Chapter 15 #2
How he knew is still a gap I can't fill.
Vivienne described him as embedded in Elysium's inner workings: near the safety committee, knowing everyone, volunteering for everything.
That kind of involvement might explain the access.
But I don't know how Elysium's internal systems worked, who could see what, or whether his role gave him a legitimate reason to have that information.
What I know is this: someone knew where Claire would be. And I have a very good idea who.
It doesn't prove he entered the room. It doesn't prove he killed her.
But it puts him at the intersection of knowledge and opportunity, and that intersection didn't exist before today.
I don't know whether anyone else has been asking the same questions I'm asking, or whether the answers I'm missing are locked in records I'll never see.
Andy's framework applies: pattern evidence, multiple sources, corroboration from independent witnesses.
Cécile's memory is one source. Vivienne's account is another.
My research provides the pattern. The behavioral evidence that would make the circumstantial case compelling enough for a prosecutor—that's the gap.
I don't have that yet. But I know where to find it.
The man in his corner booth at Dominion knows more than he's saying. He was at Elysium when Claire was alive. He locked down when I said her name. That reaction doesn't come from hearing about a stranger's death. It comes from memory.
Sebastien knows something. I caught his tell. The question is whether what he knows is relevant to what I need. Or whether I'm reading romantic weight as investigative significance because my body hasn't stopped feeling where his hands held me down.
I close the laptop. The apartment is too quiet. The investigation is too large for one person, one laptop, a set of records nobody else has seen. And the only place where the people who might help me are also the people I'm lying to. And it’s open in three hours.
Dominion at nine. I change in the submissives' lounge, the dresser helping me into a corset and thong that have become as familiar as the routine itself. When I come out, Sebastien is waiting in the corridor with the collar in his hand.
He doesn't ask how my day was. He reads it.
"Long day," he says. Not a question.
"Productive day." I tilt my chin up. The gesture is automatic now, exposing my throat for the collar.
The intimacy of the habit hits me harder tonight than it should.
His fingers are warm against my skin as he wraps the braided leather into place.
The ruby settles against the hollow of my throat. The lock clicks.
He doesn't move his hand. His thumb rests against my pulse point, and the contact holds longer than the protocol requires.
"There's something I need to tell you." His voice drops below the ambient noise of the corridor. "Tonight. Not here."
My breath catches. The investigator in me collides with the woman so hard I almost miss what's happening. He's initiating a conversation, not a scene. The gravity in his tone tells me this isn't about the contract or the dynamic.
"Good," I say. "I have questions."
His eyes narrow. He expected to be steering this exchange and just discovered the wheel is shared.
His thumb traces a slow line from the collar to the hinge of my jaw.
The touch is light and deliberate. It sends a ripple of heat down my spine that has nothing to do with the fire play lingering in my nerve endings.
"Questions," he repeats.
"About Elysium."
The stillness that locks his body is absolute. For two seconds, Sebastien Villere doesn't breathe.
Then Cole appears at the hallway entrance. The charming version is gone. What's in front of us is professional, clipped, and carrying something that requires Sebastien's attention immediately.
"Got a minute?" Cole says. The question is directed at Sebastien, but his eyes move to me first, assess, and file whatever he sees.
Sebastien's jaw tightens. The frustration is visible for exactly one second before the control reassembles. He normally walks me in. Tonight he can't.
He looks at me. "Go to the bar. I'll come find you."
He goes with Cole. I stand in the corridor with the ruby pendant cool against my collarbone. Whatever Sebastien was about to tell me, I just detonated it with two words.
The lounge is busy with weekday regulars. Renata is behind the bar, and she catches my eye before I've reached the first barstool.
"You look like hell," she says.
"Thank you. I was going for mysterious and sleep-deprived."
"You nailed the second one." She sets a Negroni in front of me without being asked. "What's going on?"
"Research. A source backed out. Records I needed went missing. The book is getting complicated."
Renata tilts her head. She's good at waiting. It's a bartender's skill, and she wields it like a weapon. "Missing how?"
"The kind of missing that doesn't happen by accident."
"Research doesn't put that look on your face, Natalie." She sets both hands on the bar and leans forward. "What's actually going on?"
The directness catches me off guard. Renata has become the first real friend I've made in New Orleans, and the friendship isn't tactical. I cultivated her for access. Then somewhere between her terrible jokes and her refusal to let me drink alone, the cultivation became something I actually need.
"I'm fine," I say. "Just tired."
"Uh-huh." She doesn't believe me. She leans on the bar, close enough that nobody else hears.
"You know the man sitting at the end of my bar is a homicide detective, right?
A good one. And Margot's brothers run the security firm upstairs.
The same men Obsidian has known and trusted for years.
" She holds my gaze. "You don't have to be fine, Natalie.
You just have to be smart enough to ask for help. "
She straightens and moves down the bar to Andy before I can answer.
He's in his usual spot with a Woodford Reserve.
Her posture softens as she reaches him. Her hand brushes his wrist. He glances up with an expression younger and softer than the homicide detective who occupies that stool most nights.
They have a language nobody else in this room is fluent in.
Luc Pascal slides onto the stool beside me. I didn't see him approach, which is irritating because Luc is not a small man.
"Natalie." He signals Renata for a bourbon without looking at the menu. "How's the book?"
"Progressing."
"Margot mentioned you're in the interview phase. Finding everyone you need?"
The question is wrapped in charm and delivered with a smile that probably works on most people. Luc Pascal has never failed to get what he wanted from a conversation, and the confidence shows.
"Some of my sources have gone quiet," I say. "It happens."
"Sources going quiet." He takes the bourbon from Renata. "In my experience, people stop talking for two reasons. They've got nothing left to say, or someone told them not to."