to prison. You would have grown up with a mother in a cell. Is that what you wanted?”

“What we wanted,” Camille said slowly, “was a family that didn’t lie to us.”

Robert’s smile returned—thin, practiced, without warmth. “Well. We all want things we can’t have.”

He walked to a drawer in his desk, unlocked it, and pulled out a thick folder. He set it on the desk between them with a sound like a door closing.

“Your mother owed me for this year’s payments. She was behind—she’d been behind for months, actually. The business wasn’t doing as well as she’d hoped, and she’d been trying to sell pieces of the estate to cover it.”

“The estate?” Camille’s stomach dropped. “The land? The house?”

“She was in discussions with a developer about the western parcel,” Robert said. “I don’t know if she ever signed. But I know she was desperate.” He tapped the folder. “This folder contains records of her embezzling. Bank statements, invoices, her personal notes about the operation. If this came to light—even now, after her death—the estate would be seized. You’d lose everything. The house. The land. Everything.”

Camille stared at him. “What do you want?”

Robert smiled, and for the first time it reached his eyes. It was not a kind smile.

“I want the inheritance,” he said. “All of it. The house, the land, every cent your mother left behind. I’ll take the estate in lieu of what she owed me, and we’ll call it even. Otherwise, I go to the police with what I have, and the estate gets seized anyway. Only difference is, you’ll all have to live with the shame of knowing your mother was a thief as well as a smuggler.”

The words hung in the air, viscous and corrosive.

Élodie made a sound like a wounded animal. Inès’s face had gone pale. Camille felt the room tilt around her, the familiar vertigo of control slipping away, but she forced her shoulders back.

“You can’t do this,” she said.

Robert picked up his coffee cup and took a sip, watching her over the rim.

“I already have,” he said. “The question is what you’re going to do about it.”