Chapter 24
I finished reading the excerpt from Enzo’s police statement. I had frozen in place, unable to return the folder to its place in the file, unable to stop rereading the words, as if going over them over and over would change their meaning.
Enzo was a friend of Julian Garros.
Enzo knew I was his lawyer.
I remembered mentioning the case to him… and he pretended he didn’t know what I was talking about!
First, he hid who he really is, and now I discovered that he had lied about that too. What else had he lied to me about?
Shaking off my shock, I focused my attention on finding more information that might answer my questions. If A didn’t contain any files on the Antonia, maybe they were stored in H. I ran my eyes over the names. Nothing. I searched the M for Moore, a sinking feeling settling in my gut.
Montaigne.
Montpellier, SL.
Moore, Antonia Hawtrey.
Whoever was in charge of sorting that list in alphabetical order needed a good slap across the face. I pulled out the folder and began to read.
Unlike Elo?se’s folder, this one didn’t contain bank details or police statements that should be kept from the public. What I found was something the family would have given an arm and a leg to keep hidden. And here I was, uncovering the truth. Oops.
They were copies of emails from January of the same year, emails sent to an email address that did not reveal the name of the recipient. Emails signed by Antonia.
Oh, mon chéri. Mon soleil, toi, la seule personne que j’aime vraiment.
My blood seemed to freeze, almost like my heart had stopped pumping, so shocked that it’d forgotten how to. I’ll translate what that sentence meant: Antonia Hawtrey-Moore was having an affair.
I kept turning pages, looking at the documents, looking for a way to fit the puzzle in my head. And I found it. There, tucked among countless love letters and bills for manicures and luxury spas, was a document that stood out from the rest.
The autopsy of Antonia Hawtrey-Moore.
I read the first few words and, feeling sick to my stomach, I dropped the report on the floor.
Why did her life matter to me? Why was I invested in the Dubois family’s issues?
A part of me recognized that an affair could point to a motive for a crime.
The autopsy results and those emails only confirmed it, and I would at least know what my boss was dealing with.
Perhaps Larousse was indeed Antonia’s murderer.
But there was another part of me that couldn’t help but think there was something I was missing.
Antonia Hawtrey-Moore was, according to Bastian, a client of the Counterfeiter.
Someone had murdered her shortly before Julian Garros was arrested.
Was it a coincidence? Were the two cases related?
The images flashed in my head like scenes from a movie.
The murderer (or murderess, or what the hell do I know), pulling invisible strings to lure me to the Dubois’ mansion.
Leaving Antonia’s emails there (otherwise, how did they get to her ex-husband’s office?) for me to discover them.
Leaving the money in my hands for… God, what do I know?
If the motive for the murder had been Antonia’s infidelity, Timotheo Larousse held all the cards to be the murderer.
I returned the documents with shaky hands, slipping out of the room as if on autopilot.
I had to escape before anyone noticed me.
After switching off the lights in Laurent Dubois’s office, I pressed my ear against the door, straining to hear any sounds outside.
Once it seemed clear, I slipped out into the hallway.
I was sure I had solved the case. Or at least part of it. I had a motive, a culprit, and although I couldn’t quite put the pieces together… It made sense, in part. No one could have convinced me otherwise.
Naive me! I know now that my theory was impossible. Larousse couldn’t have been the murderer, not considering what happened next.