Read Chapter 30: The Mysterious Woman

The photograph sat between them on the kitchen table like a live grenade. Camille watched Antoine trace the edge of it with his thumb, the woman's face half-crumpled where the tear had cut through her shoulder.

"We need to show this to someone," he said. "Someone who knew Luc better than I did."

The first two neighbors offered nothing but puzzled frowns and weak coffee. The third, old Madame Gagnon, squinted through bifocals so thick her eyes looked like marbles behind the glass.

"Let me see that again," she said, her voice a dry rasp. She took the photograph from Antoine's hand and carried it to the window where the gray afternoon light fell across it. "Mon Dieu."

"You recognize her?" Camille leaned in.

Madame Gagnon's hand trembled slightly. "That's Magalie Roy." She said the name like it tasted bitter. "She was Luc's woman. For a while, anyway."

Antoine's jaw tightened. "I never heard of her."

"You wouldn't have. She came around after your father passed. You were in Montreal by then, weren't you? Working for that magazine." She set the photograph down on the windowsill. "She was young. Too young for him, if you ask me. City girl from Trois-Rivières who came up here one summer and never left. Until she did."

"When did she leave?" Camille asked.

"About a year ago. Maybe a bit more." Madame Gagnon adjusted her glasses and looked at Camille directly for the first time. "You're the French girl staying with Antoine, aren't you?"

"I am."

The old woman nodded slowly. "Luc wasn't the same after she went. He'd always been a quiet one, but after that, he was—" She searched for the word. "Haunted. Like he was waiting for something that never came."

Antoine picked up the photograph again, studying the woman's face. She was pretty in an unassuming way—dark hair pulled back, a soft smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. The date on the back was circled in Luc's careful hand. "Do you know what date this is?"

"It's from the winter festival, I think. Two years ago, maybe." Madame Gagnon squinted again. "They were together then. She helped him with the snowmobile tours he used to give. Rode with him sometimes. She was good on a machine."

Camille exchanged a glance with Antoine. "Do you know where she went?"

Madame Gagnon shook her head. "She sold her little trailer by the lake and just vanished. Nobody knew where. Some said back to Trois-Rivières. Others said she'd found somebody in Quebec City." She paused, and her eyes narrowed. "Why are you asking about Magalie Roy?"

"Just trying to understand something about Luc," Antoine said, pocketing the photograph. "Thank you, Madame Gagnon."

Outside, the wind had picked up, sending loose snow skittering across the road in thin white ribbons. Antoine walked fast, his boots crunching against the packed ice. Camille had to hurry to keep pace.

"Magalie Roy," she said. "She was with Luc for years, and no one mentioned her to us."

"Nobody mentions a lot of things about Luc." Antoine's voice was tight. "He was my godfather. I thought I knew him. But every time we dig, there's another layer."

"Your father died around the same time she arrived, didn't he?"

Antoine stopped walking. The question hung between them in the cold air. "That's what the map suggested. The dates match." He looked at her, something raw in his eyes. "What if she was involved? With my father's death? With Luc's disappearance?"

Camille shook her head slowly. "Or what if she's a witness? Someone who knew something and ran because she was afraid?"

Antoine resumed walking, faster now. "There's one way to find out. The address on the back of the photograph."

"We barely got the map to the cabin before the storm. The address was on the photograph. It might be a place she used to live."

"It's a place. That's enough to start."

Back at the chalet, Antoine spread the photograph and the map across the kitchen table. The address on the back was written in faded blue ink—a street name in Trois-Rivières. Camille wrote it on a piece of paper, then did the numbers.

"If we take the snowmobile we can reach the main road in forty minutes, catch the highway south—"

"No." Antoine's voice was firm. "Bouchard is watching the chalet. He'll see us leaving."

Camille looked out the window. The light had already begun to fade from the sky, and the first flakes of the coming storm were starting to fall. "Then we'll leave at night. Before the storm fully hits. He won't be watching at two in the morning."

"And when we get to Trois-Rivières? Do you think she'll just open the door?"

"If she recognizes Luc's photograph—" Camille stopped. "Antoine, what if she was the one who staged everything? What if she set you up to take the fall?"

Antoine was quiet for a long moment. "Then she did a good job," he said. "Because Sargeant Bouchard is ready to arrest me for Luc's murder. The staged evidence is enough to make a case. If Magalie Roy is behind this, we're going to need proof that she acted alone."

"Or proof that Luc isn't dead at all."

The words hung in the air. Camille saw the hope flare in Antoine's eyes, then the quick suppression of it.

"Let's talk to her first," he said. "Before we start writing endings."

The knock came at the door just before six. Bouchard stood on the step, his coat dusted with snow, his expression unreadable. Camille hadn't heard his truck pull in over the rising wind.

"Mr. Bérubé." He stepped inside without waiting for an invitation. "I've received the preliminary report from the lab. The fiber evidence on the flannel shirt matches fibers from your truck."

"Anyone could have put that shirt there," Camille said.

Bouchard's gaze slid to her. "An officer also noted footprints leading from your shed to the spot where the snowmobile was taken. They match the tread pattern of the boots you wear for your outdoor work."

Antoine was quiet. His hands were hidden in his pockets.

"The Crown prosecutor has enough for an arrest warrant," Bouchard said. "I came to give you the courtesy of the timing. I'll be back tomorrow morning with the paperwork."

"Unless you get a confession between now and then," Antoine said.

"There's that." Bouchard nodded once. "Don't leave the village."

After he was gone, Camille turned to Antoine. The first real flakes of the storm were now falling thick against the window, white and relentless.

"We're leaving tonight," she said. "Before he comes back."

"What if the storm hits full force?"

"Then we'll be caught in it." Camille met his eyes. "But we'll be caught in it together. And we'll have the truth on our side."

Antoine was silent for a beat, then he smiled—a small, broken thing that somehow reached his eyes. "Against the law, against a storm, against Luc's secrets." He shook his head slowly. "You really are the most inconvenient woman I've ever met."

"And you're the most stubborn man I've ever known." She was closer to him now, close enough that she could see the flecks of gold in his irises. "But I'll be damned if I let you face this alone."

The storm filled the silence between them, and for a moment, the photograph, the map, the accusation, the proof—all of it fell away. There was only this: two people standing on the edge of something they couldn't name, holding each other's gaze against the coming night.

Then Camille stepped back. "Pack warm," she said. "We leave in two hours."