Chapter 21
How are you supposed to start a conversation like the one I needed to have with Dubois?
“Hello, Mr Dubois… I was wondering if you’ve missed half a million pounds lately.
Hello, Mr Dubois, do you know anything you haven’t told the police about your dead wife?
Excuse my manners, Mr Dubois… do you know any con artists?
Are you aware of any illegal activities taking place in your family’s club? ”
Every word that came to mind seemed like a worse option than the last. And Laurent Dubois must have sensed my discomfort because he gestured toward the sofas with one hand and said, “Why don’t we sit down?”
So, there I was, face to face with Laurent Dubois, Enzo’s father, the billionaire owner of the club where all my money had come from, the ex-husband of the woman my boss’s client had allegedly murdered. My thighs stuck to the fabric of the sofa. Bile rose up my throat.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I blurted out.
Laurent Dubois dismissed my words with a wave of his hand.
“If Laurie… Enzo, as he prefers to be called, forgive me. If Enzo thinks we should talk, then we should talk,” he concluded solemnly. “And, Vera, please, just call me Laurent.”
I cleared my throat. “Alright.”
“Tell me, did Saidi send you?”
I shook my head. The money. I had come here to get answers for myself. I hadn’t even made the connection between the Dubois and the Julian Garros case…
Now wasn’t the time to worry about it. I wasn’t here to help André or Bastian either. I was here for myself. Although…
“Didn’t my boss speak with you… With you at the beginning of the investigation into Antonia’s death?”
The man’s face soured. “He did not, no.”
I should have dropped the subject. But my mother raised a nosy child, what can I say? I tested the waters. There was nothing wrong with it.
“Should he have?”
He smiled. “Perhaps.”
“Why?”
“Antonia and I stopped speaking many years ago. I didn’t exchange a single word with her after that. I understand that my opinion isn’t relevant to the case…”
And I wasn’t the only one testing the waters. Laurent Dubois had something to say, and for some reason, he seemed to have decided that I was the one who should hear it.
“But?”
“But just because I didn’t speak to her doesn’t mean I didn’t receive news about her from… other sources. Would you like a drink?”
He got up, turning on his heel to approach a stand with open bottles of champagne. I declined. I still felt dazed. He poured himself a drink and resumed his seat.
“What sources were those?” I asked.
Laurent Dubois locked his gaze on mine again.
Perhaps, by the smile, one could guess that he was related to Enzo.
But you could also guess his connection to Elo?se from that look.
Not a blood relation, but a different kind of bond: while Enzo had distanced himself from his biological family, Elo?se had forged a strong connection with her parents and everyone around them.
And that bond between Laurent Dubois and Elo?se Hawtrey-Moore was evident in the gestures they shared.
One look from him was enough to put anyone in their place.
“Do you know my son well?”
A trick question.
Based on what I had just discovered, it was hard to say how well I knew him.
But he had revealed something important: that he didn’t have a close relationship with his family.
I deduced two things. First, I didn’t know Laurent Dubois Jr. at all, but neither did Laurent Dubois Senior.
Second, I was the only person in the room who knew Enzo Woods.
A little or a lot, I knew him. More than his own father could say.
I smiled. “As well as one can, I suppose.”
“Then,” he said, leaning his elbows on his knees in a familiar gesture, “I’ll tell you, but on one condition. I need you to do me a favour, Vera, my dear.”
I mimicked the gesture, unable to contain my curiosity.
“Come to brunch with us tomorrow. Be our guest.”
It wasn’t what I expected to hear, not by a long shot.
“Excuse me?”
Laurent Dubois relaxed his expression, sipping the champagne slowly.
“I don’t remember the last time my son brought someone home, a friend, or anything… similar. Maybe when he was a kid… The details don’t matter. The thing is, I’m not quite sure how to deal with him now that he’s back. I still struggle to understand the reason for his visit.”
I knew. Because the reason was me. Enzo had returned to his family to gather information for me. And now, if my instincts were right, his father was asking me to gather information about Enzo for him.
“Would Enzo like me to come?” I asked.
Mr. Dubois let the silence hang between us before answering.
“I think so.”
I wasn’t so sure. But since I had travelled to Bordeaux, I might as well take the opportunity.
“I would love to have brunch with you, then,” I said, with a smile that could pass for sincere.
“Marvellous! Which hotel are you staying at? I’ll send a car to pick you up around ten.”
Good question. I still didn’t have a place to spend the night.
“That won’t be necessary, Mr Dubois. I just need to know the time and place.”
He widened his smile. “What a shame. I would have sent Norman to pick you up. He’s the family chauffeur, my best friend.”
The name sounded familiar.
Norman.
Norman Plaskitt.
Another name on the list.
“Is he here tonight?”
Laurent Dubois nodded his head in affirmation.
“He brought my daughter here,” he said, reluctant to continue the conversation. “If you’ll excuse me… I must go find my wife.”
Laurent Dubois shrugged.
“Of course,” I murmured. He placed a hand on my waist, guiding me to the exit. “I’m sorry for taking up your time.”
“It’s been a pleasure,” he said.
The smile didn’t linger on his face long enough for me to miss it turn into a scowl as he left.
The door closed behind me with a shriek.
I walked through the hallways of the stadium, feeling like time didn’t work the same way there as it did in other places.
A man in a suit guided me back to the room where the charity event had taken place so I could pick up my things.
The party was over. Alex was nowhere to be seen (which, to be honest, didn’t bother me one bit), and neither was Enzo (which worried me a bit more).
The man escorted me to the stadium’s exit.
Now I had an important question to deal with: where the hell would I spend the night?
In my rush to fly to Bordeaux and find something to wear, I hadn’t booked a hotel.
I decided I’d stay at the cheapest place I could find; after all, I’d have to pay for it myself.
I hadn’t brought any extra clothes with me, but at least I had pajamas. It was better than nothing.
I started searching online for a nearby hotel with a room available. It turned out that, since the Belleviste game had attracted a lot of people from outside the city, most hotels were fully booked.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
I heard a sound behind me.
“I’m not one for compliments, but… did I mention how glad I am to see you?”
I was running on empty. I yanked Enzo’s coat up to my neck and shot him a weary look.
“Don’t you have somewhere else to be, Bastian?”
He blocked my path, even though I was just wandering aimlessly. It still irked me. His hair was a mess, like someone had tried to smooth it but made it worse. My lipstick no longer smeared his face, and my handprint had faded.
A pity.
“Well…” He tilted his head. “Yes. But I’d rather be here.”
“I didn’t realize you enjoyed my company that much.”
He slipped to my left side, put both hands in his pockets, and began walking with me. We were moving away from the stadium towards the road, with no clear destination.
“I thought maybe you’d want to see me,” he said, adding a wink.
I was about to slap him again. Then I remembered his expression just before my lips collided with his—there hadn’t been any surprise there; I remembered the grip of his hands holding my body.
I remembered Elo?se’s furious eyes, eyes that were so much like her father’s.
The vibration of my phone interrupted my train of thought.
I replied that I had just left the party, or something like that, and resumed my conversation with Bastian.
“Why would I want that?” I murmured, pushing all that had happened before my meeting with Laurent Dubois out of my mind.
Bastian let out a sigh.
“Oh, come on, Vera… don’t play games with me.”
“How am I playing games with you?”
He lowered his head and slowed his pace until he stopped. We were on the outskirts of the fairgrounds, barely illuminated by the yellow lights of the streetlamps.
“The connection…” Bastian dragged out the words as his eyes searched mine, “between the Dubois and Julian Garros.”
He didn’t need to say anything more.
He had found something out. Something important.
I jumped in place. Or maybe it was two, three jumps. I had already come off as crazy enough that night. I had gotten information from Dubois, and so had Bastian. I was ecstatic!
“What else do you know? How do you know it? For God’s sake, Bastian, I swear if you don’t…”
“Hey, hey, hey…” he interrupted. He grabbed both my arms and forced me to stand still. “You know how I like questions. One at a time.”
“Okay,” I panted. “What else do you know?”
And then he dropped the bomb.
“Vera, it wasn’t Dubois who hired Julian Garros. It was Antonia Hawtrey-Moore herself, a few months before she died.”
I grabbed Bastian’s arm and pulled him close, ignoring Gina’s message. My glare cut through him like a blade. I’d mastered the art of making people squirm, of making anyone—no matter how powerful—feel small. That’s how I managed to survive at Cutnam.
“How do you know?” I demanded.
I learned this technique from my mother. Under that kind of pressure, no one could lie. I knew Bastian wouldn’t be able to hold up under it.
He tightened his jaw, his defiance melting as the truth spilt out.
“Elo?se.”
Of course. Bastian tried to pull away, to look elsewhere. I didn’t let him.
“What did she tell you?”
“Nothing else. Maybe Elo?se knows what her mother forged, or maybe she doesn’t; either way, she didn’t tell me.”
I released his arm, restraining the urge to scream.
“Why the hell didn’t you ask her?”
To my surprise, he didn’t let me go, grabbing my wrist. There was no frustration or anger on his face, only a still calm.
“I have an image to maintain, remember?”
An image. A facade, a lie.
It hit me like a ton of bricks. While I was just pretending to live the high life for a few hours, Bastian had been playing his own game for months—the arm candy, the charming facade.
Elo?se had to have seen through it. It was inconceivable that she hadn’t.
Elo?se was scheming too, though I had no idea what her angle was.
A car drifted near the entrance, Gina cruising at the passenger seat of the Mercedes, music blasting and a wicked grin plastered on her face.
Honestly, I should have been more surprised by Gina’s sudden appearance, but after everything that had transpired in just a few hours, nothing could really shock me.
The car came to a screeching halt right in front of us.
I couldn’t recall if Bastian let go of my arm or if I pulled away first. My roommate’s red-framed sunglasses were so oversized they obscured half her face, and her hair was piled high in a bun.
She pushed the sunglasses up as she leaned out of the passenger seat, looking at us with a mix of amusement and impatience.
“Bonsoir, as you guys say around here,” she said to Bastian, then turned to me: “V, this is Bob.” Bob the driver (who I later found out is named Beauvais, something Gina can’t pronounce or spell) nodded in a way that could only be described as condescending.
“Get in, come on! I’m dying to get there! ”
I opened the back door and got in, although I didn’t know where the hell we were supposed to be going.
I leaned forward, accidentally catching some loose strands of my friend’s hair, and said something like “One: what are you doing here? And two: where are you taking me?” with a few curse words thrown in.
Gina ignored me. Still leaning out of the window, she snapped her fingers at Bastian.
“Are you coming?”
He declined the offer with a shake of his head.
“Oh, come on,” Gina said, her pout making it impossible to keep a straight face. “We have to sort this out, you and me. How else are we going to make this work?”
Bastian wrinkled his nose. “I’ll get there myself,” he said firmly.
Gina wasn’t backing down. “She told me to pick you up on the way. That you’d be with my friend. I’m not arguing about it.”
“I don’t care what Elo?se says,” Bastian replied.
Ugh, what a mess.
Gina was here for Elo?se, but Bastian was here because of me and my connection to Garros. And I was headed straight for the Dubois mansion because of Enzo.
What. A damn. Mess.
On one hand, I had Enzo, looking for information about the money, and on the other, Bastian, investigating the connection between the Hawtrey-Moore family and Julian Garros’s case.
I was playing with a double-edged knife.
Tossing it in the air and juggling it. And I had a feeling that if I wasn’t careful, someone would end up getting hurt.
I hoped with all my heart it wouldn’t be me.