Page 154 of Where the Snakes Sleep

Not because I believed evidence would resurrect my mother or erase what happened to my father, but because I thought there would be some justice in forcing Henri to understand that the thing he valued most—control—had finally been taken from him.

Instead, he looks amused.

Not falsely calm.

Not performing indifference while panic works beneath the surface.

Amused.

The realization knocks something inside me sideways.

The copies matter. They have to. The records could destroy what remains of his reputation, reopen investigations, expose financial networks, implicate people who worked with him and perhaps even identify crimes we have not yet discovered.

Yet Henri stands in my darkened sitting room as though I have told him someone has scratched his car.

“Vous ne vous en souciez vraiment pas,” I murmur. You truly don’t care.

Henri’s eyes return to me. “Pas comme vous l’espériez, non.” Not the way you hoped I would, no.

“Alors pourquoi les vouloir ?” I ask. “Pourquoi risquer tout ceci pour des originaux qui, selon vous, ne valent rien ?” Then why do you want them? Why risk all of this for originals that, according to you, are worthless?

Henri rests both hands over the curved head of his cane. “Parce qu’ils appartenaient à Alberte.” Because they belonged to Alberte.

The answer is so simple that I assume I have misunderstood him.

My brow tightens. “Pardon ?”

Henri’s smile grows faintly. “Les dossiers. Le journal. Les photographies. Tout ce qu’il a pris lorsqu’il m’a quitté.” His thumb moves idly over the polished wood. “C’était à Alberte.” The files. The journal. The photographs. Everything he took when he left me. It belonged to Alberte. He pauses. “Et Alberte était à moi.” And Alberte belonged to me.

Cold slips beneath my skin.

Henri says it without embarrassment—without metaphor.

Not he was mine in the careless way lovers sometimes speak of one another, shorthand for affection that both people understand does not erase autonomy.

He means ownership.

Alberte’s journal is at the forefront of my mind.

Twenty-five years of excuses, fear, yearning, submission, and the desperate belief that love somehow transformed possession into something beautiful.

“Une personne ne peut pas vous appartenir,” I say. A person cannot belong to you.

Henri looks down at me. For one extraordinary moment, his expression becomes genuinely baffled, and then amused. The kind of indulgent amusement an adult gives a child who has made an earnest but profoundly foolish declaration.

“Bien sûr que si.” Of course they can. Henri inclines his head slightly. “Les gens appartiennent les uns aux autres constamment, Camille. Par amour. Par dépendance. Par peur. Par dette.” His mouth curves. “La plupart préfèrent simplement utiliser des mots plus jolis.” People belong to one another constantly, Camille. Through love. Through dependence. Through fear. Through debt. Most simply prefer to use prettier words.

“You’re wrong.”

“Vraiment ?” Really? His eyes sharpen. “Et Ryan ?” And Ryan?

My stomach tightens, and I remain silent.

“N’est-ce pas précisément ce que vous avez fait avec lui ?” Is that not precisely what you have been doing with him?

Heat floods my face. “No.”

Henri’s brows lift. “Non ? Vous l’avez étudié. Vous avez découvert ce qu’il voulait, ce qu’il craignait, ce qui lui manquait. Vous avez rendu votre présence utile. Agréable.” He smiles. “Désirable.” No? You studied him. You discovered what he wanted, what he feared, what he lacked. You made your presence useful. Pleasant. Desirable.