Read Chapter 22: The Pressure Mounts

The phone buzzed against the café table like an angry insect. Julien ignored it, watching the rain streak the window, the media vans parked like vultures across from the Belliveau gates. The phone buzzed again. And again.

He picked it up. No caller ID. International code. Switzerland.

"Moreau," he said.

"Mr. Moreau." The voice was smooth, female, clipped. "I'm calling from Mercier et Fils, private banking division. We have been attempting to reach you regarding the outstanding balance on the Belliveau estate account. This is our final courtesy notice before the matter proceeds to arbitration."

Julien set down his coffee. "I'm not the estate's signatory."

"Yet you are the individual who filed the challenge against the estate's asset transfer. Under the terms of the litigation hold, you have assumed responsibility for the timeline. The moratorium expires in forty-four hours. At that point, the estate's primary holdings—including the château and all vineyard properties—will be seized to satisfy the debt."

"Seized by whom? You're a bank. You don't seize vineyards."

"We are the servicing agent for the debt holder. The debt holder has instructed that in the event of default, all assets revert to their control. You have forty-four hours to arrange payment of ten million euros, after which point our client will take possession of the château, the vineyards, the cellars, and all contents therein. Including, I understand, certain documents and artifacts that are currently the subject of a police investigation."

Julien's grip tightened on the phone. "Who is your client?"

"That information is confidential. I would recommend you pay close attention to the deadline, Mr. Moreau. Default carries significant consequences—legal, financial, and personal."

The line went dead.

He stared at the phone for a long moment. The implication hung in the air: the debt holder knew about the letters, about the skeleton, about everything. And more than that, the bank had the leverage to take it all away. Fourteen years ago, this same debt had been used to destroy his father. Now it was pointed squarely at him.

The café door opened. A woman in a dark coat and sunglasses stepped in, scanning the room, her eyes landing on him with unmistakable recognition. She didn't look like media. She moved like someone who owned the space. She walked over and sat across from him without asking.

"Mr. Moreau."

Her French was refined, accentless. Her face was younger than he expected—late twenties, perhaps—but her eyes were old, calculating.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Do I know you?"

"No." She placed her hands flat on the table. "But you will. My name is Claire Belliveau. You know my uncle, Philippe. And my grandmother, Odile, of course, has been speaking to you at length."

Julien felt the weight of the moment settle. The family had sent their emissary. And not the lawyer this time. Someone softer. Deadlier by design.

"I've said everything I need to say to your family."

"What you've said and what the family has heard are two different things." She tilted her head. "You found a skeleton in a well. Letters written a hundred years ago. You marched into the police station and made it public. And now the media is camped outside our gates, our name is being dragged through filth, and my grandmother is having heart palpitations from stress." Her voice remained calm, measured. "But here's what you didn't account for, Mr. Moreau. The narrative you've constructed destroys us. And there are things—people—who survive only if the narrative remains controlled."

"I'm listening."

"Good." She leaned forward slightly. "You have forty-four hours before the debt matures. You didn't know about the debt before today. I can see it on your face. But now you know what's at stake. The estate will be seized. The château, the vineyards, every bottle in our cellars, everything that's been in our family for a century. Everything we are."

"And whose fault is that?"

"The debt was taken on generations ago. By your great-grandfather's partner, actually. Auguste Moreau borrowed against the estate to expand the operations. The family has been servicing that debt for over a century. It's only in the last decade that the interest outpaced our ability to pay."

Julien shook his head slowly. "You're telling me Auguste Moreau—my ancestor, the man your family erased—took out a loan that became a blackmail instrument?"

"It wasn't blackmail at the time. It was business. A private bank in Switzerland accepted the note as a favor to Auguste, who was hiding money from the French government. When Étienne Belliveau died, the debt passed to the estate. The bank has simply been collecting interest since."

"If it was legitimate, why does the bank threaten seizure now?"

"Because the bank sold the note." Claire's expression darkened. "Ten years ago. To a private investor. An anonymous holding company. Since then, the payments have become demands. The demands have become threats. And now the threats have become deadlines."

Julien sat back. The picture emerging was not what he expected. He had assumed the family was protecting wealth. Instead, they were protecting the last shreds of a legacy drowning in debt from a hundred years ago—debt his own family had created.

"You're asking for my help."

"I'm asking you to see the full picture before you burn us all down." Claire's voice trembled, just slightly, cracking the composure. "The letters you found. They implicate Auguste Moreau. Your ancestor. Not us. The Belliveaus are the victims here. We've been the victims for a hundred years—paying for a crime we didn't commit, carrying a debt your family saddled us with."

Julien opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

"Your mother tried to expose the truth. They killed her for it. You've been fighting to clear her name, to find justice for Étienne and Victoire. But if you follow through, if you let the bank seize the estate, you don't get justice. You get a vulture investor who will strip the vineyards bare, destroy the Belliveau legacy, and bury the documents so deep no one will ever see them again."

She placed a card on the table. No phone number. Just an address in Cahors.

"There is a way to keep the estate out of the bank's hands," she said. "My grandmother is prepared to cooperate with your investigation. She will testify to everything she knows about 1903—the murder, the cover-up, the erasure of Victoire's name. But only if you help us trace the debt to its current holder. The investor who holds the note controls the estate. If we can find them, we can negotiate."

"And if I refuse?"

Claire smiled. Cold. Final. "Then the bank seizes everything within forty-four hours—including the skeleton and the letters, which are currently in police custody. But police custody is not the same as family control. Once the bank owns the estate, it owns the chain of evidence. And you'll never see it again."

She rose, leaving the card on the table.

"You have a choice, Mr. Moreau. Destroy us—and let the real villains walk away with our legacy. Or help us uncover who's been pulling the strings all along." She paused at the door. "My grandmother will be waiting for your call."

The door swung shut. The rain continued to fall. Julien looked at the card, then at his phone. The bank's deadline pulsed in his mind like a timer.

Fourty-four hours.

And a debt that went back further than any of them had imagined—not to Louis's disappearance, but to Auguste Moreau himself. His own blood had created this mess. And the real enemy, the one holding the strings, remained invisible.

He picked up the card and tucked it into his pocket.

Then he dialed Dr. Vernier.

"Louis mentioned his uncle was wearing a face that wasn't his own," Julien said. "Tell me everything you withheld from the recording."

There was a long pause.

"I didn't withhold anything," Vernier said. "But Louis whispered something after the hypnosis session ended. Something he didn't know he said. He mentioned a name. A woman. 'La Veuve.' The widow. He said she was waiting at the bottom of the ledger."

Julien's pulse quickened. "What ledger?"

"The estate's accounting records. All of them. Going back to 1903."