Chapter 11 - Mariam's Last Night
Amina heard the words but couldn't make them fit.
"My mother drove off a wet road."
Étienne looked at her for a long time.
"Your mother confronted Bernard the night before she died."
Antoine stepped closer. "About what?"
"The forged equity release. She had found the original trust copy."
Amina's hands went cold.
"How do you know?"
"Because she called me."
"And you did nothing."
Étienne's jaw tightened.
"I was a coward."
Charlotte looked away.
Amina wanted to hate him cleanly.
It would have been easier.
Instead, she asked the only question that mattered.
"Did Bernard kill her?"
Étienne shook his head.
"I don't know. But I know he sent someone to follow her."
He gave them a name.
Lucien Ferrand.
Former Beaumont driver.
Retired twenty years ago.
Jules found him in under an hour.
Alive.
Living near Rouen.
But before they could leave, Étienne grabbed Amina's wrist.
"The green book contains more than the old fraud."
"What?"
"Pension money. Political favors. Customs payments. The boutiques are just the visible part."
Antoine swore.
Étienne nodded toward his daughter.
"Charlotte knows where Bernard keeps it."
Charlotte recoiled. "No."
"You moved it in March."
Amina remembered the footage.
The boxes.
The ledger.
Charlotte whispered, "I moved a safe case. I never opened it."
"Where?" Antoine demanded.
She looked at him.
"Your mother's house in Deauville."
Antoine went silent.
His mother, Céleste Beaumont, had died six years earlier.
The house had been closed ever since.
May you like
Then Charlotte added one more thing.
"Bernard goes there every year on the anniversary of Mariam Diallo's death.
