Chapter 44
I can’t believe it. I don’t believe it.
“Is this a joke?” I say, my voice catching in my throat.
André glances at his watch, and I do the same. It’s almost noon.
“I thought you might like to see for yourself.” He sets his cell phone on the table, right on top of Antonia’s dossier, his tone steady as he speaks.
I fixate on the phone, my pulse quickening. Then, my eyes lift to meet my former boss.
“Really?”
He nods, his expression unreadable.
“Enzo will call in about… ten minutes. You’ll have five minutes to talk.”
“Five?” I ask. I have a feeling that his voice sounds far away. André mistakes my question for scepticism and shrugs.
“Prison rules.”
I’m going to talk to Enzo Woods.
The last time I saw him was over a month ago, at the trial against the Counterfeiter, and the last time I spoke to him was at his mansion in Bordeaux, after discovering that he had been deceiving and using me all this time.
Enzo Woods, who, according to what André has just shown me, has testified in my favour. He has cleared me of the charges against me as a client of the Counterfeiter.
Enzo has lied to the police. I know that my file is false. I know this because I sat those exams, I spoke to the teachers, I paid what I owed… to the Counterfeiter, to Enzo himself.
I don’t understand it. Everything that’s happened in the last few weeks—okay, not everything that’s happened, everything that’s happened to me—has been Enzo’s fault. Why did he bother to play with me and then take my side?
“I’ll let you have some…,” André says, getting up from his chair, “privacy.”
I’m about to grab him by the sleeve, like a little girl, and beg him to stay with me while I talk to Enzo.
Instead, I thank him, and André leaves my apartment.
I wait for the phone to ring—it’s André’s work cell phone, the only number the prison warden has allowed on Enzo’s contact list. I don’t know what I’m going to say to him. I don’t know what I want to hear.
My heart skips a beat when the phone rings. My hand hovers over the phone, fingers hesitating just before I swipe green.
“Hello?” I let out, breathless.
“Vera.”
My name sounds like a smile on his mouth.
“Enzo.”
His, on mine, sounds strangled. There is an uncomfortable silence.
“Listen,” he says, lowering his voice. “I only have five minutes to explain why I got you into all this.”
“How kind of you.”
I should know better than making fun of the situation, but I can’t stop the words from slipping out.
“I am quite the gentleman.”
“You told me it was a game,” I say.
I try to sound carefree, but my voice betrays me, the last words slicing through with an edge that comes off more aggressive than intended.
Enzo sighs.
“My mother… Listen, it was my fault. I told my mother about you long before all this happened.”
“Come on.”
An uncomfortable laugh escapes my lips. Enzo and his mother barely spoke to each other… and I’m supposed to believe that Enzo had told her about me?
I don’t believe it.
“I know it sounds weird… I spoke to Antonia only once in the last year, about paperwork for a family property, and… she asked me about my private life. My mother had never asked me about my private life before.”
“I don’t know if I want to know what I’m doing in this story,” I murmur.
“I told her there was a girl,” is all Enzo says.
I was the girl. A few days ago, that might’ve seemed cute, even flattering. But now that I knew who Enzo really was…
I felt more disgusted by the idea than I ever thought possible.
“So?”
“She asked me who the girl was, how I met her, what she studied… You know, typical motherly interrogation. I know I shouldn’t have told her anything, but…” Enzo pauses. I hear him swear under his breath. If you only knew how interested she seemed in my life for once…
I swallowed.
“Understood. You told your mother about me.” I want this call to end as soon as possible, although I’m also dying for answers. “So what?”
“So nothing. I didn’t hear from Antonia again until her… death, I don’t know what to call it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“My mother left me a note before she left. In the note, she wished me luck and called me Malin. My mother has never used nicknames with me.”
I feel like I’m running out of air.
“It’s my name,” I manage to say.
Malín, my mum’s surname. My second surname. It appears everywhere, from ID to college reports to Saidi’s webpage.
“I know. She knew it, too.”
The note Enzo had left in my room, along with the money from the Club Montari, said something similar, with my full name. Good luck, Vera Rodríguez Malín.
It didn’t seem strange to me at the time.
“Your mother… What did she want from me?”
Enzo sighs again, and, for some reason, it fills me with rage. I’m the one who’s been dragged into this for no apparent reason.
“I think she knew that the main defendant for her murder would be Larousse. And that Larousse and Saidi are good friends, so Saidi would take the case…”
“And that I just won the scholarship to work with Saidi,” I finish.
“Yes.”
“Why did she leave you the note?”
“Maybe my mother didn’t want me to find her, but she did want you to take charge of the case.”
“Why me?”
I can almost hear Enzo shrug his shoulders, with that gesture of indifference that characterizes him.
“Why not you?”
A thousand reasons flood my mind. The first, and also the simplest, is that I don’t have enough experience to defend a potential murderer. Maybe that’s the most important one.
“How did you know she was alive?” I ask, redirecting the conversation.
I’d rather not keep doubting my professional competence, thank you very much.
“I didn’t know.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Enzo.”
He laughs.
“Okay, okay,” he admits. “I suspected it. My mother wouldn’t leave a note for no reason. If there was a note, that had to mean she had been planning something. Something she wanted to warn me about.”
Of course. It would have been too much of a coincidence for Antonia to leave a note for her only son just before she was murdered. And Enzo himself told me that his mother was fond of games.
“It was a riddle,” I say, biting my cheek.
“Touché,” he exclaims. “I interpreted it as a question. What does the girl have to do with me, with Antonia Hawtrey-Moore?”
“The answer was Garros,” I say.
Antonia had it all figured out.
“Exactly. Her only mistake was… I think she didn’t expect me to bring her back from her exile.”
“She came back… for you?”
Not even a woman like Antonia Hawtrey-Moore can leave her son aside in such a delicate situation, right?
“She came back for Elo?se,” she says, sighing. “I’m also sure she came back to help Garros, even if she won’t admit it. He made her little escapade come true. I think she felt indebted.”
“Maybe…”
I’m sure Antonia didn’t come back just for Garros and Elo?se. If she decided to help Garros, to help… Saidi, it was to save her son. Enzo doesn’t seem ready to admit it.
I’m not going to pressure him into it.
“Thank you for testifying on my behalf,” I murmur, my voice shaking. “And for lying to the police.”
Enzo’s laugh sounds just as bitter as my words.
“Are you so sure I lied?”
“I know what was in my file,” I say.
“So… you’re welcome, I guess. It was the least I could do.”
“We’re in agreement there.”
“Yeah.”
The silence stretches between us, heavy and awkward. And then, because I can’t help myself, I say what’s been gnawing at me. I regret it the second the words leave my mouth.
“You didn’t have to do anything, despite your mother’s note.”
You didn’t have to drag me into this, or involve your family, or steal the money from the Club Montari, or lie to me in the process of creating the biggest media scandal in history.
I’m not exaggerating. The Dubois, Saidi (and yes, our names, Bastian’s and mine, have also come to light), Garros, Antonia, Larousse, and even that French guy who sold me the ticket to the Dubois family event have appeared in more than one headline.
Gina told me that a reporter had chased her mother down Camden’s market until she threw a can of pickled radishes at him.
It’s Enzo’s fault. It’s all Enzo’s fault.
“I know,” he responds with a flat tone. “But that’s who I am. I can’t help it.”
His words only confirm the fact that I have never met the real Enzo Woods.
“Did you even consider not involving me?”
His silence speaks for itself.
Enzo may have liked the idea of me, he may have spoken of me to his mother… but he has never loved me. He has never cared. I have never mattered to him more than himself, than the Counterfeiter, than his family’s games.
“What have you gained from all this?” I ask again.
It is the star question. What all the gossip TV shows and all the tabloids want to know.
Enzo has lost his family. He has lost his best friend. He has lost his freedom.
He has lost me.
I can’t wrap my head around it. No one in their right mind would do something like that.
I hope his answer will make sense of it all, and I clutch the phone in my hand like it’s the only thing keeping me afloat.
“It was a game,” he says, his voice thin. “I solved it. And I was trying to help you, Vera. I wanted you to keep the money, but not before solving the game.”
I pull the phone away from my ear, trying to distance myself from the crushing disappointment his answer brings.
“A game,” I echo, the word bitter on my tongue.
“We’re out of time,” he says, the weariness in his voice carrying through the line with a sigh.
“I know,” I reply, and hang up before he can say goodbye, my last, small act of defiance against him.
I realize we may never have another conversation. Perhaps that’s for the best.
André reappears in the living room as soon as the call ends.
“Eavesdropping?” I ask, trying to keep it light.
André’s smile exposes his bright white teeth. He’s one of the few who appear truly sincere when he beams.
“You’ve gotten away with it,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief. “At least on their part.”
I rub my eyes with my hands.
“Not all of them,” I murmur.
André’s face tightens with a grimace.
“Finish reading the Hawtrey-Moore report, will you?”
The report. My heart skips a beat.
“Is that…? Also?”
“No,” he says, coughing. “The charges against you as an accomplice to the Dubois family still stand. Antonia hasn’t spoken out on the matter.”
“Oh.”
For a moment, I had my hopes up.
“But we’re working on it,” André reassures me. “The Dubois will get you out of this mess. You didn’t do anything.”
I didn’t do anything. Ha! I don’t think everyone feels that way. I know Elo?se Hawtrey-Moore doesn’t. I find it hard to believe she’s going to try to help me. And there’s little Enzo can do for me once the Garros matter is settled.
I keep my reservations to myself and, putting on my best smile, say, “I hope so.”
André puts on his coat and wraps a long scarf around his neck.
“If all goes well…” he begins. His gaze lingers on mine for a moment. “We’ll expect you at the office on January 7th.”
Oh, yes. I’m no longer invited to the company Christmas’s lunch. Public image issues, according to Sarah.
Fuck her.
“Don’t worry,” I say, saying goodbye.
“Merry Christmas, Vera.”