Read Chapter 28: The Clue

The snowmobile case sat in the corner of Antoine’s workshop like an accusation. Sergeant Bouchard had photographed it, dusted it for prints, and left it gutted and open, its contents scattered across the workbench. Camille had avoided looking at it all morning, but now, with Antoine outside checking the generator against the rising wind, she found herself drawn to it.

She knelt and ran her fingers along the worn leather interior. The case smelled of gasoline and cold metal, of a machine that had gone somewhere it shouldn’t have. Inside, a spare spark plug, a tool roll, a folded Quebec road map so creased it threatened to split along its folds. Nothing remarkable. Nothing that would explain who had taken the snowmobile or why they had used Antoine’s name to do it.

She was about to close the case when her fingers brushed against a seam in the lining. The leather had been re-stitched, the thread a slightly different shade of brown. Someone had opened this lining before.

Camille pulled at the thread. It gave easily, too easily, as if it had been cut and replaced without care. Inside the hidden pocket, her fingers closed around stiff paper, folded into quarters so tight they crackled when she opened them.

It was a hand-drawn map, inked on paper yellowed at the edges. Contour lines in faded blue ink, a river marked with a series of Xs. A dashed trail snaked from a point labeled *Chute-Neuve* through dense forest, terminating at a small square with three words scrawled beneath it: *Hiver seulement. Cabine L.*

“Antoine,” she called, her voice tight.

He appeared in the doorway, stamping snow from his boots. His face was drawn with the strain of the last days, dark circles beneath his eyes that hadn't been there a week ago. “What is it?”

She held up the map. “This was sewn into Luc’s snowmobile case. Hidden.”

Antoine crossed the workshop in three strides. He took the map from her hands with the reverence of a man handling evidence, turning it toward the light. She watched his face as he studied it, saw the recognition flicker behind his eyes.

“Do you know it?” she asked.

“The river. That’s the Petite-Rivière.” He traced the dashed line with a gloved finger. “This trail hasn’t been used in years. Logging road that got washed out in the ’90s. Nobody goes up there.” He tapped the square. “But this. I’ve never seen this marked before.”

“Cabine L,” she read. “Winter only. Luc drew this himself, didn’t he?”

Antoine nodded slowly. “That’s his hand. He used to draw maps instead of writing notes — said he thought in terrain.” He flipped the map over, checking the back for anything else, found nothing. “Luc never mentioned a cabin up there. Not once.”

Camille stood and moved beside him, close enough to feel the warmth radiating off his body. “The notebook. The map we found yesterday marked a cabin in almost the same area.”

“Same grid reference?” Antoine asked.

“Close. This one’s deeper in.” She pulled the notebook from her coat pocket, flipped to the marked page, and laid it beside the map. The two annotations tracked parallel routes, converging on different points nearly a kilometer apart. “The cabin in the notebook has no name. This one does.”

Antoine was quiet for a long moment. Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the workshop’s tin roof. The storm that was supposed to hold off until tomorrow had crept closer, the sky a bruised purple behind the frosted windows.

“Luc kept secrets,” he finally said. “I knew that. Everyone who knew him knew that. But this—” He shook his head. “This is different. Hidden maps in a case that was supposed to be impounded. A cabin that exists on no official record.”

“The boot prints at the Thibault place,” Camille said slowly. “The broken window. Whoever did that was looking for something. What if it wasn’t a setup at all? What if they were searching for this map and used Luc’s absence as cover?”

Antoine’s jaw tightened. “And planted Luc’s shirt in my laundry to make sure the police looked at me instead of them.”

“Which means they didn’t find it.” Camille tapped the map. “It was still in the case. And the case was signed out in your name — taken after Luc disappeared. Whoever stole that snowmobile wanted to reach this cabin before we could.”

The logic settled between them like a weight. Antoine looked at the map again, then out the window at the darkening sky.

“We can’t wait,” he said. “If another storm hits before we get up there, the trail will be impassable until spring. Whatever evidence is at that cabin will be buried under a meter of snow, or whoever left it there will have time to come back and clean it up.”

“We told Bouchard we’d stay in the village.”

“Bouchard thinks I staged evidence and let my best friend disappear.” Antoine’s voice was raw, stripped of the careful composure he had worn like armor since the sergeant’s arrival. “He’s not going to investigate Luc’s secrets. He’s going to build a case against me. If we find nothing, I’m done. If we find something, maybe I have a chance.”

Camille studied the map’s faded ink. The trail would take four hours on snowshoes in good conditions. In this weather, longer. The temperature was dropping, the wind already carrying the sharp bite of the coming storm.

“Then we go tonight,” she said.

Antoine looked at her, surprised. “Camille, you don’t owe me this. You could go to the hotel, ride out the storm, take the first road out once the plows clear the highway. Bouchard would probably prefer you out of the way.”

“And leave you to face this alone?” She heard the echo of Luc’s notebook in her own words, the warning Antoine had given her about his friend vanishing. She stepped closer, placing her hand flat against his chest, feeling his heart beating beneath the layers of wool and flannel. “I didn’t come to Quebec to watch the winter through a window. I came because something here mattered. And now you matter. Whether you like it or not, we’re in this together.”

Antoine’s hand came up to cover hers. His fingers were cold, roughened from years of gripping cameras and ski poles, and they trembled slightly against her knuckles. He didn't speak. He didn't have to.

“We’ll need supplies,” he said finally. “Headlamps, extra batteries, food. If the trail’s as bad as I think, we might have to shelter overnight.”

“I’ll pack.” Camille moved toward the workshop door, then stopped. She turned the map over one more time, studying the edges, the way the paper had been folded to fit its hidden pocket. Something nagged at her. A detail out of place.

“Antoine,” she said slowly. “This map was sewn in by someone who didn’t want it found. But the case is standard issue — Luc would have had it for years. Do you know when he got it?”

Antoine frowned. “Maybe two years ago. He left his old one at the lodge after it got water damage. Why?”

“Two years ago,” she repeated. “Around the time your father died.”

The words hung in the air. Antoine’s face went pale.

“The locket,” he said. “The one that went missing from his things.”

Camille nodded. “Marc thought Luc’s disappearance was connected to your father’s death. What if Luc found something two years ago — something he wasn’t supposed to know — and hid the evidence up at that cabin instead of telling anyone?”

Antoine took the map from her hands and folded it carefully, sliding it into his inner coat pocket close to his heart. “Then we need to get there before whoever’s been one step ahead of us all week goes back to cover their tracks.”

He looked at her, and for a moment the weight of everything — the accusations, the missing friend, the storm closing in around them — seemed to lift from his shoulders. What remained was resolve, sharp as the cold air outside.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Once we leave the village, there’s no turning back. If Bouchard finds out we ignored his orders, it won't be good for either of us.”

Camille smiled, a thin expression that didn’t reach her eyes but carried something stronger than humor. “I’ve spent my whole life inside sentences, Antoine. Translating other people’s words. For once I want to find out what my own story is made of.”

She pulled on her coat and stepped out into the wind.

Behind her, Antoine gathered the snowshoes from the wall. The darkening sky above the tree line promised snow before midnight, but there was still time. They just had to be faster than the weather.