Chapter 34
The door closed behind Gérard like the door of a vault slamming shut for eternity on the corpses of its tenants.
Milo stood in the entryway with the attorney’s card in his hand, completely thrown by the unexpected encounter. Lost in thought, he didn’t notice the strange silence, or Tiphaine and Sylvain standing there, stunned and dumbfounded with shock.
After a long moment he looked up and realized something was very wrong. They were staring at him with dread and trepidation.
“What’s going on? What have I done?”
“Nothing,” said Tiphaine bleakly.
“Who was that guy?”
Tiphaine felt a shiver run down her spine. Milo’s words resounded in her head, their distorted syllables clanging inside her skull.
Who was that guy?
That guy?
A macabre obsession flushed out from the nightmare of the past.
The ghost of a grief that bordered on madness.
“Who was he? Is it true he was my father’s defense attorney?”
Incapable of a response, Tiphaine turned instinctively to Sylvain—out of habit, and also because half an hour earlier he had still been an ally.
The specter she saw standing before her made her skin crawl.
“Hey,” she heard Milo say. “Is anybody there?”
She forced herself to ignore her feeling of utter revulsion and looked at Milo with a pathetic attempt at a smile.
“Yes, apparently, when he was in custody,” she said. She had the excruciating sensation that each word was gouging her throat. “I mean, he saw him for two hours in all. I don’t see how he could tell you anything you don’t know already.”
“You’re kidding!” Milo exclaimed eagerly.
“He must be the last person who saw him alive.” Tiphaine closed her eyes.
She felt nauseated, disgusted, and she had to concentrate with all her being to keep herself from slumping to the ground.
The boy’s excitement finished her off, cast her into the depths of a nightmare from which she knew she would never awaken.
She had nothing left to lose now.