The library was cold. The fire had not been lit, and the tall windows facing the garden let in the pale, grudging light of a December morning. Élisabeth sat in her wheelchair before the marble chessboard and stared at a position that had refused to resolve itself for the better part of an hour.
The board was an heirloom. The pieces were carved from black and white stone, heavy enough to leave dents in the rug if dropped, and the squares were inlaid so tightly into the table that the surface felt like a single sheet of polished stone. Her mother had taught her to play on this board when she was small. She had shown her how to hold the knight between two fingers, how to castle without knocking over the pawns. She had been terrible at it then, and she was not much better now, but she had beaten Julien four times the day before, and he had taken it as a personal betrayal.
She could still hear him in the kitchen that morning, waving a croissant at Beatrice and demanding to know if Élisabeth had ever lost a game in her life. Beatrice had told him to stop being theatrical. Julien had said he was not being theatrical, he was being victimized, and Beatrice had set a fresh pot of tea on the table and told him that losing at chess was not the same as being victimized. Élisabeth had laughed, a real laugh that had surprised her with its ease, and for a few minutes the kitchen had felt like a room without a locked door.
The memory was already fading. She had left the kitchen for the library because she wanted silence, and she had found it to be full of other things. The memory of the argument in the hallway kept circling back. So did the way Rafaela had let her leave. Most infuriating of all was the part of her that had wanted to hear footsteps behind her.
She moved a pawn. It was a poor move, leaving the black knight unopposed, but she did not take it back. The white queen stood alone at the far edge of the board, isolated by a series of exchanges that had happened hours ago, when she was still playing against herself with some pretense of strategy. She had stopped pretending around the time the morning light shifted from the windows to the wall.
The door opened.
Rafaela stepped into the library and stopped a few feet from the chessboard. She did not come closer. She had not come closer than was strictly necessary in days, and Élisabeth had stopped expecting it.
"The DGSI agents are here. They're waiting in the drawing room."
Élisabeth did not look up from the board. "I'll be there in a minute."
A pause. Rafaela did not move. Élisabeth could feel her standing there, a solid shape at the edge of her vision, and the silence between them stretched like a wire pulled tight. She was tired of it. Tired of everything about it, and for a moment she wanted to say something that would crack it open. But the words required an energy she did not have, and after a moment the door closed and Rafaela was gone.
Élisabeth let out a breath. She wheeled herself back from the chessboard, turned toward the corridor, and followed.
The drawing room was warmer. Beatrice had lit the fire an hour ago, and the scent of burning beechwood had settled into the drapes and the upholstery. A silver tray sat on the low table between the sofas, crowded with a French press, three porcelain cups, and a plate of lemon tarts.
One of the men was already seated, a cup of coffee in one hand and a napkin in the other, wearing the expression of a man who had learned long ago that hospitality in country houses was not optional. He was perhaps fifty, heavy through the shoulders, with a face that had been lived in and a manner that was unhurried to the point of being deceptive.
The younger one stood near the window. He was younger, sharper in the jaw and quicker in the eyes, and the way he swept the room was so exactly like Rafaela that Élisabeth almost turned to see if she had noticed it too.
The older man rose as she wheeled toward the seating area.
"Dr. Moreau," he said, offering his hand. "Thank you for receiving us. I am Morel, and this is Leroux."
They shook hands. He asked after her recovery. She said she was improving. He said he was glad to hear it. The formalities were smooth and hollow and exactly what she had expected.
Leroux crossed from the window and settled onto the sofa beside Morel. He withdrew a slim folder and uncapped a pen.
Rafaela took her place near the bookshelves, standing with her hands folded behind her back. Élisabeth did not look at her, but she caught the way Morel acknowledged her with a brief nod of familiarity that went beyond a first meeting. These men knew her. Élisabeth filed the observation for some other time.
Morel opened a leather notebook and set it on his knee. "I’d like to walk through the timeline with you," he said, "if you’re willing. Starting from the Iraq mission."
The interview began.
For the first twenty minutes, Élisabeth was herself. Not the self she had been in the kitchen that morning, laughing at Julien's indignation, and not the self she had been in the hallway three days ago, shaking with fury and exhaustion, but the professional self she had worn for years. Dr. Moreau of UNESCO. Precise. Composed. She described the ambush in Mosul, the men who had chased them through the ruined streets, the shots that had shattered the back window of the Land Cruiser.
Morel listened without interrupting. Leroux took notes, his pen moving in short, efficient strokes. Rafaela did not move from her post, but Élisabeth was aware of her in the way she was of the fire in the grate. A steady, silent heat.
Then Morel shifted. He asked about Durand. The visit to her office. The card he had left on her desk. Élisabeth answered, and her composure held, and she kept her voice level even when the questions turned toward the days before the bombing. The woman in the red coat. The feeling of being watched. The photograph that had arrived on her doorstep.
She had told this story only once before, in a hospital room with the monitors beeping and the paper stars turning overhead. She could tell it again.
Morel turned a page in his notebook. "I'd like to ask you about Professor Claudine Mercier."
The name landed in the room like a stone in still water. Élisabeth felt her hand tighten on the armrest.
"What about her?"
"How did you meet?"
"At the Louvre. There was an exhibition my mother and I attended. Claudine was there as a guest of the organizers." She paused, and her shoulder lifted in a small shrug. "We talked."
"And after that?"
"We spoke on the phone for a bit, and met for coffee the following Thursday morning at Café de Flore."
Morel nodded, his expression unchanged. "Did Professor Mercier know your schedule? Where you would be on any given day?"
"She knew I worked at UNESCO. And that I had meetings." Élisabeth's voice was steady, but the words came out clipped at the edges. "We mostly talked about our work. She teaches art history at the Sorbonne. So it was always museums and exhibitions and whether the lighting in the new Islamic art galleries was an improvement."
"Did she ever ask about your travel? Your security arrangements? Anything specific about where you would be and when?"
"No."
Morel let a beat pass. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, which made the question worse. "We've recovered an unregistered phone number from Professor Mercier's records. A call was placed shortly after your meeting at the Louvre. The number doesn't appear anywhere else in her history."
Élisabeth stared at him, the implication settling into the room.
"What are you asking me?"
"I'm asking if there's any possibility that she was gathering information without your knowledge."
The fire popped in the grate. Outside, a bird crossed the window and was gone.
Élisabeth opened her mouth to answer. No. Claudine was not involved. Claudine had been warm and funny and passionate about Assyrian propaganda, and she had kissed both of Élisabeth's cheeks on a bright October sidewalk and said she would think of a nice place for next time. The words were there, and she could not quite push them out.
"You said you had coffee?" Morel prompted.
"Yes."
Morel glanced down at his notes. "Just coffee?"
Before she could respond, Rafaela stepped forward.
"Morel."
One word. But Morel's head came up, and his hand paused over his notebook, and after a moment he raised both palms slightly in a gesture of surrender.
"Just doing my job, Costa."
Élisabeth looked at Rafaela. The heat that surged through her chest was not gratitude. It was something sharper. Something that had been building for days. Rafaela had stepped in again. Had decided, without asking, that Élisabeth had reached her limit. Again.
The words came out before she could stop them. "A lot of that going on around here."
Morel and Leroux exchanged a glance. Leroux's pen stopped moving. Neither of them understood what had just happened, but both of them felt it. Leroux looked at Rafaela with open curiosity. Rafaela said nothing. She stepped back to her post near the bookshelves, and her face betrayed nothing at all.
Morel cleared his throat and turned another page in his notebook, and the interview resumed.
The remaining questions were briefer. Morel asked if Élisabeth recalled anything from the hospital, anything at all that had been communicated to her about why she was being moved. She told him the truth, which was that her mother had made the decision and she had been too unwell to ask for details.
"Then you were not informed of the package."
"What package?"
Morel's gaze shifted toward the windows. "Perhaps you can walk us through it, Costa."
Rafaela's expression remained unreadable.
"Costa," Morel pressed.
"Perhaps that conversation would be better held in private," she said.
Morel's expression did not change. "I think we're past that."
Élisabeth looked from one to the other. "What conversation?"
Rafaela held Morel's gaze a moment longer. Then she gave a short nod. "Very well."
"The morning before we left Paris, a delivery was made to Élisabeth’s room. A bouquet of red carnations. Tucked into the wrapping was an envelope containing photographs of her asleep in her hospital bed."
The words did not make sense at first. They simply sat in the air, a collection of sounds that had been arranged in an order she was supposed to understand. Red carnations. Photographs. Asleep in her bed.
Élisabeth stared at her, and she was back in the hospital room, watching Rafaela walk toward the bed with nothing in her hands. It was a delivery. From my brother.
Her hand closed on the armrest.
"What?"
It was all she could manage. The single word came out strained as though someone else had spoken it from across the room. Morel's pen paused over his notebook. Leroux looked up from his folder.
Rafaela had known. And had looked her in the face and lied about it. Had made her tea, carefully washed her hair, and held her hand through pain, all while hiding the fact that a stalker had stood at the foot of her hospital bed.
Did she even have a brother? Was Mateo real, or had she invented him on the spot? Élisabeth had pictured him, and the memory made her feel stupid now. She had felt, for one brief, stupid moment, that Rafaela had let her in.
The betrayal felt physical, a cold weight settling behind her ribs.
"Where were you when these photos were taken?"
"In the on-call room."
"Was there a reason you were not with her at the time?"
Rafaela did not answer immediately. For the first time since the interview began, she looked away.
"I had an appointment," she said.
Morel stopped writing. He clicked his pen shut with a sharp snap and rested his hand on his knee. "An appointment for what, Agent Costa?"
"An appointment with my therapist."
Morel cleared his throat and looked down at his notebook, shifting his weight awkwardly on the sofa. The question had already been asked, but for the first time since the interview began he looked uncomfortable, as though he wished he could take it back.
Whatever had passed between them made sense to everyone except her, but she could not bring herself to care. All she could see was someone standing in her hospital room with a camera.
Morel recovered quickly, his tone noticeably more subdued. "Do you have them here? The photographs and the note."
"The Minister has them," Rafaela answered.
Morel nodded.
When he finally closed his notebook and stood, the relief was physical. He thanked her for her time. He said the investigation was progressing. He did not say toward what.
The agents packed up. Leroux folded his notes into his slim leather folder. Morel crossed to Rafaela and shook her hand. Élisabeth watched the brief clasp, the way Morel's grip lingered a moment longer than was strictly professional. Rafaela's expression gave nothing away, but she nodded once as their hands parted. Then Morel nodded in return, and he was gone.
Beatrice appeared almost immediately to clear the tray. She glanced at Élisabeth, then at Rafaela, and whatever she saw in the space between them made her set down the tray and leave without a word. The door closed softly behind her.
Élisabeth grabbed the rims and spun the wheelchair around so fast the rubber tires squealed against the floorboards.
"You knew," Élisabeth's voice was still quiet, but it had found a sharper edge. "You knew. And you lied to my face!"
"It was your mother's decision to make."
"My mother." Élisabeth's laugh was short and entirely without humor. "Of course she did. Because she decides everything. But you are the one who sat in my room every night. Watching me fumble through recovery, and it did not occur to you that I might want to know someone had been inside while I slept?"
Rafaela said nothing, and her silence was worse than any defense.
"Say something."
"What would you like me to say?"
Élisabeth slapped the armrest, the sound cracking through the room. "That you were wrong. I trusted you. I am not a child to be managed by my mother, by you, or by whoever else decides what I cannot know about my own life."
"I understand how you must feel, but I answer to your mother," Rafaela said.
"Yes. Because if I had been given a choice, I would never have hired you."
Rafaela flinched.
"Well, you made that clear from the first day," she said quietly. And then she turned and walked out of the room.
Élisabeth sat alone in the drawing room. The fire had burned low and she was trembling all over. She pressed her hand against her thigh and tried to breathe, but the air felt thin.
She shoved the chair forward and wheeled herself into the corridor. The wheels hummed against the old floorboards, a steady sound that followed her past the staircase and the window that looked out onto the frozen garden. She had learned, in the days since the cast came off, that anger could carry her further than she expected. It could not carry her all the way past the feeling underneath it, but it could carry her far enough.
She reached the library and stopped in the doorway. The chessboard was exactly where she had left it. The white queen still marooned on the far side of the board. The black knight still poised.
She wheeled herself to the table and looked at the pieces for a long time.
She reached out and picked up the queen. Turned it over in her palm. The stone was cool and heavy, worn smooth by years of hands that had held it before hers. Then she set it back on the board and tipped it gently onto its side.
The piece hit the marble with a final clink, and the game was over.
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Intense. Well written. Very visual.
Another great chapter. I particularly liked the ending.