Read Chapter 7: A Vanished Machine

The shed door had been open all morning, swinging on its hinges like an invitation Camille had been too polite to accept. She had passed it twice—once on her way to the woodpile, once returning with an armful of birch logs that Antoine had split at dawn—and each time she had averted her eyes, telling herself it was none of her business.

Now she stood in the doorway, her breath crystallizing in front of her face, and she understood why the space felt wrong.

The shed was large for a single man’s needs, insulated and lit by a single bare bulb that had clicked on when she’d found the switch. Shelves lined one wall, stocked with cans of oil, coiled rope, a toolbox that had seen better decades. The floor was swept clean. And against the far wall, where a faint rectangle of darker concrete indicated something large had stood for a very long time, there was nothing.

It was the absence that drew her in. A space shaped like a machine, outlined in grime and patience.

Camille stepped forward, her boots echoing on the concrete. She ran her gloved hand along the edge of the darker patch. The shape was unmistakable now—tracks, wide and rubbered, the imprint of something heavy that had been rolled out recently and not rolled back in.

“You’re not supposed to be in here.”

She did not startle. She had heard him approach, the crunch of his boots in the snow pausing ten feet behind her. She turned slowly, her hand still resting on the empty space.

“There was a snowmobile here,” she said. Not a question.

Antoine’s face was unreadable, the way it always became when she pushed too close to a door he wanted kept shut. His camera hung at his chest, a barrier of glass and metal between them. He did not raise it. That alone told her something.

“There was,” he said.

“You told me Luc’s snowmobile was found on your property.”

“Yours,” Antoine corrected. “On yours. You own three hectares of this land now, Camille. The machine was found on your side.”

The chill that ran through her had nothing to do with the temperature. She pulled her hand back from the stain of grease and grime, folded both arms across her chest.

“When?”

“Last Tuesday. Before you arrived. The police came, did their work, asked their questions. They took the machine to the impound lot in Saint-Anne.”

“But there’s no snowmobile here now.”

“No.”

“Then why does this space look… used? Freshly used.” She gestured at the swept floor, the absence of dust around the outline. “Someone rolled a vehicle out of here within the last day or two.”

Antoine’s jaw tightened. He stepped into the shed, his bulk filling the small space, and for a moment Camille thought he would close the distance between them. He didn’t. He stopped beside the empty rectangle and looked down at it with an expression she could not name.

“That’s my father’s machine,” he said. “He kept it here. It’s old—1987, a Ski-Doo Citation. He used to say it had more winters in it than he did.”

The words arrived slowly, each one heavy. Camille said nothing, letting the silence hold space for him.

“When they found Luc’s machine on your property, the police asked to search the shed. They wanted to see if Luc had stored anything here, if there was a connection between my father’s disappearance and Luc’s.” He paused. “They asked me to start the Citation. Wanted to make sure it still ran, I suppose, as part of their timeline.”

“And it didn’t start.”

Antoine’s throat worked. “It started fine. But it had been run. Recently. The engine was warm when I opened the hood. The police hadn’t touched it. I hadn’t touched it. It had been three weeks since I’d last been out here, and the engine was warm.”

Camille’s mind turned over the implications. “Someone used your father’s snowmobile.”

“Sometime between my last visit and the police arriving. I don’t lock the shed. I never have. Up here, we don’t—we didn’t—” He stopped, corrected himself. “We didn’t used to.”

“Marcel said someone doesn’t want me here. He said it like he knew something.”

Antoine’s eyes met hers, and for a moment she saw the weight he carried—the same grief she had glimpsed in the unfinished portrait in his studio, the jagged half-painted face of his father looking out from a canvas that had swallowed his ability to finish.

“Marcel told you the truth as he knows it,” Antoine said. “The village believes Luc’s disappearance is connected to you. That you brought something with you from the city, or that you know something you’re not saying. They look at an outsider and see reasons.”

“I’ve been here six days,” Camille said. “I’ve barely left this chalet. I’ve spoken to exactly three people: you, Marcel, and Chantal at the shop. I haven’t brought anything but books and a laptop.”

“I know.”

“Then why would someone—” She stopped. The question rearranged itself in her mind. “Why would someone want you to think it’s me?”

Antoine blinked. The camera at his chest rose half an inch before he lowered it again, a habit so ingrained he likely didn’t notice. But Camille did. She saw him want to hide behind the lens and choose not to.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “But whoever cut your snowshoe binding knew you would wear them yesterday. That wasn’t random. That was planned.”

“Planned by someone who knew your supply run, knew the route I’d take, knew when I’d be alone on the trail.” Camille’s voice dropped. “Someone who knew you would be ahead of me, carrying supplies, out of earshot.”

Antoine’s face went pale. “Camille—”

“The only people who knew about that trip were you, me, and whoever you told.”

“I didn’t tell anyone.”

“Then someone is watching the chalet.”

The words hung between them like frost in the air. Antoine’s hand moved to the shed wall, resting on the empty outline of his father’s machine, the faded grease that marked where a vehicle had sat for decades.

“My father went into the woods with a camera full of blank film,” he said. His voice was barely above a whisper. “They found the camera three days later, hanging from a branch. The film had been exposed to light. Every frame was white. He had walked into those trees and never walked out.”

Camille’s chest tightened. “Antoine, I’m sorry.”

“The police said accident. Exposure. A man with a bad knee and a fool’s errand looking for a rare bird he’d claimed to spot days earlier.” He shook his head. “But my father knew those woods better than he knew his own reflection. He didn’t get lost. And he would never have left his film blank on purpose.”

“You think someone—?”

“I think,” Antoine said, and the words seemed to cost him more than any he had spoken in years, “that someone drove Luc’s snowmobile onto this property for reasons we don’t understand, then left it where it would be found. And I think whoever did that also used my father’s machine to come back and cut your binding, to make you leave before you uncovered what they’re hiding.”

“Hiding where?”

Antoine looked past her, out to the dark line of trees at the edge of his property. The snow had started falling again, thick flakes drifting down in the late afternoon light.

“My father’s camera was found on the ridge,” he said. “Beyond that ridge, there are old logging roads—abandoned for twenty years, but still passable on a machine. If you know how to find them. Marcel knows them. I know them. A few of the older men in the village know them.”

“And Luc?”

“Luc knew them better than anyone.” Antoine’s voice broke on his friend’s name. “He used to race on those roads as a kid, before they closed the logging operation. He knew every hollow, every ravine. That’s why his snowmobile being found here didn’t make sense to the police. There was no reason for him to cross this property unless he was running from something.”

“Or from someone,” Camille whispered.

Antoine nodded. The camera rose to his chest again, and this time he did not lower it. He lifted it to his eye, focused on the empty shed floor, and pressed the shutter. The click echoed in the small space, a small act of preservation against a vanishing that would not stop.

Camille stepped toward him, close enough to see the condensation of his breath between them.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “I want to see those roads.”

Antoine lowered the camera. The lens cap was already back on, snapping into place like an armored lid closing over something fragile.

“That’s not a good idea.”

“You wanted me to leave yesterday. Now you don’t want me to come with you. Make up your mind, Antoine.” She held his gaze, refusing to look away. “Whoever cut that binding knows I’m still here. They’re not going to stop trying. And if they’re connected to whatever happened to Luc—to your father—then staying safe in this chalet isn’t safe at all.”

Antoine was silent for a long moment. Outside, the snow continued to fall, covering their tracks, erasing evidence that they had ever walked this path.

“We go at dawn,” he said. “Before the light is full. And you do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you.”

“Understood.”

He did not smile. He did not soften. But something in his eyes shifted, a recalibration of the distance between them. He turned and walked out of the shed into the falling snow, and Camille followed, her heart ticking with a fear that had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with what they would find in the trees.