Read Chapter 18: The Old Friend

The kerosene lamp on Soizic's kitchen table cast a wobbling circle of light over the photograph Camille had brought from the boat—the one of the woman in the wetsuit, laughing into the wind. Biscuits sat untouched between them. Soizic had gone quiet the moment Camille set the picture down.

"Where did you find this?" Soizic asked, her voice stripped of its usual warmth.

"In my father's logbook. There was an entry about her. A map, too. I thought you might know who she is."

Soizic's work-worn fingers hovered over the glass, trembling slightly, the way a person reaches for something they're afraid to touch. She pulled her hand back and wrapped it around her tea instead. Rain scratched at the window like a cat wanting in.

"Marianne Delcourt," she said finally, the name carrying the weight of old grief. "She was a marine biologist. Brighter than anyone I've ever known. Did her doctorate on intertidal ecosystems—the way algae communities shift along our coast. She came to Keravel about twelve years ago to study the bloom cycles. Said the data she'd seen from the area suggested something peculiar was happening, something that didn't match the official records."

Camille leaned forward. "Peculiar how?"

"She never got to tell me, not properly. She'd come by here sometimes for coffee, to escape the lab. Always full of excitement about what she was finding. Patterns in the water samples that didn't match the town's discharge permits. Copper levels that spiked and fell in ways that couldn't be natural." Soizic's eyes drifted to the window, to the dark sea beyond. "Your father was the one who helped her with the fieldwork. He'd take her out on his boat to remote coves where she could gather samples away from prying eyes."

*His boat,* Camille thought. The houseboat was his now—had been his before it was hers—but there had been another boat back then, before Camille's mother died. A small motorboat Thomas had sold when the debts mounted. She remembered it now, a white hull with a faded blue stripe, moored at the old quay.

"Marianne died," Soizic said. The word "died" came out flat and hard, like a stone dropped onto the table. "A diving accident, they said. Out by the Raz de Sein. Her equipment malfunctioned at depth. Your father was the one who found her."

"I didn't know he was there."

"He never talked about it. He blamed himself, I think. She was alone down there when it happened—he was on the surface, monitoring her line—and by the time he got her up, it was too late." Soizic finally touched the photograph, tracing the outline of Marianne's face. "He never forgave himself. I think part of him never really left that water. When your mother got sick, he was already half-drowning in guilt. And when she passed—" She shook her head. "He stopped coming by. Stopped talking to anyone, really."

Camille studied the photograph again. There was something in Marianne's expression, a brightness that grief had not yet dimmed. *Was this the woman he loved?* The thought sent a strange ache through her chest. She had spent her whole life believing her father's silences were about her mother. What if they were about someone else entirely? What if the love affair had been with the sea itself, with the secrets it kept?

"You said she was studying something official records didn't match," Camille said slowly. "What if that's connected to what Keravel was hiding? What if the pollution evidence goes back further than anyone knows?"

Soizic set her jaw. "I wouldn't be surprised. But I don't know anything more about her research. After she died, her equipment and notes went to the university. The lab she worked from was packed up. Your father kept his own copies—he was always meticulous, even then." She gestured at the photograph. "That logbook of his. You said there was a map?"

Camille pulled the folded paper from her jacket pocket and spread it across the table. The ink had faded to a pale blue, but the hand-drawn coastline was unmistakable: Keravel harbor, the lighthouse at Cap Gris, the river mouth. And there, two kilometers offshore, a small smudge of land ringed in pencil marks—a name scrawled beside it in handwriting Camille recognized as her mother's.

*Marianne.*

"I've never seen this islet," Camille said. "It's not on any nautical chart I've checked. I thought maybe it was a nickname, a private name for a place they knew."

Soizic squinted at the map, then shook her head. "There used to be a reef in that spot. Fishermen knew to avoid it—the currents were savage. But an islet?" She traced the penciled outline with her finger. "There were rumors, years ago, that some of the smaller rocks around there had shifted ground. Land that disappears at high tide. If this rose above the water long enough for someone to survey it—" She looked at Camille. "Your mother's handwriting. She was doing the surveying?"

"She marked years of data in the logbook. Tide lines, algae growth, water temperature. All in her hand." Camille's throat tightened. "Soizic, was she working with Marianne? On the same project?"

Soizic's expression shifted into something like wonder. "I don't know. I always assumed your mother stayed out of it. But now that you say that—your mother knew the coastline better than anyone in this town. She grew up on the water, out on the islands. And she was good with numbers, with patterns. It would make sense. The three of them, working together to find what Keravel was doing." She paused. "If that map is real, if there's an islet out there, it might be exactly where Marianne took her samples. A place hidden from their surveillance, where the evidence would be clean."

Camille folded the map carefully and slid it back into her pocket. Her mind was racing now. "The logbook—it's not just a memorial, is it? It's a record. Years of data my mother collected, measurements taken from this secret islet. If the pollution reaches that far, if the water out there shows the same patterns, then the evidence spans back a decade. That's not a cover-up by one man. That's a conspiracy."

Her father had spent years watching the water, charting the tides, filling the logbook with numbers no one would ever see. He hadn't been hiding from the world in those long silences. He'd been building a case.

"I need to see that islet," Camille said.

"At this time of year?" Soizic frowned. "The weather's turning. You'll need someone who knows those waters."

"I know someone."

Yann had been out on the water his whole life, had a boat he'd rebuilt with his own hands, and had a reason to want Perrot buried. And this time, Camille wouldn't make him drag the truth out of her. She'd hand it to him herself.

She stood, sliding the photograph back into her jacket beside the map. "Soizic, thank you. For telling me about her."

Soizic caught her hand as she passed. "Be careful, Camille. The last person who got close to the truth about Keravel ended up dead in the water. They called it an accident then. I've never believed it, and I won't believe it now."

Camille squeezed the old woman's fingers, cold from the tea cup. "Neither will I."

Out on the street, the wind had picked up, smelling of salt and storm. She pulled out her phone and found Yann's number. It rang twice before he answered, his voice rough with concern.

"Camille? It's late. What's going on?"

"I need your boat," she said. "And I need to tell you everything. About the USB, about the threats, about my father." She paused, steadying herself. "I should have told you sooner. I'm sorry."

There was a long silence. Then, softly: "I'm listening."

She looked toward the harbor, where dark water slapped against the old stone walls. Beyond it, somewhere out on that choppy sea, an islet named for a dead woman waited, holding answers they hadn't yet learned to ask for.