19. Ryan #4
Something dark passes through Camille’s eyes at that, but he nods. “That is sensible.”
“Don’t sound so pleased.”
“I am relieved.”
“Well, hide it better.”
“I don’t think I can.”
I look away. “I don’t want to see you.”
He goes still.
“At the estate,” I clarify, because somehow that sounds less cruel even though I mean exactly what I said.
“I don’t want dinner together. I don’t want you coming to the guest room.
I don’t want you checking on me every twenty minutes.
I don’t want to talk about the evidence, or us, or your mother, or my grandfather, or anything else until I decide I can handle it without wanting to throw something at your head. ”
Camille listens without interruption.
“I’m going to stay in my room except if I get hungry,” I continue, forcing myself to make every boundary explicit because vague assumptions are apparently how I ended up here.
“I will eat when I want. I know where the kitchen is. I do not need you to bring me food, remind me to drink water, tell me I need sleep, or comfort me.”
His mouth twitches.
I glare at him, and it stops.
“And you will not touch my stuff.”
“I won’t.”
“None of it.”
“I understand.”
I fold my arms tighter across my chest. “And if I decide tomorrow that I’m leaving entirely, you don’t stop me.”
Camille’s face changes again, pain appearing with such naked immediacy that I almost regret saying it. “I won’t.”
The silence that follows feels strangely formal, as though we have just negotiated a ceasefire neither of us believes will last.
“I want a minute alone in here, then we’ll go.”
He nods once. “I’ll wait outside.”
He moves toward the door, and I watch him go.
I return to the hidden room one last time, but I don’t crawl all the way inside.
I wriggle just past the opening and use my phone flashlight to look around, making certain I haven’t left anything behind.
It’s empty. No other notebooks, no secret second USB, no convenient handwritten key explaining every remaining mystery.
Of course not. That would be too easy.
I put Alberte’s journal back into its protective bag, then tuck it beneath my arm. The USB stays inside my pocket. The plastic case goes under my shirt because suddenly I have become the kind of person who smuggles historical evidence against his own rib cage.
I grab my hammer too. Not because I think I’ll need it. It just feels wrong leaving it behind after everything.
Five minutes later, I step outside.
Camille locks the cottage after I hand him the key, waits while I test the door myself, then walks beside me across the property with enough space between us that another person could comfortably fit there.
That distance hurts, but it’s needed.
By the time we reach the estate, the light has softened toward evening, and every muscle in my body aches from hours spent crouched inside stone. Dust has dried along my arms and neck, and my face feels tight from tears.
Camille opens the door for us, then remains downstairs as I make my way up to the second level.
Each step takes me farther from him, yet I remain hyperaware of his presence below, listening unconsciously for footsteps that never follow.
When I reach the guest room, I enter and close the door. I lock it.
The room looks almost offensively peaceful.
My clothes are still folded where I left them this morning. My charger snakes over the nightstand. The bed is the same mess I left it as.
I cross to my bag and open it.
The journal goes in first. I hesitate before letting it go, but when the faded green cover disappears beneath a folded shirt, it actually makes me feel lighter.
The USB comes next. I take it out of my pocket and hold it between my fingers. Such a tiny thing. Twenty-three years of fear potentially stored inside something smaller than my thumb. I put it inside the zippered interior compartment of the bag.
Then the plastic case—that one I stare at longer.
I still haven’t opened it.
I could.
Camille is downstairs, and I am alone. No one would stop me.
But I don’t have any room left in me for another revelation today, so I put it away and zip the bag closed.
For tonight, that’ll have to be enough.
I sit on the edge of the bed and finally let my shoulders drop. I kick off my shoes, crawl onto the bed without showering despite the dust coating practically every inch of me, and pull the blanket over my legs.
Somewhere downstairs, Camille moves through his enormous house. I hear a door close, then nothing.
He keeps his promise, and leaves me alone.
I stare at my bag where it rests beside the nightstand, three objects hidden inside it that have already destroyed the version of my life I woke up with this morning.
Tomorrow I can figure out what to do with them.
Tomorrow I can decide what to do about Camille.
Tomorrow I can worry about Henri, police, evidence, dead men, murdered mothers, and whatever the fuck is stored on an encrypted flash drive from 2003.
Tonight, I am going to lie here and be angry.
Not understanding.
Not forgiving.
Not rationalizing anybody else’s choices.
Just angry.