Read Chapter 24: A Disappearance in Town

The storm had held off, for now, the sky a bruised grey that promised more but delivered only a bitter wind as Antoine’s truck rolled down the long, snow-packed driveway onto the main road. Camille sat with her hands tucked into her coat pockets, watching the familiar landscape of silvery birch and dark pine scroll past, the world reduced to black and white and the occasional amber flash of a farmhouse window.

They hadn’t spoken much since leaving the darkroom that morning. The intimacy of the night before lingered between them—the scent of chemicals, the warmth of his hand over hers as he guided the shutter, the way the shadows had carved his face into something she wanted to study for a hundred years. It was a comfortable silence, but it was also a fragile one, and Camille was grateful for the hum of the engine filling the space.

“We could have taken the car,” she said, more to break the quiet than anything. “You didn’t have to dig out the truck.”

“The car won’t make it if the snow starts falling heavy,” Antoine replied, eyes fixed on the road. “And we need supplies anyway. Plus, I want to check on Luc.”

Luc. The snowmobile owner who had vanished like a ghost into the woods. Camille had almost forgotten him in the whirl of confessions and photographs and the slow, fumbling return to tenderness. Now, the name landed in her stomach like a stone. “Has he come back?”

Antoine’s jaw tightened. He shook his head once, a small, clipped motion. “No.”

They reached the village of Saint-Jean-des-Neiges too quickly. The town was a single main street of clapboard buildings wearing thick coats of frost, a small grocery, a hardware store, a church with an impossibly narrow steeple, and a café that seemed to be the only place with any life in it. Antoine parked outside the café, cut the engine, and sat for a moment, his hands still on the wheel.

“You can wait here,” he said, though his voice didn’t hold conviction.

“I’d rather not,” Camille said.

He looked at her, and something in his expression softened. A crack of warmth in the cold gray light. “Okay.”

Inside, the café was a blast of warmth and the smell of coffee and fried dough. A knot of men in heavy flannel and tuques stood near the counter, their voices low and serious. When Antoine walked in, they fell silent. An older woman with steel-gray hair and a knowing look—the same woman Camille had seen stocking shelves at the grocery a few weeks back—caught Antoine’s eye and raised her chin.

“Antoine,” she said, her accent thick with French. “You’ve heard.”

“Rita.” Antoine nodded. “Nothing?”

Rita shook her head. “Nothing. His truck is still at the trailhead. Search and rescue went out yesterday on the snowmobiles—found the track heading north toward the old logging road, then nothing. The wind did its work, covered the rest.” She paused, wiping her hands on her apron. “They’re calling it off tonight if the storm stays on schedule.”

Camille watched Antoine absorb this. His face was a mask, but she saw the tick in his jaw, the way his hand curled around the mug Rita slid toward him without being asked. He wasn’t just concerned. He was shaken.

“He’s been here for years, Rita. He knows these woods better than anyone,” Antoine said, his voice low. “He wouldn’t just get lost.”

“I know, mon cher.” Rita’s voice was soft. “But the cold doesn’t care how well you know the way home.”

The bell over the café door jingled, and a man with a beard like a snowdrift plowed in, stamping his boots. He scanned the room, spotted Antoine, and walked over with a purpose that made Camille’s spine stiffen.

“Antoine,” the man said, pulling off his hat. “I was going to come by your place later. Good you’re here.”

“Marc.” Antoine’s tone was flat. “What is it?”

Marc glanced at Camille, then back at Antoine. “The old Thibault cabin. Off the logging road. Luc left a note—rolled up in a fuel can. He was headed there to winterize it, said he’d be back by evening. That was four days ago.” He paused, rubbing his nose with the back of his gloved hand. “There’s something else. The cabin was broken into. Door off its hinges, gear scattered. And there were footprints in the snow—boot prints, not Luc’s size. Bigger.”

Silence fell thick as the snow outside. Antoine’s mug stopped halfway to his lips.

“Footprints?” he repeated.

“One set going in, one set coming out. No sign of Luc anywhere.” Marc’s voice dropped. “Search and rescue says maybe he interrupted something. Or someone.”

Camille’s heart was beating too fast. She thought of the open drawer with the missing locket, the sense of foreign intrusion in a house that had felt, for whole hours at a time, like sanctuary. She thought of Antoine’s father’s death, ruled an accident, never fully explained. She thought of the safety deposit box in Montréal, waiting.

“You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking,” she said quietly, so only Antoine could hear.

Antoine set the mug down, his hand entirely still now. “I don’t know what I’m thinking,” he admitted. And there—in that rare admission—Camille saw the vulnerable side of him the neighbors had never seen. The boy who had lost his father and then his mother in different ways, who kept people at arm’s length because every attachment felt like a promise of abandonment. He covered it well, but his knuckles were white on the counter.

“Marc,” Antoine said, turning back to the bearded man. “When they call off the search tonight—who decides if they go back out after the storm?”

“Chief Gagnon. But you know her. She’s cautious.”

Antoine nodded slowly. Then he turned to Camille, and for a moment, the mask was fully gone. “The Montréal trip,” he said. “It might have to wait a day or two.” His voice held an apology, and something else—a question. Would she still be here when he was ready?

“Antoine,” Camille said, and she didn’t care that Rita and Marc and the whole knot of men were watching. She took his hand, cold against her warm palm. “We’re not going anywhere. Not without knowing what happened to Luc. And not without knowing what happened in that cabin.” She squeezed his fingers. “You’re not facing this alone. Do you hear me?”

He held her gaze. The café hummed around them, tinny radio music, the hiss of the espresso machine, the low murmur of worried men. But in that pocket of space between them, there was only the weight of his hand in hers and the slow, quiet loosening of a fear he had carried alone for years.

“I hear you,” he said.

Rita slid a plate of warm sugar pies toward them, as if to anchor them to the ordinary, the human, the need to eat and go on. “Eat, you two. The storm comes tonight, and you’ll want a full stomach for whatever comes after.”

Camille release Antoine’s hand long enough to break off a piece of the pie, but she did not move a step further from him. Outside, the first flakes of snow began to fall, slow and relentless, sealing them into the village, into this moment, into whatever truth was waiting at the end of a logging road.