Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO STOLE HER AND SAVED HER
Camille backed away from Sophie.
“No.”
Sophie reached for her.
“Sweetheart—”
“My name is Camille.”
“Yes.”
“You said.”
“I know.”
“You said Camille.”
“I know.”
Her voice broke.
The little girl looked toward Julien.
He had spent three years praying for this moment.
Now he hated it.
Because his daughter was looking at him like a stranger.
“Don’t make her choose anything right now,” Renard said quietly.
Julien wanted to tell him to shut up.
Instead he nodded.
Sophie sat on the edge of a worn sofa.
The apartment told its own story.
Secondhand furniture.
Children’s drawings taped to peeling walls.
A stack of overdue bills.
A small mattress in the corner beneath paper stars.
This was not the home of a wealthy kidnapper.
This was the home of someone surviving.
Julien looked at Sophie.
“Start talking.”
Renard warned, “Julien.”
“I said talk.”
Sophie wiped her face.
“Three years ago, I worked nights at Saint-Vincent Private Clinic outside Annecy.”
Julien frowned.
Élise had disappeared in Lyon.
Sophie continued.
“I wasn’t a nurse. I cleaned rooms.”
“Like hell you did.”
“I did.”
She looked at Camille.
“Élise arrived one night with a man.”
Julien’s fists tightened.
“Who?”
“I didn’t know his name.”
“What did he look like?”
“Forties. Tall. Dark hair. Scar near his thumb.”
Renard immediately started taking notes.
“He said she was his niece. She was sedated.”
Julien became very still.
“My daughter was three.”
“I know.”
“You saw a drugged three-year-old and did nothing?”
Sophie’s face crumpled.
“At first I believed the doctor.”
“What doctor?”
“Dr. Pascal Vautrin.”
Renard looked up sharply.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Julien knew the name.
Everybody in Lyon business circles did.
Vautrin ran expensive private rehabilitation clinics and served on several charity boards.
He had attended one of Julien’s company galas.
Sophie continued.
“I cleaned the consultation room after they left. There was a newspaper on the desk.”
Her eyes met Julien’s.
“Her picture was on the front.”
The room went silent.
“The search had already started,” she whispered. “That’s when I knew.”
“What did you do?”
“I called the police.”
Renard leaned forward.
“When?”
“From a pay phone near the station.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“Two hours later the man returned to the clinic and told Vautrin somebody had called.”
Renard stopped writing.
Julien looked at him.
“You had a leak.”
Renard’s face hardened.
“Maybe.”
Sophie hugged herself.
“The man looked at every employee. He asked who had cleaned the room.”
“You ran.”
“Yes.”
“With Élise.”
Sophie nodded.
“I went back during shift change. She was asleep in a private room. I took her.”
Julien’s voice became deadly quiet.
“And instead of bringing her to me?”
“I tried.”
“You had three years.”
“I tried!”
Camille flinched.
Sophie immediately lowered her voice.
“I’m sorry.”
Julien forced himself to calm down.
Sophie continued.
“The next morning, I called the number on the missing-child poster.”
Julien remembered the hotline.
Thousands of calls.
Most useless.
Some cruel.
“One of your company security men answered.”
Julien frowned.
“My company didn’t handle the hotline.”
“Yes, they did.”
“No.”
Renard looked at him.
“Julien, private security assisted us during the first week.”
His stomach turned.
Sophie whispered, “I told him I had the girl.”
“What happened?”
“He asked where.”
“Did you tell him?”
“No. Something felt wrong.”
“Why?”
“Because he didn’t sound surprised.”
Julien stopped breathing.
“He asked if anyone else knew. Then he told me not to call police again.”
“Name.”
“I never got one.”
“Voice?”
“Maybe I’d recognize it.”
Sophie continued.
“That afternoon, someone broke into my apartment.”
Camille held her hand.
“They killed my dog.”
Julien’s anger shifted into something colder.
“They left a photograph of my mother’s house on the kitchen table.”
Renard swore quietly.
“So I ran.”
“With my daughter.”
“Yes.”
Julien stepped toward her.
“You changed her name.”
“I had to.”
“You told her her father was gone.”
Sophie cried again.
“I thought that was safer than teaching her to ask questions.”
“You erased me.”
“No.”
Sophie stood.
“I kept you alive inside her.”
Julien froze.
Sophie crossed to a drawer.
She removed a small wooden box.
Inside were newspaper clippings.
Photographs of Julien.
Old images of his buildings.
One photograph of Élise with him at Parc de la Tête d’Or.
Camille stared.
“That’s me.”
Julien’s throat closed.
“Yes.”
The photograph showed Élise at three sitting on his shoulders.
Camille looked between the picture and Julien.
“You.”
“Yes.”
“That’s you.”
“Yes.”
Her face changed.
Fear.
Confusion.
Recognition trying to become memory.
“I know your jacket.”
Julien’s eyes filled.
“What?”
“You had blue jacket.”
He nodded.
“I did.”
She touched the photograph.
“I remember up high.”
Julien could no longer speak.
Sophie turned away to give him privacy.
Renard quietly stepped into the hallway.
Camille stared at him.
“Are you really my papa?”
Julien crouched.
“I think so.”
“You don’t know?”
“I want to be certain.”
She looked offended.
“I have the moon.”
He laughed through tears.
“You do.”
“Then you know.”
Children made truth sound so simple.
Julien slowly held out his hand.
Camille looked at it.
Then at Sophie.
Sophie nodded.
The little girl placed her hand in his.
Julien closed his fingers around hers.
Tiny.
Warm.
Alive.
His daughter.
Maybe.
Probably.
Almost certainly.
But he needed proof before allowing hope to finish destroying him.
Renard returned.
“We need DNA.”
Sophie immediately tensed.
“No hospitals.”
“Why?”
“Vautrin.”
Julien looked at Renard.
“Can we do it privately?”
“Yes.”
Renard made calls.
A forensic physician he trusted agreed to meet them at a police facility under another case number.
They collected cheek swabs from Julien and Camille.
Results could be rushed.
Several hours.
Julien hated every minute.
They waited in a private room.
Camille fell asleep on the sofa with her head on Sophie’s lap.
Julien sat across from them.
He studied his daughter.
The eyelashes.
The curve of her nose.
The way her left hand curled while sleeping.
He remembered that too.
At 8:43 that evening, Renard entered.
He held one sheet of paper.
Julien stood.
Sophie did too.
Renard looked at him.
“Probability of paternity exceeds 99.99 percent.”
Julien closed his eyes.
For three years, his daughter had been dead and alive at the same time.
Now she was simply alive.
He sat because his legs stopped working.
Sophie covered her mouth.
Camille woke.
“What happened?”
Julien looked at her.
“My little moon.”
Something changed in her eyes.
Maybe memory.
Maybe only recognition of a phrase Sophie had repeated.
She whispered, “Papa?”
Julien broke.
He knelt beside the sofa and opened his arms.
Camille hesitated only one second.
Then climbed into them.
Julien held his daughter for the first time in three years.
She smelled like cheap soap and chocolate cake.
He cried into her hair.
“I’m sorry.”
She hugged him tighter.
“You didn’t take me.”
“No.”
“Then don’t say sorry.”
He laughed through tears.
Sophie turned away.
And that was when the window behind her shattered.
Renard shouted.
Julien threw himself over Camille.
A bullet struck the wall.
Another shattered the lamp.
Sophie screamed.
Police rushed into the corridor.
Renard drew his weapon.
“Down!”
Julien held Élise beneath him.
May you like
His daughter had been returned to him for less than three minutes.
And somebody was already trying to take her away again.
