I glance at her. Seraphine is as skinny as they come. “She was crazy. You aren’t fat.”
I’m not sure she hears me, because she continues. “Another time, there was this family, and there were three of us foster kids. If you misbehaved, they would lock you down in the basement for a day or two. I was once down there for three days. It was gross. They only gave me water. And I never did anything wrong; one other kid was always trying to get me in trouble.”
“And this happened in England? It sounds barbaric. And illegal.” I sit down beside her on the gazebo floor.
“In London,” she says, glancing at me briefly. “It probably was illegal, but I was too afraid to say anything. You don’t want to be known as a problem child or they’ll put you with families even worse. I’ve heard horror stories.”
“So you were never knocked around?”
She nods. “I was. But they don’t really stick out. I mean, it hurt. But it happened so frequently it was just . . .” She shrugs. “They were good at hiding it too. One lady would burn you with cigarettes on your arms and make you wear long sleeves.” At that, she turns her arm over, and I can just faintly see a few marks, something I thought was just pigment earlier. “Some would do what your dad did and get you in the face or on the head. But if the social workers ever came to the door, your bruises were gone, and they pretended everything was fine.”
“You never complained?”
“No one believes kids.”
I know she’s right about that. “I guess it’s really lucky that my aunt and uncle found you.”
She gives me the first smile I’ve seen on her in a while. “It’s very lucky. I’m spoiled now and I know it. I guess . . . I still don’t feel like I belong here, though. I used to pray every night for a family that loves me and cares about me, and now I have it and I guess I’m afraid it will be taken away.”
“I think you’re here to stay,” I tell her. I open my mouth to tell her that my aunt and uncle are wonderful people, but it makes me feel bitter about it all, so I don’t say anything except, “I’ve never heard you talk so much before.”
She smiles again, and it’s a pretty smile. “I suck at French, still. But if we’re speaking English, it’s okay.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I feel like I don’t belong with my family either,” I admit. Something makes me pause, something wants me to hold stuff back and not get personal. But for whatever reason, I feel I can actually relate to Seraphine now on some level. “It’s hard to explain.”
“You don’t have to explain,” she says. “I know.” She picks up the bottle and shakes it. “Are you done with this?”
I nod and she tosses it over the railing, back into the bushes.
“Good throw,” I tell her. “For a girl,” I add.
She rolls her eyes, but she’s still smiling.
CHAPTER THREE
SERAPHINE
I can’t sleep.
It’s been two days since I confessed to Marie my biggest fears, and I swear all that confession has done is make the fears even larger than life, invading my thoughts and my dreams.
The truth is, I’ve opened up to both Olivier and Blaise about my theories before, but Olivier stubbornly refused to even entertain the idea, and Blaise, well, he may hate his brother and father, but he’s not about to accuse them of murder either. Besides, he has no dog in this race.
Opening up to Marie wasn’t much better. She’s as skeptical as sin to begin with, so I wasn’t surprised she listened to me with one brow raised the entire time.
“Seraphine,” she said when I was done, “don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you’re so overwhelmed with grief, you need to put the blame somewhere in order to process it. But there is no blame. Your father died of a heart attack. He may have been in great shape, but it happens. It just happens sometimes. That’s life. It’s not murder.”
And with that I knew there was no point in trying to further convince her. We went back to drinking wine and talking about other things, all while the seed of truth inside me was growing and growing.
I know deep inside it’s true.
That’s why I’ve been trying so hard to ignore it these last six months. Working under the man I believe killed my father has been a special sort of hell, so most of the time I won’t even let my brain entertain the idea. But lately, I can’t seem to shake it.
I don’t have any proof. None. It’s just a gut feeling. It’s that burning hatred I feel deep inside me mixed with the heart-heavy horror that this actually happened.
Gautier had everything to gain with my father out of the picture. He got control of the company, which normally wouldn’t have happened had he not been blackmailing Olivier for his shares. It’s been ten years since he set Olivier up for sleeping with Pascal’s ex-wife, but the transfer of the shares and the death of my father created the perfect situation for Gautier and his sons.
I’m not giving up on the idea that it could be Pascal who did it either. He’s just malicious and devious enough. But my instincts tell me that it was both Pascal and Gautier together.
As for Blaise, I know he didn’t do it. He obviously thinks I’m insane for having entertained the idea, and I haven’t brought it up around him since. But I know him, and I believe him.
I wish there had been an autopsy. The doctors were so quick to rule out anything other than a heart attack, even though my father was a very rich, very famous man who made a lot of enemies. He never did anything wrong and was always so gracious and giving and kind, but success creates jealousy—especially at this level, especially to an untrained eye who would say my father just inherited it all from his father.
Therefore, you would have thought the fact that he had just been given a clean bill of health by his doctor, and had no heart condition whatsoever, would have raised some alarm.
But that’s the thing about my uncle. He has connections that run deep. You don’t get to the top without stepping on a few throats, and Gautier goes for the jugular. He could have easily paid off the doctor. It might seem like a stretch, but I’m not ruling it out.
I’m not ruling anything out. That’s why I’m lying here in bed, trying to sleep even though my brain wants to pick through every shred of evidence that there could be. I know I’d probably be better off if I believed what Marie said. Just chalk this up to grief and move on with my life. I just can’t. I owe it to my father to at least see.
I stare up at the ceiling and sigh, wishing that I’d turned the light out in the hallway. I’m jumpy these days, and every shadow has me paranoid that there’s someone lurking in the dark.
It’s only your imagination, I tell myself, but a few seconds later I’m sighing and getting out of bed.
It’s February and it’s cold. My apartment is over two hundred years old and drafty as fuck. Even though I was only in India until I was four, I swear it’s made me a weakling when it comes to winter.
I quickly hurry to the hall to switch off the light, the hardwood floors cold on my soles, only then noticing that the window is open and the freezing air is flowing inside, making the curtains billow.
I hurry over to it, my teeth chattering as I go. I can’t remember opening the window at all, but I must have. Maybe all the wine I’ve been having every night is fucking with me.
I shut the window and quickly eye the bottle of wine on the coffee table that I had polished off with ease earlier. I need to get ahold of myself.
But as my eyes drift over the wine, they focus on the Vogue magazine next to it. I’d been flipping through it earlier since our new matte lipsticks were featured in a paid-for review, but I hadn’t really paid attention to who’s on the cover until now.
It’s a famous French actress, one I’ve actually had the pleasure of meeting once at the Dumont runway show (or displeasure, since she was a bit of a cow). She’s dressed up like she’s going to a sexy version of the Venice carnival, wearing a gold dress, cape, and an elaborate gold mask.
The
image of the mask makes my head spin. Suddenly I’m brought right back to that night at the masquerade ball. When he was murdered. I must have seen something. Someone must have seen something. I’ve been trying to think who was with my father right before he died, but I was off talking to guests. When I badgered Olivier about it, he didn’t seem to know either.
If I could find out who he was with just before he had his alleged heart attack, maybe that will give me a clue. Poison seems so dramatic, but that would have to be it, something slipped to him in a drink or perhaps injected without him knowing. It all sounds so grandiose and farfetched, but if I don’t explore this, I’m going to regret it.
And that’s when it hits me. I know what I have to do.
And it can’t wait until morning.
Even though a train to Bordeaux is fast and only takes two hours, there’s none running in the middle of the night, and anyway, I’d rather drive. I get to the château when the sun is rising over the rolling vineyard.
The vineyard and castle belong to Renaud, but it’s unusual for me to visit, especially by myself. I was hoping to arrive unannounced, before the morning workers show up. Because it’s February, no one is tending to the vines on a daily basis, and there are only the occasional workers in the production rooms, keeping an eye on the vats.
When my car pulls into the gravel parking lot, I see I’m the only one here.
Perfect.
I walk between rows of giant cypress and oak trees, limbs like skeletons reaching into the misty morning sky, and head across one of the bridges that span the moat, swans honking noisily as I go, like an alarm.
But I’m not trespassing. I have a key still from the masquerade ball, part of my duty as the hostess. I head around the back of the castle to the glass doors that open up into the armory room.
The key slides in with ease, and I look around to see if I’m being filmed. I know that there are cameras everywhere—that’s why I’m here, after all. I can just hope that no one other than me has current access to them.
The armory room is even more disturbing this morning. In this large, low-ceiling room with a musty red carpet, medieval armor is set up all around as if the knights are still alive and watching you under their tarnished metal masks. It’s one of the highlights of the castle, but now it just seems ghostly and macabre, like the knights may have witnessed my father’s murder.
I ignore them, trying not to get creeped out. I believe in ghosts and spirits, and there’s definitely a heavy feeling in the air, like something is stuck and can’t get out. Most people would blame dust and mildew—the castle operates as a hotel only in the summer months—but I know there’s something else here.
Maybe it’s the truth.
I know that the cameras would have been recording everything and that they would have caught something. It’s up to me to try to figure out exactly what that is.
I head up the stairs to the main floor of the castle, past the old dining-room table that had been cleared out for the ball but is now back in place. With twenty empty chairs, it seems like I’m being watched by invisible diners.
The third floor of the castle is off-limits to the public. There are two grand bedrooms up there plus a mini-kitchen. Who knows what it was back in the day. There’s also an office, and in that office is a computer with many screens where you can watch the CCTV. Though no one is here now, the caretaker lives here and watches to make sure nothing in the hotel is damaged. If there are any burglaries, this will record everything.
And, of course, in case this room is robbed, the footage is no doubt being sent to a hard drive and server somewhere, maybe in Renaud’s house in California, maybe to a security company. I know I’ll show up on today’s footage, but I have doubts that anyone is monitoring it twenty-four seven. Besides, it’s not like I can’t come here. It does belong to my side of the family. In fact, once I’m done here I’ll text my brother and let him know what I was doing.
He doesn’t need to know the specifics.
Just like Olivier, he’d think I’m crazy.
I head straight to the office and sit down at the desk, flicking on the computer screen. It immediately splits into four screens, live footage of the castle. There’s one of the dining room, one of the armor room, one of the kitchen, and one of the parlor. When I tap on the keyboard, it gives me the option to show more screens. Here I can see the study, the staircases, the back and front entrances, an overview of the property from several angles with cameras mounted on trees, plus one bedroom. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to have that last one, and I can only assume that it doesn’t record anything when guests are staying over.
But, of course, this footage isn’t what I want.
I need the footage from that horrible night in August when my world changed.
I select the calendar and go back into last year, up to August, then select the channel I want to watch. The problem is, I don’t know which camera to view, which means I’m going to have to go through all the footage for that night from each recording.
This is going to take a while.
I take in a deep breath and start clicking.
Except, aside from a few outside shots, every time I click the interior channels, I see an error message that says “Footage Not Found.”
What the fuck?
How can the footage not be found?
I click around until the day after the ball, and the footage pops up. I click around to the previous date, and that footage pops up as well. This happens on every single channel. It’s only the day of the masquerade that’s missing. In fact, when I watch the footage from the day after, I can see people straggling behind as the party came to its horrible end.
This makes no sense.
Or maybe it makes perfect sense.
The footage was deleted, which means that someone had something to hide. Someone who had access to this room.
Did it happen that night? If so, maybe anyone could have stolen away and come here when no one was looking, perhaps during the commotion of my father’s death.
But if it happened later, then it had to be someone who had access to this castle.
Which narrows things down quite a bit.
Points in a direction I knew it could take.
And yet without the footage, I have nothing. There’s something on it, something that someone (or several someones) doesn’t want anyone to see. Someone who is covering their tracks, who knew there was a chance of getting caught, a chance that someone might be suspicious.
I’m not sure they planned for me.
I take out my phone and glance at the time. It’s ten a.m. and I’m sure the workers for the winery have already arrived. I should probably get out of here, but I need to figure out how to get that footage back.
I google how to recover deleted or damaged footage from a security network DVR and discover to my surprise that all hope isn’t lost yet. It’s possible with software, or a professional can do it.
I look around the room, trying to figure out how to do this. If I take anything—and I’m not sure what to take—that might set off some alarm bells. The best bet I have is to find someone who can do this and bring them here.
Preferably someone who can keep their mouth shut until I know what’s going on.
Someone who can help me, not just in this but in everything.
I need to hire a professional.
CHAPTER FOUR
BLAISE
“What do you want?” I ask as I stand on the front steps of my parents’ château, staring at my brother as he opens the door.
“That’s the greeting I get?” Pascal asks, swirling amber liquid around in a snifter glass. He’s still in a suit even though it’s nine o’clock at night, and it’s a different suit than he was wearing at the office earlier. Both Dumont, of course.
“What’s going on?” I say with a sigh. I was comfortable back at my apartment, watching Netflix, drinking vodka, ignoring the outside world. Then Pascal texted me, saying he needed me to come
over to discuss business. Said it had to be done in person, here, where he still lives with our parents—couldn’t be done at work tomorrow.
So that, and the fact that I had to drive an hour outside of the city to get here, already put me on edge. I just want this, whatever the fuck this is, over with.
“You never were one for patience, Blaise,” he says with a smirk. “You always wanted things now, immediate gratification. And when you didn’t get it, you blew up, like a stick of dynamite. You could time it down to the second.”
“Give me a fucking break,” I snarl at him. “Either you tell me why the fuck I drove an hour here for something you couldn’t tell me at work, or I’m leaving.”
He rolls his eyes and lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. I should have known you’d be like this. Come on in.”
He opens the door wide as if I’m a guest, as if I didn’t grow up in this house of horrors right alongside him. Lord knows why the hell he still lives here, but there are a lot of things about Pascal that have never made any sense, things I’d rather ignore and not get to the bottom of.
I step inside and look around. “Where are our parents?”
“Out for dinner in Paris. They won’t be back for a while.”
I raise my brow at him as he takes a calm sip of his cognac. “You’re not planning to murder me, are you?” I ask, half joking. While it’s a relief to be here when my father and mother aren’t here, it’s also a little odd to be alone with Pascal outside of the occasional discussion at work.
“Murder,” he muses. “On so many people’s minds lately.”
I frown. “What?”
“Here, come into the study. I’ll pour you a drink.”
“Just one,” I say, following him into the elaborate library, where my father keeps a large amount of alcohol along with rows of priceless literature. I remember being a kid and wanting to read all the books, but every time I tried, he’d bring out the cane he always kept behind his desk and rap it on top of my hand until I had bruises for days.
Instinctively my hands coil into fists and then relax. I still have some things to work out, some issues I’m sure a therapist would have a field day with. Coming to this house brings them back every time.
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