Read Chapter 29: The Heir's Return

The envelope the archivist had given him sat unopened on the scarred oak table of his grandfather's cottage, its edges curling from the damp that seeped through the warped window frame. Julien had been staring at it for twenty minutes, turning the cold coffee cup in his hands, trying to decide whether the contents would make things clearer or simply pull him deeper into the Belliveau's poisoned history.

His phone buzzed against the wood. A withheld number. His heart rate kicked up—Delage's lawyer had been trying to reach him through intermediaries, but this felt different. He answered on the third buzz, saying nothing.

"I found your number on a missing poster." The voice was young. Strained. Speaking French with the careful neutrality of someone who had spent years learning to control his tone. "You're Julien Moreau, aren't you? The one looking for Étienne Belliveau?"

Every muscle in Julien's back went tight. He had given his number to exactly three people in the last week. None of them were the type to paper a town with posters.

"Who is this?"

There was a pause. A long exhale that carried a decade of weight. "Clément. Clément Belliveau."

Julien's mind flicked through the file he had assembled on the family tree. Odile's uncle. Art student who had gone silent and sullen in his twenties, who had taken vows of silence as if he might pray away the blood taint of his surname. The heir, some called him. The only one who walked away.

"You're supposed to be in a monastery in Provence."

"Secluded," Clément corrected. "Not deaf. And not dead, which is what I assume you thought when you started digging into my family."

Outside the cottage window, rain began to hammer against the treeline. Julien kept his voice low. "I thought you took vows. Silence included."

"I did. Nine years ago. But I've been released from that particular obligation, Monsieur Moreau. Temporarily." The voice dropped further, almost to a whisper. "Because someone from my family has started killing again, and this time they used my name."

The ground shifted. Julien gripped the edge of the table. "Your name?"

"Étienne. They're claiming Étienne is dead. That I know something." A sharp, bitter laugh crackled through the phone. "They're saying the heir returned and found his brother's remains, and then disappeared. That I ran. But I've been in Sainte-Véronique for eleven months, Moreau. I have receipts. A caretaker's diary. And a full video of me helping restore the monastery's chapel on the day Étienne supposedly went missing."

Julien's thoughts tumbled over each other. Odile had told him her uncle was a mystic, a man who had abandoned the material world. But the voice on the phone sounded anything but spiritual. It sounded like a man who had been watching, waiting, and finally found someone worth trusting.

"You know who I am," Julien said slowly. "So you know what they're saying about me."

"Every word of it is Trias's work." Clément used the name like it was a foul thing to taste. "Alain Trias Delage. The man who married into the family with a shark's smile and a bankruptcy lawyer on retainer. He's been positioning himself for a decade. My brother was a complication. You were a complication. The archive is a complication. And he's been cutting complications loose one by one."

Julien closed his eyes. The rain was coming down in sheets now, drumming against the cottage roof like something wanted in. "You know about the archive?"

A long pause. When Clément spoke again, his voice had lost its careful control. "Everyone knows about the archive, Monsieur Moreau. The ones who stay. The ones who inherit. We're told the first day we're considered a successor. They show you the journals so you understand what the legacy costs. They want you to accept it. To justify it." The bitterness crept back in. "I was the one who wouldn't. So I was given a choice. A monastery in Provence, or a file in the library with my name on it."

Julien thought of the folio entry. "The Moreau complication." Was his own grandfather's name in that vault, marked as a problem to be solved?

"Why are you calling me now?" Julien pressed. "Not because you saw a poster. You're too smart for that. What changed?"

"Your name is still alive," Clément said simply. "That's the change. Every truth-teller my family has faced over the last century ends up dead or discredited. Delacroix is arrested, and suddenly the narrative doesn't play. They scramble. They make mistakes." A pause. "And you're still alive. You're still pushing. So I've decided to help you."

"I don't need help. I need proof."

"You need a living Belliveau who will testify that Alain Delage forged his authority. Who can confirm your version of events to the press. Who can stand up and say the family archive is real and the murders are real and the debt against Odile's estate is a fabrication." Clément's voice tightened. "I can do all that. On one condition."

Julien waited.

"You have to keep my location a secret from Odile."

The name landed between them like a stone in still water. Julien thought of Odile's face when she'd asked him to dig into the family history. The cracks in her story. The archivist's claim that she'd known about the murders for years. Everything pointed to the possibility that she might not be exactly who she'd presented herself as.

"Maybe you can't trust her," Julien said cautiously, testing the water. "And maybe that's exactly why I don't want to be anywhere near her." Clément spoke over him, urgency creeping into his voice. "She called me four days ago. The first time in nine years. She begged me to talk to her, to reconcile, claiming she needed family support. Then two days later, Trias's men paid a visit to the monastery's guesthouse asking questions about my whereabouts. My family tracked my call through her phone, or someone in her circle." A beat. "Your girlfriend is either compromised or playing games with me. Maybe both."

Julien's jaw tightened. Odile had called him that same week, claiming to know nothing about the archive, asking for his help against Delage. The timeline didn't match.

"Where are you now?" Julien asked.

"Saint-Émilion. Hiding in a storage cellar under a wine cooperative. I paid the manager to look the other way." Clément's voice held a wry edge. "Turns out being a Belliveau is good for exactly one thing—people assume you know wine."

"When did you eat last?"

"What I need isn't food. I need to tell you something before everything else. Something about Étienne."

Julien's breath caught. "He's not—"

"I don't know where Étienne is." Clément's voice cracked for the first time. "But I know who put him there. And it wasn't the 1903 ghost haunting your photographs. It was Alain. Four years ago." A steadying breath. "Etienne had found the skeleton in the well, just like I did at his age. But he didn't run. He confronted the family. And Trias told him that if he didn't disappear gracefully, the family would make him disappear permanently. When Étienne vanished, the official story was that he'd been killed by the secret he uncovered. But he wasn't. He's alive, Moreau. Somewhere. I've been paying men in Bordeaux to look for him for three years."

The rain changed pitch outside. The whole world felt like it was holding its breath. Julien stared at the envelope on the table, suddenly understanding what the archivist had meant when he said the family had designed every piece of this trap.

"Then we have the same enemy," Julien said. "And I think I have something that could change everything. But you're going to have to come to me. I can't move publicly without getting picked up by Delage's men."

A long silence. Then, softly: "Send me your coordinates. I'll bring something with me. A diary. My own record of everything I saw in that library before I walked away."

"Your word isn't enough," Julien said, hearing how cold his own voice had become. "Too many people have given me words."

"Then I'll bring you what my grandmother kept hidden in her private room. The one thing not even the archivist knew about. The 1903 deed, Moreau. The original transfer of the estate." Clément paused. "It proves Étienne's bloodline owns the well, the vineyard, and every drop of wine made from it since before the murder. And it disproves every claim Delage has filed."

Julien looked out the window. Through the rain, the distant shape of the Belliveau estate rose against the gray sky. Four generations of secrets buried in its walls, and this living heir was about to hand him the key to all of them.

"Do you know where my grandfather's cottage is?" Julien asked.

"I'm already on the road," Clément said. "I've been driving for an hour. I'll be there before dawn."

The line clicked dead.

Julien stared at the phone, feeling the world tilt around him. Louis' diary. The archivist's claim about Odile. The rain that hadn't stopped for three days washing clean the footprints of everyone who'd come before. He pressed the phone against his forehead and realized he hadn't recorded a single word of the conversation.

He'd have to take the man at his word after all.

That was the only kind of deal left in this world. The kind you made with ghosts and heirs in the dark, hoping they didn't turn on you before the sun rose.