Read Chapter 30: The Escape

The dealer’s hand moved toward the alarm beneath the counter before he even saw the police car. Camille caught the motion, read the panic in his tightening jaw, and stepped directly into his line of sight.

“Monsieur Delacroix,” she said, her voice flat and calm, the voice she used in depositions when the other side was about to crumble. “You have two choices right now. You can press that button, and the gendarmes who are already in your courtyard will break down your door in under a minute. Or you can step away from the counter, put your hands where we can see them, and let me explain to them exactly what we found in your back office.”

His fingers hovered over the polished oak. Behind him, through the half-open door to the workroom, Inès stood frozen with a stack of forged Provençal certificates in her arms. Élodie was already backing toward the alley entrance, her phone pressed to her ear, whispering instructions to dispatch.

“I don’t know what you think you found,” Delacroix said, with a smile that showed no teeth. “You broke into a private business. I have security footage. You’re the one who will be explaining yourselves.”

Camille tilted her head. “We didn’t break in. We were invited. Your assistant, the young woman with the green scarf—she let us into the gallery while you were in your consultation. We’ve been browsing for nearly an hour. She’ll testify to that.”

The smile flickered.

“And the documents we found,” Camille continued, stepping closer, years of courtroom habits carrying her forward. “They’re not just evidence of art fraud. They connect you to a smuggling operation that moved forged paintings through Normandy for two decades. They connect you to the disappearance of our father in 1996. And they connect you to a seventeen-year blackmail scheme run by one of your local contacts, who has already signed a full confession in exchange for immunity.”

Delacroix’s hand faltered. He wasn’t old, but his knuckles had the kind of sun damage that suggested years of Mediterranean yachts. Money. Old enough to have been a dealer in the nineties, young enough to still think he could outrun the past.

“You’re bluffing.”

“I’m a lawyer. I don’t bluff.” Camille slid her bag off her shoulder and pulled a copy of Robert Maurier’s settlement agreement from the inner pocket. She unfolded it slowly, letting the letterhead catch the light. “That’s a notarized document from Le Havre. The name of your contact is redacted, but the court that processes this will have his testimony on file. And inside the folder you were kind enough to keep in alphabetical order, we found invoices with your letterhead signed in your own hand.”

His eyes darted to the back office door. Inès took a step forward, hugging the papers to her chest like a shield.

“You bankrupted my mother,” Inès said, her voice cracking but firm. “You made her life a nightmare. You took our father.” She swallowed. “You can tell it to the police now, or you can tell it to a jury later. Either way, you’re done.”

The alarm button was four inches from Delacroix’s fingertip. Camille held her breath.

Behind her, Élodie pressed her phone flat against her thigh and mouthed: *Two minutes.*

Delacroix looked at Camille. He looked at Inès. Then he looked past them at the front windows of his gallery, where the street was quiet, empty, expensive, and he began to compute the cost of his life falling apart in public.

He pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

He pressed again. A dead click.

Camille smiled. “The gendarmerie disconnected your alarm from the local exchange when they set up their perimeter. We’ve been watching you for three days, monsieur. We knew about the gallery. We knew about the accounts. We knew about the shipment schedule to the port of Le Havre that Robert Maurier described in his testimony. What we didn’t know until tonight was whether you’d go quietly.”

The front door opened. Two gendarmes in dark uniforms filled the doorway, and behind them a third, a captain with sharp eyes and a thin mustache, stepped inside with the unhurried confidence of a man who had already read the file.

“Monsieur Delacroix,” the captain said, showing his badge. “You’re under arrest for fraud, forgery, and criminal association in connection with an international art trafficking ring. You have the right to remain silent.”

Delacroix’s hands went behind his back without argument. As the gendarme clicked the cuffs in place, he turned his head toward Camille, and for a moment his face lost its practiced calm.

“Your father,” he said quietly. “You don’t know what you’re saving. Some men don’t want to be found.”

Camille held his gaze. “He was—is—a victim of what you did. And we’ll find him.”

The captain nodded to his men, and they led Delacroix out through the front door, past the rows of carefully curated fakes, past the silk draperies and the brass lamps that had once been legitimate, into the night air of Paris. A patrol car idled at the curb. The back door opened. He got in.

Élodie exhaled and let her phone drop to her side. Inès set the stack of papers on the counter and buried her face in her hands.

Camille walked to the window and watched the patrol car pull away. The street was quiet again, the city indifferent to another perp walk in another expensive neighborhood. But for the first time since their mother’s funeral, she felt the knot in her chest loosen.

“He talked about Dad,” Élodie said, her voice small.

“He knows where he is,” Inès said. “He knows more than he said.”

Camille turned away from the window. The folder from the back office sat open on the counter. Beneath the invoices and shipping manifests lay a slim, leather-bound journal with worn corners and a faded gold embossed name.

Their father’s name.

“The police will hold his evidence,” Camille said. “But they’ll let us see what belongs to our family. We finish this. Together.”

Inès looked up. Her face was wet, but her eyes were steady.

“Let’s go home,” she said. “Let’s find the last page.”