Chapter 8 - THE MARRIAGE THAT NEVER HAPPENED
Elodie had never stood before a marriage officiant.
She had never exchanged vows.
She had never signed a marriage register.
Yet Catherine had produced a document claiming all three had happened.
Claire examined the certificate.
"The document appears to have been created from a forged extract. We need to verify whether any official civil-status record exists."
"Could Catherine really register a marriage without me?" Elodie asked.
"Not lawfully. A valid marriage requires the parties' actual participation and consent. If this is fraudulent, the official records and the people involved must be investigated."
Alexandre leaned over the table.
"Then we challenge it."
"We will."
Claire printed the document.
"But first, we need to understand how she created it."
Marie studied the signature.
Her face changed.
"That's not Elodie's handwriting."
"No," Claire agreed.
"But it looks like mine."
Elodie turned toward her mother.
"What?"
Marie pointed to the capital M.
"That flourish. Catherine copied it from documents I signed years ago."
Claire looked closely.
"The name is Elodie Martin, but the signature style resembles Marie's."
Alexandre exhaled.
"Mother used old samples."
Elodie felt violated.
Her name.
Her identity.
Her future.
All reduced to ink on a document she had never seen.
Claire made several calls.
Within an hour, she confirmed that no valid marriage entry appeared in the relevant municipal civil register.
The certificate was not genuine.
But Catherine had already submitted it as part of a commercial filing.
"That gives us grounds to report suspected forgery," Claire said.
"And stop the transfer?" Elodie asked.
"Potentially. We'll seek urgent protective measures and notify the registry and the parties responsible for reviewing the transaction."
Alexandre looked uneasy.
"Mother has people inside the company."
"Then we need evidence from outside her control."
Elodie remembered the photograph.
The old printing shop.
Her father's connection to Catherine.
"What if the evidence is in my father's business?"
Marie turned toward her.
"Luc kept copies."
"Of what?"
"Everything he printed."
Elodie stood.
"Then we go there."
The Martin printing shop stood on a narrow street outside Lyon.
Its windows were dark.
A foreclosure notice had been taped to the door.
Elodie stared at the building where she had spent her childhood.
She remembered the smell of ink.
The sound of machines.
Her father lifting her onto a stool so she could watch the paper roll through the presses.
Now the place looked abandoned.
Alexandre forced the old lock with a key Marie had kept.
Inside, dust covered the counters.
Stacks of unsold stationery lined the walls.
Elodie moved toward the back office.
"My father always kept his important records here."
She opened the filing cabinet.
Empty.
The desk drawers.
Empty.
The storage closet.
Empty.
Alexandre examined the floor.
"Someone cleaned this place out."
Elodie felt despair rising.
Then she noticed something strange.
A faded photograph hung above the old printing press.
It showed her father standing beside the machine on the day he opened the business.
He was smiling.
Behind him, the wall was unfinished.
Elodie stared at the picture.
"Wait."
Alexandre approached.
"What?"
"That wall."
She pointed.
"There's a vent in the photograph."
They turned.
The current wall was covered with wooden paneling.
No vent.
Alexandre grabbed a crowbar.
Within minutes, they had removed the first panel.
Behind it stood a narrow metal safe.
Elodie recognized the manufacturer's logo.
Her father had installed the same kind of safe in their home years earlier.
"Do you know the combination?" Alexandre asked.
Elodie thought.
Her father had always used important dates.
Birthdays.
Anniversaries.
The day the printing shop opened.
She entered her birthday.
Nothing.
Her father's birthday.
Nothing.
Then she remembered something Marie had said.
Geneviève had held her as a baby.
Elodie entered the date of Geneviève's death.
The safe clicked.
Inside were three ledgers, a bundle of photographs, and a sealed envelope.
On the envelope, her father's handwriting read:
FOR ELODIE — IF CATHERINE EVER COMES BACK.
Elodie opened it.
The first sentence made her knees weaken.
My darling daughter, if you're reading this, it means I failed to protect you from the woman who has spent twenty-three years trying to erase what your mother and I discovered.
Beneath the letter lay a birth certificate.
Elodie unfolded it.
Her name appeared at the top.
But the father's name was not Luc Martin.
May you like
It was someone else.
HENRI DE VALMONT.
