Read Chapter 18: The Name on the Paper

The paper trembled in Élodie’s hand, the ink old and brown but the name unmistakable, written in Céleste’s careful, elegant script: *François Vautour.*

“François,” Julien repeated, his voice barely above a whisper. He leaned over her shoulder, his breath warm against her cheek. “Not Auguste. My great-grandmother’s notes always mention François as the founder, the man who built this house. But my family records say he died in 1901, a year before Céleste vanished.”

“Then he wasn’t dead,” Élodie said. She looked up from the slip of paper to the dim expanse of the stage around them. The ghostly rehearsal had long since faded, leaving only dust motes drifting in the single work light Julien had set up. “Or he was alive long enough to do something to her.”

Julien took the paper from her, handling it like it might burn him. His jaw tightened as he traced the name with his thumb. “My grandmother always spoke of the Vautour family with a strange bitterness, but she never said why. I assumed it was just the usual artist-versus-management feud. Now I wonder how much she knew.”

“Your grandmother? Céleste’s daughter?” Élodie asked.

“Her granddaughter, actually. Céleste was my great-grandmother. My grandmother was her daughter, Marguerite.” Julien’s voice caught. “She died when I was twelve, but I remember her telling me that some doors in this theater should stay closed. I never understood what she meant until now.”

The theater creaked around them, a sound like old bones settling. Élodie felt the locket warm against her chest, a low pulse of heat that had become as familiar as her own heartbeat. Since the hospital, since she’d woken with Céleste’s voice lodged in her skull, the locket had begun to feel less like jewelry and more like a living thing. It wanted something. It was pulling her somewhere.

“We have to confront Vautour,” she said. “Édouard. He’s the current manager, François’s descendant. If his family did something to Céleste, he might know.”

“Or he might be the one trying to bury it,” Julien countered. “You said yourself his cooperation felt like a distraction. Why would he help us restore the theater if his family had something to hide?”

“Maybe because he didn’t think we’d find anything. Or maybe because he wants to keep us close, watching us.” Élodie tucked the slip of paper back into the locket and snapped it shut. The brass key inside clinked softly. “Either way, we have to ask him. Directly. See how he reacts.”

Julien hesitated, his eyes tracing the cracks in the plaster walls. “He won’t take it well. If the Vautour family is implicated, this theater is his legacy. He’s spent the last six years trying to keep it from being demolished. If we connect his ancestor to Céleste’s disappearance, he could lose everything—the theater, his reputation, the historical standing of his family name.”

“Then maybe the truth will cost him what he deserves,” Élodie said quietly. “Céleste lost her life.”

Julien nodded after a long moment, the resolve settling in his features like a mask being fitted. “All right. He’s usually in his office by eight. We’ll catch him before the morning crew arrives.”

They found Édouard Vautour in his cramped office above the box office, surrounded by framed photographs of the theater in its glory days. Vautour himself looked like one of the fading images—sharp-featured, gray at the temples, with a perpetual air of measured impatience. He looked up as they entered, his eyes narrowing slightly at the sight of the locket visible at Élodie’s collar.

“Miss Marchand.” His voice was smooth, practiced. “I thought you’d still be recovering. The hospital called to say you’d discharged yourself against medical advice.”

“I’m fine,” Élodie said. She didn’t sit when Vautour gestured to the chairs opposite his desk. Julien remained standing beside her, his arms crossed. “We need to talk about Céleste Laurent.”

Vautour’s expression flickered—barely perceptible, like a shadow passing over glass. “The ghost of the theater. Yes, I’ve heard the crew talking. They say you’ve been hearing things. Singing.”

“I hear it clearly,” Élodie said. She pulled the locket out from under her collar, letting it catch the pale morning light from the single window. “And we found her locket. Inside, there’s a slip of paper with a name on it.”

She watched his face carefully as she paused. Vautour’s eyes had fixed on the locket, and something had shifted in them—a tightening around the mouth, a guarded stillness that hadn’t been there before.

“What name?” he asked.

“François Vautour.”

The silence stretched. Vautour did not move, but his knuckles whitened where his hands rested on the arms of his chair. When he spoke, his voice was carefully even. “François Vautour was my great-great-grandfather. He built this theater in 1887. He died in 1901—a respected patron of the arts, lauded for his contributions to Parisian opera. There is no connection between him and Céleste Laurent beyond the professional.”

“We found her score,” Julien said quietly. “*Le Spectre de la Lune*. Hidden beneath the center stage with a note that implicated your family.”

Vautour’s head snapped toward Julien. “That score does not exist. It was lost.”

“It wasn’t lost,” Élodie said. “It was hidden. By Céleste. She wrote that she was forced to make a choice that looked like betrayal—and that the truth was sealed in the locket. The key inside opens something. We haven’t figured out what yet. But the name on that paper tells us who forced her.”

“You’re making wild accusations based on a ghost story and a piece of paper you found in a theater that’s been decaying for seventy years,” Vautour said, rising from his chair. His voice had lost its practiced smoothness, taking on a harder edge. “Anyone could have planted that note. Anyone could have written that name to frame my family.”

“Why would anyone do that?” Élodie challenged. “What motive would a stranger have to implicate the Vautour family in a century-old disappearance?”

“I don’t know,” Vautour snapped. “But I will not sit here and listen to you slander the name of the man who built this theater. The Vautour family has spent generations maintaining this house, pouring money into its preservation, fighting to keep it standing when everyone else wanted to tear it down. And you—you, who have been here barely a month—dare to suggest we had something to do with that woman’s fate?”

“I’m not suggesting,” Élodie said. “I’m saying. The evidence points to your ancestor. And I think you know more than you’re telling me.”

Vautour’s eyes blazed. He took a step toward her, his finger rising to point at the door. “Get out. Both of you. You’re done here, Miss Marchand. I don’t know what scheme you’re running, but I will not have my theater’s reputation dragged through the mud by a washed-up soprano and a man who falsified his credentials to get into my building.”

The words hit like a slap. Élodie felt her face flush, but she held her ground. “You knew about Julien’s credentials?”

“I knew from the first day,” Vautour spat. “I let him stay because I thought he might actually help restore this place. But now I see I was too trusting. You’re both off this project. Effective immediately. I’ll have security escort you out.”

“You can’t fire us from finding the truth,” Élodie said.

“I can fire you from this theater,” Vautour said. His voice had dropped, cold and precise. “And I will have the locks changed today. If you set foot in this building again, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”

He moved toward the door, his hand outstretched for the handle. Julien stepped forward. “Vautour—if you have nothing to hide, why react like this?”

Vautour paused. For a moment, his mask slipped, and Élodie saw something raw underneath—not guilt, exactly, but something close. Fear. A deep, old fear that had been living in him long before they’d walked through his door.

“Because some ghosts should stay buried,” he said quietly. “And some names should stay unspoken.”

He pulled open the door and gestured sharply down the corridor. “Leave. Now.”

As they walked out into the cold Paris morning, Élodie felt the locket pulse against her chest. She stopped on the pavement, turning to look up at the theater’s dark, shuttered face.

“He knows,” she said. “He might not know everything, but he knows something.”

Julien stood beside her, his face drawn. “He’s cut us off from the theater. We don’t have access anymore.”

“We don’t need his permission.” Élodie’s fingers closed around the locket. The brass key inside seemed to press against the metal, calling her. “We need to know what that key opens. And I think I know where to look.”

She turned to face him. The words that came next felt like they formed somewhere deep in her chest, pushed up by the persistent hum of Céleste’s phantom song. “The crypt. Céleste’s body was never found. The brass key might open her tomb.”

“Élodie,” Julien said slowly, “if her body is there, and the Vautour family put it there…”

“Then we’re about to dig up a century-old grave and point a finger at the family that owns this city’s theatrical history.” She met his eyes. “You still with me?”

Julien’s gaze held hers. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell began to toll the hour. He reached out and took her hand, his grip warm and steady.

“Always,” he said.