The search for the last witness began with a name scrawled on a faded index card. Camille had found it tucked inside Mercier's dossier—a single line, handwritten in the margin of a visitor's log: "G. Lefèvre – maintenance – 3:15 PM – east stairwell." She had overlooked it during her initial review, dismissing it as a routine entry. But the encrypted message had revived her attention, and now she stared at the name with a mixture of curiosity and dread.
G. Lefèvre. It was a common name in Veronia, but the context was specific: the east stairwell of the Parliament building, on the afternoon of April 1, 2016. The stairwell led to the observation terrace where Étienne had fallen. If anyone had seen or spoken to him in those final minutes, it would have been someone in that stairwell.
Camille spent two days tracing the name through public records, property registries, and utility bills. She found a Gaston Lefèvre, aged sixty-eight, retired, listed at an address in the working-class district of Saint-Denis. He had worked as a maintenance supervisor for the Parliament building from 1990 to 2018. He was still alive—barely, according to the latest census records. His health was described as "failing," and he lived with a daughter who had taken over his care.
Camille drove to Saint-Denis on a wet December afternoon, the streets slick with rain and the sky a uniform grey. The neighborhood was a grid of narrow terraced houses, their facades weathered by decades of industrial pollution. She found Gaston's house at the end of a cul-de-sac, a modest two-story structure with a rusted iron gate and a small garden choked with weeds.
She rang the bell. A woman in her forties answered—tired eyes, a frayed cardigan, a toddler clinging to her leg. She introduced herself as Claire Lefèvre, Gaston's daughter.
"Are you from the hospital?" she asked, her voice wary.
"No," Camille said. "I'm here about your father's work at the Parliament. I have some questions about a day in 2016. It's important."
Claire's expression shifted from wariness to resignation. "He doesn't talk about that time. He hasn't talked about it for years. He says it's all buried."
"Please. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't urgent."
Claire studied Camille's face for a long moment, then stepped aside. "He's in the back room. But he doesn't have much energy. Be brief."
Gaston Lefèvre was a skeleton of a man, his skin stretched thin over prominent cheekbones, his hands gnarled by arthritis. He sat in a worn armchair by a crackling gas fire, a blanket over his knees, his eyes fixed on a television that was turned off. He did not turn his head when Camille entered.
"Mr. Lefèvre," she said, pulling up a chair, "my name is Camille Laurent. My brother died on April 1, 2016, at the Parliament building. I believe you may have been the last person to speak with him."
Gaston's eyes flickered. He turned his head slowly, his gaze settling on her face with the effortful focus of a man who had retreated far into himself.
"April first," he repeated, his voice a dry rasp. "The day of the rain."
"Yes. You were on duty in the east stairwell. The visitor log shows your name at 3:15 PM."
Gaston was silent for a long time. His hands twitched on the blanket, as if he were gripping something invisible.
"I saw him," he finally said. "The young man in the dark coat. He was standing at the window of the stairwell, looking out at the square. He was crying."
Camille felt her breath catch. "Did you speak to him?"
"I said, 'Are you all right, sir?' He turned to me. His face was pale, but he was calm. He said, 'I'm fine. I just need a moment.' I said, 'The terrace is dangerous. It's slippery when it rains.' He smiled—a sad smile, not a happy one. He said, 'Don't worry. I know what I'm doing.'"
Gaston paused, his eyes glazing over with the effort of memory. "I should have stayed. I should have called someone. But I had a job to do—the boiler room was acting up. I left him there. I went down the stairs. And then I heard the commotion. The shouting. I ran back up, but it was too late. He was already gone."
Camille leaned forward. "Did he say anything else? Anything about why he was there?"
"He said something else, yes. He said, 'Tell my sister I'm sorry. Tell her I should have listened.' And then he asked me a question. He asked, 'Is there a way to make people remember the truth, even when they don't want to?'"
Camille felt the tears threatening to spill. She blinked them back. "What did you tell him?"
Gaston shook his head slowly. "I told him the truth doesn't need to be remembered. It needs to be lived. But he didn't understand. Or maybe he did. He just nodded and said, 'Thank you. That's what I needed to hear.' And then he walked away. I thought he was going back inside. But he wasn't."
Camille sat in silence, absorbing the weight of his words. Her brother had been crying. He had been thinking of her. He had been searching for a way to make the truth known—not to accuse, but to reconcile. And in his final moments, he had accepted that the truth would outlive him, even if he would not outlive it.
"Thank you," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Thank you for telling me."
Gaston nodded weakly. "I've carried that day for a long time. I thought about telling the police, but I was afraid. Afraid they would blame me. Afraid they would say I could have stopped him. But now I see that it wasn't my fault. He made his choice. I was just a witness."
Camille placed a hand on his gnarled fingers. "You were more than a witness. You gave him comfort. In his last moments, he had someone who listened."
Gaston's eyes glistened. "He was a good man, your brother. I could see it in his eyes. Even through the tears, there was kindness. You should be proud of him."
Camille left the house in a daze. The rain had stopped, and the clouds were beginning to break, revealing patches of pale blue sky. She walked to her car and sat behind the wheel, her hands trembling.
She had found what she had been looking for: a final connection to her brother, a piece of the puzzle that had been missing. He had not been consumed by despair. He had been seeking a way to make sense of the senseless. And he had asked a question that had no answer—except perhaps in the life that she had chosen to live in his absence.
She drove back to Montclair in silence, replaying Gaston's words in her mind. "Tell my sister I'm sorry. Tell her I should have listened." She had been so focused on revenge that she had forgotten to listen—to her brother's memory, to her own heart, to the fragile hope that still lingered beneath the layers of grief.
That evening, she opened her laptop and began to rewrite the book she had started. She added a new chapter, centered on Gaston's testimony, on the last words her brother had spoken to another human being. She wrote not as a prosecutor, but as a sister—a woman who had lost someone she loved and had finally begun to understand the depth of that loss.
She wrote through the night, her fingers flying across the keyboard. When she finished, she read the chapter aloud, and for the first time in years, she felt a sense of peace.
Her phone buzzed. A message from the encrypted channel—the mysterious voice that had been guiding her:
"You found the witness. You have the truth. But the truth is not a destination. It is a door. Are you ready to walk through it?"
Camille smiled. She typed her reply: "I have been walking through doors my whole life. But this time, I'm not walking alone."
The response was immediate: "Then come. There is one more door to open. And it will change everything."
She closed the laptop and stood up. The night was quiet, the city asleep. But somewhere beyond the horizon, a new dawn was breaking.
And Camille Laurent was finally ready to face it.
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