Read Chapter 26: The Break-In

The thud came again, heavier this time, a hollow bang like something falling against wood. Camille’s heart was still hammering from the almost-kiss, her lips tingling with the ghost of an intention. Antoine was already moving, his face snapping from soft to sharp.

“Stay here,” he said.

“Like hell,” she replied, and followed him out the back door.

The cold hit her like a slap. The wind had picked up, spitting needles of snow sideways, and the sky above the treeline had gone the bruised purple of a coming storm. Antoine’s flashlight beam cut across the yard, sweeping past the woodpile, the frozen clothesline, until it caught the shed.

The door was ajar. Camille had seen Antoine lock it that morning—she’d watched him fuss with the padlock, muttering about rust and cold. Now it hung open, swinging.

Antoine swore in French, a low, vicious string she felt in her own chest. He crossed the yard in long strides, and she was right behind him, her boots crunching through the crust of snow. He pushed the door wide and the light swung into the interior. The shed was a clutter of tools, tarps, old tires, and the empty space where the snowmobile used to sit.

“The window,” he said.

Camille followed his beam. The small pane on the far wall was shattered, a jagged hole rimmed with frost and glittering shards. Snow had blown in, dusting the floorboards. And there, pressed into that fresh powder, were footprints. Big ones. Boot treads, deep and deliberate.

Antoine stepped closer, and Camille grabbed his arm without thinking. “Don’t.”

“Whoever it was is gone,” he said, but his voice was thin.

“Look.” She pointed. The footprints didn’t wander. They cut straight across the floor to the corner where the snowmobile’s tarp lay crumpled, then back to the window. Purposeful. Like someone who knew exactly where they were going and what they were looking at.

Antoine crouched, studying the treads. “They came to see it was gone.”

“Or they came to take it,” Camille said, then shook her head. “No, you moved it weeks ago.”

“Three days before Luc disappeared.” Antoine’s jaw tightened. “I told the police that. I showed them where I parked it at the garage. But if someone wanted to make it look like I’d hidden it….” He trailed off.

Camille felt the cold seep through her coat, into her bones. “Why would anyone want to do that?”

Before he could answer, a flicker of blue light washed the shed walls. They both turned. A police cruiser was pulling into the driveway, headlights carving through the growing darkness. The engine died, and a door opened, boots hitting the snow with a heavy crunch.

Antoine’s hand found hers in the dark. His fingers were cold. She squeezed.

The officer was a woman Camille didn’t recognize, sharp-eyed and bundled in a high-vis jacket. She introduced herself as Sergeant Bouchard from the Sûreté du Québec, and her gaze went immediately to the broken window.

“We got a call from a neighbor,” she said, her French clipped, official. “Said they saw movement down here, and with the Thibault situation….” She let the sentence hang. “You’re Antoine Girard.”

It wasn’t a question. Antoine nodded. Camille watched the tightness move through his shoulders, the way he straightened like a man bracing for a blow.

“Mind if I take a look?” Bouchard asked.

They let her in. She crouched by the window, flashed a light at the footprints, took a photograph with her phone. Her silence was worse than any question.

“You’ve been in contact with Officers Lévesque and Girard about the missing snowmobile,” she said finally, standing. “They logged your statement.”

“Yes.”

“And Luc Thibault hasn’t been seen in four days.”

“I know.”

Bouchard turned to face them, her face unreadable. “You two are close?”

“We grew up in the same village,” Antoine said. “We weren’t close. We hadn’t spoken in years.”

“But you knew his family’s cabin.”

Antoine’s eyes flickered. “Everyone knows the Thibault cabin.”

Bouchard nodded slowly, her gaze drifting to Camille, sizing her up. “And you are?”

“Camille Moreau. I’m staying here.”

“Visiting from France?”

“Working,” Camille said. “Translating.”

“These cold months are hard for people who aren’t used to them,” Bouchard said, and there was something almost sympathetic in her voice, which made it worse. “That cabin in the woods is a lonely place to go missing from. As long as it’s just a missing snowmobile, that’s one thing. But when there’s a broken window and fresh tracks on a property owned by a man who had a falling-out with the missing person….”

“I didn’t have a falling-out with Luc,” Antoine cut in, his voice sharp. “We had a disagreement. Years ago. Everyone has disagreements.”

“And you reported the snowmobile stolen?”

Antoine went still. “Stolen?”

“The garage called it in this afternoon. Said the vehicle they were storing had been signed out using your name.” Bouchard pulled out a small notebook. “You didn’t authorize that?”

The air left Camille’s lungs. She looked at Antoine, whose face had gone pale, his mouth opening and closing.

“No,” he said, and the word was barely a whisper. “I didn’t.”

“But the signature matches the one on your driver’s license,” Bouchard said, her tone flat. “I’m not accusing anyone of anything yet. But I need you to understand how this looks.”

Camille stepped forward, putting herself half in front of Antoine. “It looks like someone is trying to frame him,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt. “He was with me all day. We were inside. We heard the window break minutes before you arrived.”

Bouchard’s eyes narrowed. “The window broke minutes ago?”

“Yes.”

“Then whoever broke it is on foot. In this weather. Without a vehicle.” She looked out into the dark, where the snow was beginning to fall harder, erasing tracks almost as fast as they were made. “Or they weren’t alone.”

The words hung in the air. Camille felt Antoine’s hand close around hers again, tighter this time. She looked past Bouchard, at the shed, the broken glass glittering like a warning in the falling snow. Someone had been here. Someone wanted them to know it.