Chapter 2 - THE VOICE BEHIND THE WALL
“MY FATHER HAS BEEN DEAD FOR TWELVE YEARS! WHOEVER YOU ARE, STOP USING HIS VOICE!”
Alexandre's shout echoed through the ballroom.
The hidden speakers crackled.
Then came a low, unmistakable laugh.
“Still impatient, Alexandre. Just like when you were a boy.”
Alexandre felt his knees weaken.
He remembered that laugh.
He remembered hearing it across the breakfast table, in the backseat of his father's limousine, and through the heavy doors of the executive office where he had spent so much of his childhood waiting to be noticed.
Henri Vasseur.
The man who had built the family empire into a symbol of power and prestige.
The man whose funeral Alexandre had attended at seventeen.
The man whose death had shaped every important decision he had made since.
“Show yourself,” Alexandre demanded.
The speakers went silent.
Then a final sentence emerged.
“Ask Richard what happened on November seventeenth.”
A sharp click followed.
The connection died.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then the ballroom erupted into chaos.
Guests rushed toward the exits, only to discover that the electronic locks had engaged during the blackout. Security personnel struggled with the control panels while frightened voices rose from every corner of the room.
Alexandre turned toward Beaumont.
“What happened on November seventeenth?”
The attorney didn't answer.
“Richard!”
Beaumont's shoulders sagged.
“Your father's funeral was held on November twentieth.”
“I know when my father's funeral was held.”
“But November seventeenth was the day the hospital issued his death certificate.”
Alexandre stared at him.
“And?”
Beaumont swallowed.
“I never saw his body.”
The words hung between them.
Alexandre stepped backward.
“What?”
“Your father's medical team informed me that the body had been transferred directly to a private funeral facility. The casket was sealed before the family arrived.”
Alexandre remembered the funeral.
The polished mahogany coffin.
The endless procession of black automobiles.
The dignitaries who had shaken his hand and told him to be strong.
His mother's trembling fingers resting against the coffin lid.
He had wanted to see his father one last time.
Valérie had stopped him.
She had said the doctors recommended keeping the coffin closed.
He turned toward her.
“You arranged the funeral.”
Valérie stood beside the staircase, looking toward Gabriel's motionless body.
“Alexandre, this isn't the time.”
“You arranged it.”
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That my father might still be alive!”
Her silence was answer enough.
Alexandre looked at her with an expression Isabelle had never seen before.
Not anger.
Not disbelief.
Something much worse.
The terrible realization that a person he had trusted for most of his life had helped construct the world he believed was real.
“You raised me after my mother died,” he whispered.
Valérie's eyes filled with tears.
“I did.”
“You told me family was everything.”
“It is.”
“You told me my father would have wanted me to trust you.”
“Alexandre—”
“Was any of it true?”
Valérie began crying.
But Alexandre turned away.
He could no longer tell whether her tears came from guilt, fear, or another attempt to manipulate him.
Near the staircase, Isabelle pressed her fingers against Gabriel's neck.
A weak pulse.
He was still alive.
“Alexandre!” she called. “He's breathing!”
The sound of sirens finally rose beyond the mansion gates.
Someone had managed to release the emergency exits.
Within minutes, police officers and paramedics flooded the ballroom.
Detective Olivia Carter, a sharp-eyed investigator in her early forties, took command of the scene.
She ordered the guests to remain available for questioning and immediately secured the mansion's security system.
Gabriel was rushed to the hospital.
Valérie was escorted into a separate room for questioning.
Isabelle and Alexandre were led into the library.
For the first time that evening, they were alone.
Alexandre stood beside the fireplace, staring at the cold ashes.
“I don't know who my father was,” he said.
Isabelle sat on the edge of a leather chair.
“Neither do I.”
He looked at her.
She continued quietly.
“I thought my father was an investor who made a terrible business decision and died before he could recover from it. Then I learned he had been robbed. Tonight I discovered that his own brother betrayed him.”
Her voice trembled.
“And now someone is telling us that the dead may not be dead at all.”
Alexandre lowered himself into the chair opposite her.
“Do you hate me?”
The question surprised her.
“Why would I hate you?”
“Because my family destroyed yours.”
Isabelle studied him.
She had spent years imagining the Vasseurs as a single, monstrous force.
But the man sitting before her looked as devastated as she felt.
“I don't know what your father did,” she answered. “And I don't know what you knew. But I won't blame you for something you didn't choose.”
Alexandre looked down.
“Thank you.”
“Don't thank me yet. If we find evidence that you helped cover this up, I won't protect you.”
A faint, sad smile crossed his face.
“Fair enough.”
A knock interrupted them.
Detective Carter entered carrying a transparent evidence bag.
Inside was a small brass key.
“We found this sewn into the lining of Gabriel Moreau's jacket.”
Isabelle leaned forward.
The key had a blue enamel circle on its handle.
Her heart began pounding.
“The blue room.”
Carter raised an eyebrow.
“You recognize it?”
“My uncle mentioned a room beneath the house before he lost consciousness.”
Alexandre frowned.
“There are no rooms beneath the mansion except the wine cellar and maintenance tunnels.”
“Are you certain?” Carter asked.
“I've lived here my entire life.”
Isabelle looked toward the shelves lining the library walls.
“Sometimes the best place to hide something is somewhere everyone thinks they already understand.”
Carter examined the key.
“Until we know whether this is connected to the shooting, nobody goes searching through the mansion without police authorization.”
She placed the key back inside the evidence bag.
Then she turned toward Alexandre.
“One more thing. We recovered a recording from a security camera that wasn't connected to the mansion's main network.”
Alexandre stood.
“Where?”
“Inside the private study that belonged to your father.”
His expression tightened.
“That room has been locked since his death.”
“Apparently someone has been using it.”
Carter opened a tablet.
The recording showed a dimly lit office.
A man sat behind an enormous wooden desk.
His face was hidden in shadow.
Across from him stood Valérie.
The timestamp read three nights earlier.
Carter increased the volume.
Valérie's voice emerged clearly.
“Isabelle has the documents. Beaumont has authenticated them.”
The man behind the desk remained silent.
Valérie continued.
“We can't stop her from claiming the shares.”
The man leaned forward.
For a moment, the light illuminated his hand.
He wore a heavy gold signet ring bearing the Vasseur family crest.
Alexandre stopped breathing.
His father had worn that ring every day.
The man's voice was cold.
“Then stop trying to take the company away from her.”
Valérie looked confused.
“What?”
“Let her believe she's won.”
He opened a drawer.
Inside lay a photograph of Isabelle.
A red circle had been drawn around her face.
“Once she enters the mansion,” he said, “she'll lead us to what Étienne hid.”
Valérie hesitated.
“And if she finds it first?”
The man leaned closer.
His face remained concealed.
“Then we'll have to do what we should have done fifteen years ago.”
The recording ended.
Isabelle felt sick.
Alexandre stared at the blank screen.
Detective Carter's expression was grim.
“We also recovered a second file. It was recorded just twenty minutes before tonight's shooting.”
She pressed play.
This time the camera showed the same study.
The man stood beside the desk, speaking on the telephone.
“Gabriel has become a liability,” he said.
A pause.
Then:
“Make certain he never reaches the blue room.”
Carter stopped the recording.
Alexandre's voice was barely audible.
“That's my father's voice.”
Isabelle rose slowly.
“Then we need to find that room before he does.”
Carter looked between them.
“We need a warrant to search the concealed areas properly. I'm requesting one now.”
At that moment, Alexandre's phone vibrated.
Another anonymous message.
But this time there was no photograph.
Only a video.
He opened it.
The screen showed a small room painted pale blue.
A wooden rocking chair stood beside a narrow bed.
On the wall hung a framed photograph of Étienne Moreau holding a little girl.
Isabelle recognized herself immediately.
The camera moved toward the bed.
A woman sat there, her silver hair falling over a faded blue sweater.
She slowly lifted her face.
Isabelle's heart seemed to stop.
“Mom?”
The woman looked directly into the camera.
“Isabelle,” she whispered. “If you're watching this, please forgive me.”
Isabelle gripped Alexandre's arm.
Her mother, Claire Moreau, had supposedly died in a house fire twenty years earlier.
But the woman in the video was unmistakably Claire.
Older.
Frightened.
Alive.
Then another voice spoke from behind the camera.
“Tell your daughter what you did.”
Claire began sobbing.
And the video ended with five words that shattered everything Isabelle believed.
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“I HELPED THEM KILL ÉTIENNE.”
End of Chapter 2.
