Read Chapter 29: The Art Dealer

The gallery occupied the ground floor of a Haussmann building near the Place des Vosges, all polished brass and smoked glass. Through the window, Camille could see a dozen canvases arranged with surgical precision under track lighting—abstracts, mostly, in muted golds and deep blues that looked expensive without being interesting. That was the trick, she thought. Nothing too loud. Nothing that would make a buyer ask questions.

She smoothed the collar of her charcoal coat and walked in.

A young woman with a severe bun looked up from a chrome desk. Her smile was professional, calibrated. "Madame. May I help you?"

"I'm looking for Monsieur Delacroix." Camille let her gaze drift to a large canvas on the far wall. "I was told he represents private collectors. Discreetly."

The woman's smile tightened a fraction. "May I ask who referred you?"

"An associate in Le Havre." Camille let the words hang. She'd learned that vagueness worked better than a name—it made people fill in the blanks themselves, usually with what they wanted to hear.

Inside her bag, her phone vibrated once. Inès and Élodie were in position at the service entrance.

The receptionist hesitated, then lifted the phone on her desk. A whispered exchange. "Monsieur Delacroix will see you. This way."

The back office was smaller than the gallery, wallpapered in a deep burgundy that made the room feel like the inside of a jewel box. A man in his sixties rose from behind a mahogany desk. He had silver hair, a weathered face that might have been handsome thirty years ago, and the kind of soft hands that had never done manual labor.

"Madame—"

"Duval. Claire Duval." Camille extended her hand. His grip was cool and brief.

"Your associate in Le Havre." Delacroix's accent was refined, almost theatrical. "I don't recall sending any introductions."

"A mutual friend, then." Camille sat without being invited and crossed her legs. "I'm in the market for a particular piece. A Chagall. Circa 1928. I'm told you might know where one could be found. Unofficially."

Delacroix's eyebrows rose a millimeter. "Chagall is well documented. A work of that period would be in a museum or a major private collection."

"Which is precisely why I'm here." Camille smiled. "I need one that isn't."

The door behind Delacroix clicked. He didn't flinch, but his eyes moved past Camille for a fraction of a second. She kept her face neutral, but her pulse spiked. They'd found the office.

The room was soundproofed—she'd noted the thickness of the walls when she sat down. Whatever Inès and Élodie were doing in there, she couldn't hear it.

"Madame Duval," Delacroix said slowly, "you seem to misunderstand the nature of my business. I am a legitimate dealer. I serve collectors with provenance in order and taste in abundance. If you're looking for something... less documented, I'm afraid I can't help."

"I'm prepared to pay well." Camille named a figure that made Delacroix's left eye twitch, just barely. "And I'm prepared to pay for the introduction itself, whether or not we reach an agreement."

A long pause. Delacroix reached for a crystal decanter on his desk, poured two fingers of amber liquid into a glass, and didn't offer her any. He took a sip, letting her wait.

"Who exactly told you I could help with this?"

It was the question she'd been waiting for. They needed a name, a real one, to make him believe her. Their research had turned up a French-Russian dealer who'd vanished from the Paris scene in the late '90s—around the same time the smuggling operation had gone quiet. A man named Markov, who had once represented a gallery in Saint Petersburg. They'd found his name in Robert's folder, scrawled on a receipt for a painting that never appeared on any customs manifest.

"Markov," Camille said. "He said you were the man who could make things disappear properly. Or reappear, as the case may be."

Delacroix's face went still. For a moment, Camille thought she'd made a mistake. Then he laughed—a short, unpleasant sound. "Markov is dead."

"I heard he retired."

"Then you heard wrong." Delacroix set down his glass. "So did you, if you think an introduction from a corpse buys you credibility here."

Camille felt the ground shift beneath her. Markov was dead. That meant their only alive lead in the operation had just evaporated. She scrambled to keep her poise. "Dead or not, his name led me to you. And I have money to spend. The question isn't whether Markov vouched for me. The question is whether you want my business."

Delacroix studied her for a long moment. The phone on his desk buzzed. He glanced at it, and something flickered across his face—surprise, then calculation.

"Forgive me," he said, rising. "I must take this. Excuse me for a moment."

He left through the side door, closing it behind him. Camille waited until his footsteps faded before she pulled out her phone and texted the group chat.

*He's suspicious. What's your status?*

Three dots appeared. Then Élodie's reply: *We found the files. But there's a problem.*

Inès's message came through right after: *There's a safe in the floor. Locked. We're working on it.*

Camille typed back: *Work faster.*

She pocketed the phone and stood, moving to the bookshelf against the far wall to study the titles—art monographs, auction catalogues, a leather-bound set of something in Russian. Her fingers brushed a spine and the book moved. No. The bookshelf moved. There was a gap.

She slid the panel aside. A narrow corridor led deeper into the building, lit by a single bare bulb. She heard voices from the end of it.

"—two of them. Women. I don't know."

Delacroix's voice, lower now: "How many others?"

"Just the two. They're in the document room."

Delacroix said something Camille couldn't catch, then: "Lock the outer door. I'll deal with the buyer."

Camille's blood ran cold. They were locked in. She slid the panel back into place, returned to her chair, and was reaching for her phone when the door behind her opened.

Delacroix walked in, his smile back in place, but his eyes were different now. Colder. "Madame Duval. I'm afraid our conversation will have to end early. Some unfortunate business has come up."

He was too calm. Too controlled. He knew something was wrong. Camille forced herself to stay seated. "I understand. Perhaps we can reschedule—"

"No." He said it simply, like a door closing. "I don't think we will."

Two men in dark suits stepped in behind him. They moved without sound. Camille opened her mouth to speak, but one of them was already behind her, one hand gripping her shoulder, the other clamping over her mouth.

She heard her phone clatter to the floor.

Something sharp pricked her arm—a needle, piercing through her coat sleeve. She tried to twist away, but the grip held, and a wave of heat washed through her, followed by a slow, sweeping drowsiness.

The last thing she saw was Delacroix bending to pick up her phone, turning it over in his soft hands, and tapping the screen.

"Markov is dead because I killed him," he said, almost conversationally. "Now. Let's see who you really are."

The lights went out.

Camille came to on a hard floor, her wrists bound behind her with something thin and unforgiving—zip ties, probably. The room was small, windowless, lit by a single flickering fluorescent tube. Across from her, propped against the wall, Inès blinked awake. Élodie was beside them, still unconscious.

"Camille." Inès's voice was hoarse. "Where are we?"

"The back room." Camille's head pounded. "His men took us. We were in his office, and then—" She stopped. Her phone was gone. Her bag was gone.

"He knows who we are." A shudder ran through her. "He has my phone. He'll find everything. The ledger, the folder, the letters—everything."

Inès worked her jaw, testing the binds at her wrists. "Then we need to get out of here before he does."

Camille scanned the room. A metal table, two chairs, a single door with no visible handle. No windows. No phone. No way out.

From somewhere beyond the wall, she heard footsteps approaching.

"We're not getting out," she said quietly. "We're trapped."