Chapter 3 - The Secret Behind the University Library
I couldn’t move.
The man in the doorway looked exactly like Sébastien.
Not approximately.
Not like a brother who shared similar features.
Exactly.
Same height.
Same dark hair.
Same hazel-brown eyes.
Same shape of mouth.
Same line across his forehead when he frowned.
But something felt different.
Maybe posture.
Maybe the way he watched me.
Sébastien looked at me like someone who already knew what I was going to say.
This man looked at me like someone studying the answer.
“Who are you?”
He closed the bedroom door behind him.
“Put the photograph down.”
“Who are you?”
“Lucie.”
I backed toward the nightstand.
My phone was there.
He saw me glance at it.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“That’s what someone planning to hurt me would say.”
His expression changed.
Almost amusement.
“You always were quick.”
I froze.
“Always?”
He realized his mistake.
I grabbed the phone.
“Don’t.”
I dialed emergency services.
He didn’t rush toward me.
Instead, he said something that made my thumb stop.
“Behind the university library.”
My blood went cold.
“No.”
“You had garlic bread.”
“Stop.”
“You spent ten minutes refusing to kiss him because you thought your breath smelled bad.”
I stared at him.
“That memory belongs to Sébastien.”
“Yes.”
“So how do you know it?”
The man walked slowly toward the window.
“My brother told me.”
“Gabriel.”
He looked back.
“You found the name.”
“The police found your body.”
“No.”
My voice cracked.
“They found someone.”
Gabriel’s face lost its faint smile.
“Not me.”
“Then who died?”
He didn’t answer.
I lifted my phone.
“I’m calling the police.”
“Then tell them your husband lied to them this morning.”
“What?”
“Ask Sébastien where he was between eleven last night and two-thirty this morning.”
“He was home.”
“Was he?”
I remembered falling asleep around midnight.
Sébastien had still been working on his laptop in the living room.
At some point he had joined me.
I didn’t know when.
Gabriel saw the uncertainty in my face.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Why are you doing this?”
His expression hardened.
“Because my brother spent twenty years pretending I was dead.”
I stared at him.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
“According to our mother.”
“Why?”
Gabriel looked toward the photograph.
“When we were nine, our father drove us home during a storm. The car went through a barrier and into a river.”
I knew part of that story.
Sébastien had told me his father died in an accident when he was young.
But he never mentioned another child.
“Our father died,” Gabriel continued. “Sébastien escaped through a broken window. I was pulled from the water later.”
“Then why would anyone say you died?”
“Because I suffered severe head trauma. I didn’t remember who I was for almost a year. By the time authorities identified me, our mother had moved.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if she didn’t want me found.”
“Why wouldn’t your mother want her own son?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“That question took me twenty years to answer.”
“What was the answer?”
“Our father wasn’t the man everyone thought he was.”
Before he could continue, my phone rang.
Sébastien.
Gabriel’s eyes dropped toward the screen.
“Answer.”
I did.
“Where are you?” Sébastien asked immediately.
“At home.”
Silence.
“You didn’t go anywhere?”
“No.”
“Lucie, lock the door.”
My eyes moved toward Gabriel.
“Why?”
“Someone accessed the building using an old security code connected to my mother.”
Gabriel smiled faintly.
Sébastien continued.
“I’m coming home.”
The line disconnected.
Gabriel looked at me.
“He knows.”
“What?”
“That I’m here.”
“You need to leave.”
“I came to protect you.”
“From whom?”
“My brother.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Lucie, Sébastien isn’t the man you think he is.”
“And you are?”
“No.”
The answer surprised me.
Gabriel stepped closer.
“I’m not asking you to trust me.”
“Good.”
“I’m asking you to look.”
“At what?”
He removed something from his coat.
A small flash drive.
He placed it on the bed.
“Everything.”
“What is it?”
“Bank records. Surveillance. Messages. Copies of documents Sébastien thought he destroyed.”
“What documents?”
“Life-insurance policies.”
My stomach turned.
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
The front door opened.
Gabriel’s head snapped toward the hallway.
Sébastien called my name.
“Lucie?”
Gabriel whispered, “Don’t tell him I’m here.”
“Why?”
“Because if he knows I showed you that drive, tonight won’t end well.”
Footsteps approached.
Gabriel moved through the adjoining dressing room and disappeared onto the narrow service balcony.
Seconds later, Sébastien entered the bedroom.
His eyes went immediately to my face.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re pale.”
“I’m tired.”
He looked around.
Then saw the photograph on the bed.
Everything changed.
Not dramatically.
Sébastien didn’t shout.
He didn’t grab me.
He just became still.
“Where did you get that?”
“Your mother’s box.”
He slowly approached.
“You went through my things?”
“Who is Gabriel?”
His eyes closed.
For one second.
Then opened.
“My brother.”
“You told me you didn’t have siblings.”
“I don’t.”
“He survived.”
Sébastien looked at me.
“Who told you that?”
“The note.”
“What note?”
I handed it to him.
He read the sentence.
Never tell Sébastien his brother survived.
His face lost color.
“This is impossible.”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
I studied him.
If he was acting, he deserved an award.
He sat on the edge of the bed.
“My mother told me Gabriel drowned.”
“When?”
“The night of the accident.”
“So why does Gabriel think you knew he survived?”
Sébastien’s head lifted.
“What did you say?”
My mistake.
I had revealed too much.
“What?”
“You said Gabriel thinks I knew.”
I couldn’t recover.
Sébastien stood.
“Has he contacted you?”
“No.”
“Lucie.”
“No.”
He searched my face.
Then turned toward the room.
“Gabriel?”
My blood ran cold.
He walked toward the dressing room.
“Sébastien, stop.”
He opened the balcony door.
Empty.
Gabriel was gone.
Sébastien came back.
“You saw him.”
I didn’t answer.
He grabbed my shoulders.
Not violently.
But desperately.
“Lucie, listen to me. If Gabriel is alive, you cannot trust him.”
“He said the same thing about you.”
“Of course he did.”
“Why?”
“Because he always blamed me.”
“For what?”
Sébastien’s eyes filled with something I had never seen before.
Fear mixed with guilt.
“The accident.”
I whispered, “You were nine.”
“He said I distracted our father.”
“Did you?”
“I was fighting with Gabriel in the back seat.”
Sébastien looked away.
“Our father turned around.”
“And lost control?”
“Yes.”
The room fell silent.
My mind was spinning.
Then I remembered the flash drive.
Still on the bed.
Half hidden beneath the blanket.
Sébastien noticed my glance.
He reached for it.
I grabbed it first.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
“Lucie.”
“Why are there life-insurance policies in my name?”
He froze.
Gabriel had been telling the truth about at least something.
I watched the answer cross my husband’s face before he said a word.
“There’s a reason.”
“There better be.”
He sat down again.
“Three months ago, someone tried to kill me.”
My anger disappeared.
“What?”
“Brake line on my car.”
I stared at him.
“You never told me.”
“I thought it was corporate sabotage.”
“And the insurance?”
“I increased both our policies afterward.”
“Why?”
“In case whoever was targeting me came after you.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
His voice broke.
“I handled everything badly.”
“Who was targeting you?”
“I didn’t know.”
He looked at the photograph.
“But now I might.”
“Gabriel?”
Sébastien nodded.
Then my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
I opened it.
It showed Sébastien.
Taken less than an hour earlier.
He was standing in a parking garage beside a black sedan.
Talking to a man whose face was partially turned away.
Underneath was one message.
Ask your husband why he met the dead man yesterday.
I enlarged the photograph.
My hands began trembling.
The man beside Sébastien was wearing the same watch the police had recovered from the body.
I looked up.
“Sébastien.”
His expression told me he knew exactly what I was seeing.
“Who was he?”
He said nothing.
“WHO WAS HE?”
Finally, my husband whispered a name.
“Gabriel.”
I stared at him.
“You just said you thought Gabriel was dead.”
“I did.”
“Then who did you meet yesterday?”
Sébastien looked at the photograph again.
And when he answered, his voice was barely audible.
“That’s the problem, Lucie.”
He looked directly into my eyes.
May you like
“I thought the man I met yesterday was my brother.”
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